Alessio Norrito, Paul Widdop, Richard Giulianotti
This paper explores the educational dimensions of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) initiatives in China, meaning the pedagogies and mechanisms that these initiatives adopt to bring about change through sport. The study is one of the first to address SDP and China, significantly advancing non-Western frameworks and cross-cultural approaches to SDP. To do so, we propose an exploratory design for global SDP through the application of assemblage theory. The methodology follows a wide, longitudinal, and systematic qualitative exploration of 252 newsletters on the Chinese sport industry across 6 years. This paper engages in redefining SDP beyond its current Western conformation, introducing the idea of multiple and contextually dependent SDPs. Through the case of Chinese SDP, we show how the engagement of China with SDP presents important means for critical pedagogical approaches. These reside within cultural exchanges for bi-directional enrichment (both for recipients and providers of SDP) and through engagement with the local use of technology as a mean for communication. Furthermore, the study shows how Chinese SDP initiatives tend to resist the logics of individual deficit and marginalization, and instead center their strategies on empowering user-groups in addressing social problems through their cultural and material resources. Nonetheless, Global SDP is influenced by a strong neoliberal logic of sport development and market expansion, which ultimately stifles the authentic transformative potential of these global initiatives. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of addressing potential neoliberal paradigms that frame transnational SDP projects, particularly when these operate through organizations that primarily work within the sport industry. We then propose the design of this study as a theoretical and methodological tool to uncover the intricacies and interconnectedness of SDP with other relevant and influential sectors in development studies.