A Critical Examination of Girls’ (Dis)empowerment in Sport for Development and Peace Samantha-Danielle Prince A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Bournemouth University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 Bournemouth University Copyright Statement This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from, this thesis. Abstract In recent years, women’s and girls’ development has taken centre stage within the sport for development and peace (SDP) movement so much so that some scholars have referred to the attention on women and girls as the ‘girling of development’ (Hayhurst 2013a; Chawansky 2011). Amongst the increasing number of programmes targeted at women’s and girl’s development within SDP and the broader development sector, the term ‘empowerment’ regularly features as a desirable outcome (Lindsey et al. 2017; Hancock et al. 2013). Most notably, international development agencies such as the United Nations have emphasised their backing for empowerment within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) where SDG number 5 is to ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ (United Nations Sustainable Development 2015). Despite the increasing number of sport-based empowerment programmes targeted at women and girls globally, very few academic studies have explored precisely how participation in SDP programmes empowers women and girls or whether participation leads to their disempowerment. As a result, development agencies, policy makers and practitioners have continued to offer unfounded and ambitious claims regarding sport’s potential for empowering women and girls. This qualitative study aimed to provide an in-depth and critical understanding of girls’ (dis)empowerment by examining two National Governing Organisations (NGO) in Rwanda. Drawing on Critical Feminist Theory and Zimmerman’s (1995, 1990) conceptualisation of empowerment, concepts such as gender, empowerment and power were unpacked and critically examined in the context of SDP. Multiple methods of data collection were used to achieve the aim including a document analysis, a research journal and fourteen in-depth semi-structured interviews with practitioners working for NGOs. Significant attention was paid to the researcher’s reflexivity, given the limited time spent in the field collecting data (21 days), and practical strategies for mitigating the limitations of the research were discussed. The study uncovered programme mechanisms and social processes that enabled girls to increase their capabilities to improve control over important life matters as well as those which served to disempower girls because of participation in SDP. Empowering programme mechanisms included designing a critical pedagogy, recruiting local Rwandan coaches to deliver sessions and creating a supportive environment to foster mutual and peer support. Disempowering mechanisms were those which reproduced harmful power relations between volunteers from the Global North and girls participating in the programme. The findings also revealed the presence of complex contextual mechanisms related to fostering girls’ empowerment including the role of family and the values embedded in cultural philosophies. In light of the primary findings, this study advocates the requirement for NGOs to develop a critical and holistic understanding of the culture and context which effect girls’ (dis)empowerment. The identification of programme and contextual mechanisms provide crucial insight into the relationships between gender, empowerment and SDP in research and practice. Overall, this study produced new trajectories for the conceptualisation and implementation of SDP programmes to foster dimensions of girls’ empowerment and prevent their disempowerment. 1 List of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ 1 LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ 5 ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................... 7 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCING THE STUDY ..................................................... 8 1.1 Scope of the study ...................................................................................................... 8 1.2 Aim of the study ......................................................................................................... 9 1.3 Research objectives.................................................................................................... 9 1.4 The researcher’s position within the research ...................................................... 10 1.4.1 Context and background of sport for development ............................................... 11 1.4.2 Dominant perspectives of development in SDP .................................................... 13 1.5 Overview of the chapters ........................................................................................ 14 2 CHAPTER TWO: SPORT, GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT ............................ 17 2.1 Overview of the chapter .......................................................................................... 17 2.2 Country context: Rwanda ....................................................................................... 17 2.2.1 Precolonial Rwanda .............................................................................................. 17 2.2.2 Colonial Rwanda and the Genocide ...................................................................... 18 2.2.3 Post Genocide Rwanda: Ubuntu and the Gacaca process ..................................... 21 2.2.4 Post Genocide Rwanda: Gender development ...................................................... 23 2.3 Context and background of ‘Gender and Development’ ..................................... 25 2.4 Context and background of sport, gender and development .............................. 26 2.4.1 Policy context of sport, gender and development ................................................. 28 2.4.2 The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in sport, gender and development ......................... 30 2.5 The Women’s Movement ........................................................................................ 33 2.6 Critical Feminist Theory ......................................................................................... 37 2.7 Sex, gender, masculinity and femininity: The differences and why it matters in SDP …. ................................................................................................................................... 38 2.7.1 Sex or gender? ....................................................................................................... 39 2.7.2 Masculinity and femininity ................................................................................... 40 2.7.3 Masculinity, femininity and SDP .......................................................................... 42 2.8 The White Feminist Burden ................................................................................... 45 2.9 “The real power of the West… lies in its power to define”: Knowledge production in SDP ................................................................................................................ 49 2.10 Accounting for intersectionality ............................................................................. 52 2.11 Locating NGOs in a neoliberal SDP context ......................................................... 56 2.11.1 The SDP workforce .......................................................................................... 58 2.12 Chapter conclusion .................................................................................................. 61 3 CHAPTER THREE: EXAMINING GIRLS’ (DIS)EMPOWERMENT IN SDP .. 64 3.1 Overview of the chapter .......................................................................................... 64 3.2 Empowerment: An overview .................................................................................. 64 3.3 Empowerment .......................................................................................................... 66 3.4 Background and context of empowerment and gender in SDP .......................... 68 3.4.1 Current approaches to addressing girls’ empowerment in SDP ............................ 69 3.5 Sport empowerment ................................................................................................ 71 3.5.1 Individual sport empowerment ............................................................................. 73 3.5.2 Collective sport empowerment ............................................................................. 78 3.6 Gender empowerment and power .......................................................................... 79 3.6.1 ‘Power over’ .......................................................................................................... 80 3.6.2 Foucault and ‘power to’ .......................................................................................