Sport for development from the ‘executive suite’: transdisciplinary entanglement as a new top-down, bottom-up paradigm in the sport and refugee movement

In the last ten years, political crises throughout the world  have forced exoduses of thousands of men, women, and children on the ground. The current war in Ukraine has pushed the number of displaced people globally over an unprecedented 100 million (UNHCR, 2022). While humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organisations work hard to ensure the physical survival of as many displaced people as possible, there is a critical element missing from their aid: a focus on holistic health. More recently, scholars in the field of Sport for Development (SfD) have come forward to identify ways and conduct research that can positively influence the well-being of refugees and displaced people. At the top level, international organisations have begun to come together for similar purposes. The Olympic Refuge Foundation Think Tank is one instance of a top-level effort to aid young refugees through sport by bringing together experts from the sport, refugee, and MHPSS sectors. To date, no empirical research has been conducted in SfD on transdisciplinarity in the context of the sport and refugee movement, let alone from the ‘executive suite’ perspective. 

In this remote participatory ethnographic study, I investigated the inner workings of this Think Tank by, firstly, seeking out the professional journeys of Think Tank members perceived to be at the top, and secondly, placing the Think Tank against the backdrop of Makhoul et al.’s (2013) concept of clean minds, dirty hands; the Think Tank represented clean minds and refugee sport programmes were representative of dirty hands. I used a combination of methods including two rounds of semi-structured interviews (one of which was a photo elicitation conversation) with 16 Think Tank members, and “virtual field” notes from attending meetings and being an active participant in the Think Tank itself. To gain the perspective of those with dirty hands, I also interviewed six individuals external from the Think Tank. Data were analysed using reflexive and narrative thematic analyses, as well as Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of social spaces of thought, production, and action as a backdrop. 

Findings indicated that members’ professional journeys acted as a rite of passage from their previous work to the Think Tank. Often, members endured a level of trauma and sacrifice, and/or worked in low- or middle-income countries before being invited into the Think Tank. Their paths, which in many cases began with dirty hands, suggested their rite of passage helped them earn their stripes to have a clean mind. 

In applying Lefebvre’s thought, production, and action spaces, the values and thoughts instilled in Think Tank members early in their lives or during their dirty hands work formulated the thought space. The Think Tank itself represented the production space, where discussions and debates occurred that unintentionally set up a hierarchy, with the former refugee participants—and their dirty hands—at the bottom. The action space was contested in such a way that members sought action and craved progress, but constrictors such as resources, red tape and bureaucracy prevented action in the way that most members desired.

The findings chapters came together to formulate the notion of ‘entanglement’. It is an answer to how experts from different fields can unite to influence the sport and refugee movement and other established sub-fields of SfD. Entanglement occurred on three levels: of disciplines, of spaces, and of clean minds and dirty hands. Thus, the contributions emanating from this research include, firstly, a call for transdisciplinarity beyond SfD at the organisational, policy, and academic levels; secondly, a perspective shift of clean minds, dirty hands to a spectrum rather than dichotomous categories; thirdly, that individuals and organisations at the top and bottom in SfD have opportunities to share a common language and ultimately pave a path for grassroots organisations to have influence over policies created at the top level. Embracing the complexities within each of these realms is a way forward for SfD to engage with the sport and refugee movement.