Sports as placemaking

Critical Reflections on a Community-Engaged Campaign

Bibliographic Data

ID6076640
AuthorsBongani Mavundla (0000-0003-3156-5592, Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa and South, African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa Masculinity and Health, Research Unit, Lenasia, South Africa, corresponding author), Alex Freeman (0000-0003-3436-6492, Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa and South, African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa Masculinity and Health, Research Unit, Lenasia, South Africa), Mohamed Seedat (0000-0001-9018-3370, Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa and South, African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa Masculinity and Health, Research Unit, Lenasia, South Africa), N Malherbe (0000-0002-4968-4058, Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa and South, African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa Masculinity and Health, Research Unit, Lenasia, South Africa)
Year2024
Volume32
Issue2
Pages154-176
Publication date2024-04-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Community Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1070-5422 • E-ISSN: 1543-3706
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10705422.2024.2345046
OpenAlexW4395078008
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited56

Community-engaged scholarship has largely neglected the potential of sports to construct progressive forms of community and mobilize disparate interests. In this article, we critically reflect on how sports were used for placemaking purposes in the Friendship and Hope Campaign, an annual event that is driven by residents of Thembelihle, a low-income community in South Africa. The Campaign is a participatory and community-based intervention that seeks to strengthen community relations and mobilize resources to build peaceful, nonracial, and nonsexist communities. Although the Campaign hosted several sports tournaments and cultural events, its attempt to strengthen community cohesion for the purposes of making democratically-led change renders it a political approach to placemaking. Yet, as with all community-engaged work, this was far from a simplistic process. The Campaign's deployment of sports as a placemaking practice was complicated by a multitude of political interests that oftentimes contradicted the community-oriented values and aims of the Campaign. We reflect on how patronage politics can assist us in understanding such internal contestations and conflicting interests, and how community campaigns can work to move through and hold complexity in a democratic fashion, rather than attempt to settle such complexity altogether

Citizen journalism · Community cohesion · Democracy · Environmental ethics · Multitude · Placemaking · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Scholarship · Sociology · Urban planning · Engineering · Law · Physical Education and Pedagogy · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society

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