Leisure Studies

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Sport for development and Indigenous

Australians: a critical research agenda for policy
and practice

Ryan Lucas , Ruth Jeanes & Zane Diamond

To cite this article: Ryan Lucas , Ruth Jeanes & Zane Diamond (2020): Sport for development and
Indigenous Australians: a critical research agenda for policy and practice, Leisure Studies, DOI:
10.1080/02614367.2020.1808050

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LEISURE STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2020.1808050

Sport for development and Indigenous Australians: a critical

research agenda for policy and practice
Ryan Lucas, Ruth Jeanes and Zane Diamond
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This research note seeks to critically examine Sport for Development (SFD) Received 10 February 2020
policies and programming targeting Indigenous Australians. Through Accepted 27 July 2020
a narrative literature review, this article seeks to broaden the discussion KEYWORDS
surrounding the use of sport as a development tool throughout Australia’s Sport for development;
Indigenous communities, by considering perspectives within SFD litera­ indigenous; Australia; critical;
ture that have received limited attention in existing policy and research decolonising; policy
approaches. The findings of this literature review expose a dominant
trend towards positivistic research that reinforces existing approaches,
and a lack of criticality surrounding the use of sport as a development tool.
This article, therefore, seeks to pose a new research agenda by drawing on
international perspectives with the potential to broaden this discussion
surrounding the use of sport as a development tool for Indigenous
Australians. Issues of conceptual clarity, the use of sport as a mechanism
for social control, neoliberalism and neo-colonialism are largely absent
from existing literature exploring SFD for Indigenous Australians. Calls to
de-colonise SFD are also largely absent from the literature reviewed, and
therefore calls for the decolonisation of SFD globally are also considered.
Finally, this research note calls for researchers working in this space to
engage critically with the use of sport in Indigenous communities, to shift
the focus away from the production of ‘evidence’ to a broader discussion
around the use of sport, including how research must contribute to
decolonising both policy and practice through privileging Indigenous
perspectives and voices.

Introduction
Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) (1987–1991), sport has
been increasingly viewed as part of the policy apparatus for addressing social disadvantage
experienced by Indigenous Australians (Giles et al., 2018). This increased reliance on sport to
impact development outcomes where other strategies have previously failed mirrors trends inter­
nationally (Levermore & Beacom, 2012). Whilst the use of sport as a tool to deliver social outcomes
internationally has become subject to extensive academic analysis (Schulenkorf et al., 2016), to date,
the role of sport as a development tool in Australia’s Indigenous communities has received
comparatively limited academic critique. Through this research note, the authors seek to challenge
the dominant positivist trend within the limited research base, and discuss how an analysis of the
use of sport as a social development tool in Australia’s Indigenous communities could be enhanced
through engagement with critical themes outlined in international Sport for Development (SFD)
literature (Gardam et al., 2019). It is argued that critiques raised throughout the international
literature that highlight the complexities of using sport as a social development tool provides

CONTACT Ryan Lucas ryan.lucas@monash.edu

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 R. LUCAS ET AL.

a productive framework for future research into the use of sport in Australia’s Indigenous com­
munities. This research note provides an overview of the key learnings from literature focussing on
the use of sport as a development tool in Australia’s Indigenous communities, before outlining how
major themes from international SFD literature can lead to a more critical dialogue surrounding
existing Australian policy discourses and practices. These themes include conceptual clarity, social
control, neoliberalism, neo-colonialism and decolonising SFD. The research note concludes with
a call for future research to apply a more critical lens to the use of sport in Australia’s Indigenous
communities, and mirrors calls within international literature for the privileging of local voices in
future research agendas.

Policy context
Sheppard et al. (2019) outline the centrality of sport within Australian Indigenous social policy,
arguing that ‘sport is frequently the go-to entry point and vehicle for a range of Government policy
initiatives, as well as commercial and philanthropic interventions into Indigenous affairs’ (p. 1). In
terms of social policy approaches seeking to redress the inequality experienced by Indigenous
Australians, Rossi (2015) has previously described sport as a form of welfare, arguing that ‘sport is
considered as a viable tool to deliver social, welfare and community development objectives to
Indigenous communities, particularly (but not exclusively) those in remote and isolated regions of
Australia’ (p. 182).
Since 2009, Closing the Gap (CTG) has been the overarching policy framework for addressing
Indigenous disadvantage in Australia, with a focus on narrowing the gap in life expectancy, child
mortality, early childhood education, educational achievement and employment outcomes between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. (Fisher et al., 2019). In June of 2013, a House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs released
a report titled Sport – More Than Just A Game, detailing the contribution of sport towards the
achievement of Closing the Gap targets. In submissions to the inquiry, claims included that sport
may be viewed as ‘a powerful vehicle for engaging Indigenous Australians in positive activities
which lead to positive non-sport outcomes such as education, employment, health and wellbeing’
(Commonwealth of Australia, 2013, p. 10). The belief by successive Australian governments in the
power of sport to deliver social outcomes has resulted in significant federal investment in sports-
based projects, including over 135 USD million over 4 years since 2014 provided to fund 151
activities through the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017).
Despite a sustained investment and reliance on sport as a development tool, Gardam et al. (2019)
have argued there is an absence of critical perspectives within Australian policy and research that
acknowledges the mixed effectiveness of SFD, claiming that this absence is the result of govern­
ments attempting to exploit the ‘positive discourses surrounding SFD outcomes through the
uncritical domestic transfer of SFD programming’ (p. 40). Furthermore, they suggest that ‘the
unambiguous association of positive SFD outcomes with seminal policies like Closing the Gap
creates a discursive space in which competing evidence is likely to be marginalized’ (Gardam et al.,
2019, p. 40).

Methodology
The findings presented within this research note have been synthesised from a narrative review of
literature related to SFD and Indigenous Australians. The process for the narrative review draws on
the conventions set forth by Greenhalgh et al. (2018), Karpetis (2018), and Greenhalgh et al. (2018)
suggest that ‘a narrative review is a scholarly summary along with interpretation and critique’ (p. 2),
and that the key contribution of a narrative review is to deepen understanding of certain phenom­
ena. In order to produce a meaningful narrative review relevant to complex situations, ‘the reviewer
must (i) incorporate a broad range of knowledge sources and strategies for knowing and (ii)
 LEISURE STUDIES 3

undertake multi-level interpretation using creativity and judgement’ (Greenhalgh et al., 2018, p. 2).
Therefore, the purpose of this narrative review is to advance theoretical understanding through
induction and interpretation, and to capitalise ‘on the continual deepening of insight that can be
obtained by critical reflection on particular elements of a dataset’ (Greenhalgh et al., 2018, p. 3).
This review was conducted according to the four phases outlined in (Karpetis, 2018): ‘(i) search
and retrieval of publications, (ii) identification of categories, (iii) identification of themes within the
categories, and (iv) documentation of similarities and differences in the themes across the identified
categories’ (p. 598). An electronic database search was conducted, which sought to retrieve peer-
reviewed articles from between 2000 and 2020. This time frame was chosen to effectively bound the
research, and to study the most recent policy and research developments. The databases searched
included AIATSIS: Indigenous Studies Bibliography, AEI-ATSIS: Australian Education Index:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander subset, AUSPORT: Australian Sport Database and
SPORTDiscus. The keywords ‘Indigenous OR Aboriginal’, ‘sport’, and ‘development’ were used
across each of the databases to identify research articles. Of the 1,933 articles returned, 8 met the
inclusion criteria. Additionally, the techniques of reference harvesting and snowballing were
utilised to retrieve any articles that may have been missed through the database search, which
yielded an additional 22 articles (Karpetis, 2018). Articles were included for analysis if they met the
following criteria: (i) Indigenous Australians were the programme target; (ii) through empirical
research or conceptualisation, the article investigated SFD policy or practice; and (iii) were peer-
reviewed. In total, the literature search identified 30 articles. Articles were analysed utilising Braun
and Clarke (2006) thematic analysis, which identified dominant themes, and allowed for the
emergence of gaps in the literature. Since (Karpetis, 2018) conceptualises the narrative review
method as an act of reflexivity, the ‘identification of themes and interpretation of findings are
affected by the researcher’s training and practice experience’ (p. 598). Therefore, given the authors’
previous research experience in the field of international SFD, and subsequent familiarity with the
literature pertaining to this field, gaps within the literature reviewed were conceptualised from
themes known to the researcher through existing knowledge from the discipline. The research will
present an overview of the findings from the literature search described above, and then will seek to
map out gaps in the existing literature, with the view to encourage the pursuit of new research
directions.

Sport for development, social policy, and Indigenous Australians

Research focussing on SFD programming in Australia’s Indigenous communities asserts that sport
holds the potential to achieve a wide range of positive development outcomes. Referring to
Indigenous Australians, Rossi (2015) has argued that ‘sport can be a robust developmental tool
capable of delivering social outcomes to marginalized communities’ (p. 181). Throughout the
literature reviewed, some of the outcomes attributed to sport include improved physical, social
and emotional health, reduced delinquency and criminal behaviour, improved educational out­
comes, reduced rates of self-harm and suicide, and increased social and community cohesion
(Bruner et al., 2016; Cameron & Macdougall, 2000; Cunningham & Beneforti, 2005; Dalton et al.,
2015; Dinanathompson et al., 2008; Doyle et al., 2013; Evans et al., 2018; Fitch et al., 2017; Hayhurst
et al., 2016; Macniven et al., 2019, 2017; Nelson, 2009; Rossi, 2015; Rossi & Rynne, 2014; Rynne,
2016; Shilton & Brown, 2004; Tatz, 2012). Further, existing research has outlined the importance of
sport for Indigenous populations that go beyond the narrow indicators outlined above. For
instance, Judd and Butcher (2014) suggest that sport provides a centrality to Indigenous commu­
nities and is essential for their ongoing survival and community cohesion. Additionally, Hallinan
and Judd (2012b) have argued that sport plays ‘a large role in the social structure of Indigenous
communities and the rates of participation are even higher than those of non-Indigenous
Australians’ (p. 915). Existing research into sporting programmes targeting Indigenous
Australians also suggest that sport may be viewed as an avenue for improved social mobility,
4 R. LUCAS ET AL.

since sport offers a way to escape poverty and to assist other members of the social group to do the
same (Gorman et al., 2016; Hallinan & Judd, 2007, 2012a, 2012b; Judd & Butcher, 2014). Hallinan
and Judd (2012a, 2012b) have suggested that Australian sports have afforded Indigenous
Australians opportunities to engage with mainstream society in ways that would not be possible
in other areas of life.
Despite the numerous outcomes attributed to the use sport in Australia’s Indigenous commu­
nities, many authors have simultaneously highlighted the paucity of evidence to support these
claims (Bruner et al., 2016; Cunningham & Beneforti, 2005; Dalton et al., 2015; Macniven et al.,
2017; Rossi & Rynne, 2013; Rynne, 2016; Shilton & Brown, 2004; Tatz, 2012). Cunningham and
Beneforti (2005) argue that ‘there is little if any evidence of achieving such outcomes to date, in part
because of a lack of appropriate indicators to monitor programs and to measure their social and
health impact’ (p. 90). As a result, Macniven et al. (2017) have warned against alluding to the
broader social benefits of sport and recreation programs for Indigenous youth in the absence of
empirical evidence. Scholars have recently made attempts to redress this evidence gap. Through
a systematic scoping review, Macniven et al. (2019) sought to ‘identify and describe existing
evidence of the impact of sport and physical activity programs on social outcomes among
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’ (p. 1). This review identified 20 research articles,
citing impacts from sport on six areas of social outcomes.
While it is acknowledged that there are issues with the evaluation of programs that utilise
narrow, western derived indicators to determine their success, as Shilton and Brown (2004)
argue, without any form of evaluation of SFD programs targeting Indigenous Australians ‘there
can be no evidence base on which to develop effective intervention strategies’ (p. 41). These
attempts to provide further evidence for the use of sport for the development of Indigenous
Australians is therefore laudable, to ensure that the most effective policy approaches are pursued.
Resultingly, representations of sport as a powerful, pro-social force for Indigenous populations
continue to persist in the academic literature reviewed to date. Despite this, there has been the
emergence of some critical scholarship that suggests that ‘sport, as remedy for Australia’s complex
societal issues, is too simplistic a solution’ (Thorpe et al., 2014, p. 357). Researchers have further
called for a tempering of the representations of sport as a panacea to the issues facing Indigenous
communities (Evans et al., 2015), whilst others have queried the rationale for the use of sport as
vehicle for development in the first place (Rossi & Rynne, 2013; Sheppard et al., 2019). Despite these
limited examples, the dominant research trend to date has been to reinforce a positivistic research
paradigm. This approach, which broadly champions the use of sport whilst simultaneously
acknowledging the lack of evidence underpinning it perpetuates the call for further research to
redress this evidence gap. The lack of critical scholarship questioning the appropriateness of sport as
a development tool in Australia’s Indigenous communities, with consideration for some of the
broader issues surrounding SFD represents a significant gap in the literature. Therefore, through
a discussion of prominent themes from the international field of SFD, the next section of this
research note seeks to encourage further scholarly work that considers a wider range of critical
perspectives in the use of SFD targeting Indigenous Australians.

Research gaps and future directions

Conceptual clarity and ‘evidence’
As outlined above, the substantive body of literature examining SFD in Indigenous communities
has focused on measuring outcomes of programs (Macniven et al., 2019). There has been limited
discussion of why sport is being used in this context and why governments consider it an effective
policy tool. International SFD literature has pointed to a lack of conceptual clarity within sport-
based initiatives that feeds into deeply entrenched cultural assumptions about the ‘power’ of sport
and the belief that it is a universal, pro-social force through which participants will simply absorb
 LEISURE STUDIES 5

outcomes via osmosis (Hartmann & Depro, 2006). The focus on evidencing the ‘power of sport’,
a key element of studies conducted in Indigenous communities outlined above is contested within
the broader SFD literature. What has instead been highlighted is the problematic nature of evidence,
including what and whose voices count as evidence, particularly within the context of projects
funded by external agencies. Rossi and Jeanes (2018) have highlighted the current ‘preoccupation
with economic metrics as evidence of development’ (p. 193), which may be meaningless for the
communities in which SFD initiatives are delivered. Given this, policymakers and researchers
investigating the role of SFD targeting Indigenous Australians must acknowledge the complexity
of evidence production, tempering calls for evidence of SFD initiatives in favour of approaches that
give greater consideration of for who evidence is meaningful and beneficial. Otherwise, continuing
calls to produce ‘evidence’ may only serve to reinforce the discursive paradigm in which SFD
initiatives are currently delivered, without consideration for the broader concerns of this policy
approach.

Sport as a site of social control

Various studies have questioned the use of sport to support development outcomes for young
people in international contexts, suggesting that sport works by ‘constraining and constructively
socializing young people who have been identified in dominant public discourse as lacking the
character required to restrain themselves from disrupting the social order’ (Coakley, 2002, p. 16).
According to this perspective, as a form of social intervention, sport programs have the potential to
‘fix’ the character and lifestyle defects of certain young people, thereby eliminating the problems in
society more broadly. SFD literature illustrates that when young people are unable to embody these
norms, policy makers and practitioners view young people, rather than the programs they are part
of as the problem (Coakley, 2011). Resultantly, researchers have observed the class-based, gendered
and racialised aspects of SFD programs targeting marginalised populations, noting that interven­
tions of this manner are often targeted towards males from lower-income, racial and ethnic
minorities (Açıkgöz et al., 2019; Coakley, 2002, 2011; Hartmann, 2001, 2015). These critiques are
lacking in the Australian literature, with studies instead pointing to the value of sport as
a ‘diversionary activity’ (Cameron & Macdougall, 2000; Fitch et al., 2017; Thorpe et al., 2014).
Throughout the literature reviewed, there is almost no consideration of this aspect of SFD in
approaches targeting Indigenous Australians, although in a rare example, Nelson (2009) acknowl­
edged how sporting programs may act as a new form of regulation and surveillance of Indigenous
people, ‘where Indigenous young people are measured against white, Western, middle-class norms’
(p. 101). Future research approaches must afford greater attention to these aspects of SFD pro­
gramming that target marginalised populations to create a more balanced discussion surrounding
the used of SFD for Indigenous Australians.

Neoliberalism
The individualistic neoliberal agenda that infuses much of the work in international SFD has been
widely critiqued (Darnell, Chawansky et al., 2018). As Darnell (2010) suggests, the ‘individualist
ethos’ (p. 66) of neo-liberal development is largely used to justify material inequality by placing
deficiencies within the host communities themselves, whilst simultaneously seeking to ‘elevate the
poor and relatively powerless to the level of rational actors, free from the constraints of government
policy’ (p. 56). Within an Australian context, the focus on a lack of evidence to demonstrate ‘impact’
on Indigenous young people has resulted in a lack of critique of what impacts are being sought
through programmes. Subsequently, the neoliberal underpinnings of many programs have received
limited critical examination throughout the literature. Giles et al. (2018) and Rossi and Rynne
(2013) have broadly acknowledged the dominant trend of neoliberal policymaking by successive
Australian governments that has resulted in the use of sport as a development tool for Indigenous
6 R. LUCAS ET AL.

populations, though this has yet to be a sustained focus of research in this context. There is
significant potential for the voices of Indigenous Australians to disrupt the neoliberal underpin­
nings of many SFD policies and practices, and future research should prioritise this approach to
provide localised perspectives and alternatives to the dominant positivist narrative.

Neo-colonialism
Neo-colonialism, characterised by interventions designed in the Global North and implemented in
the Global South without consultation or involvement of local stakeholders has received substantial
critique in the international SFD literature to date (Darnell & Hayhurst, 2011). Furthermore, sport
has an entrenched history as a colonisation tool within Australia (Bond et al., 2015; Phillips &
Osmond, 2018). Despite this history, contemporary analyses of SFD within Australia’s Indigenous
communities have been largely silent on the perpetuation of colonial relations using sport, as well as
the ongoing use of sport to perpetuate hegemony and power imbalances. Scholars have engaged
extensively with postcolonial theory in analysing SFD programs internationally, highlighting how
many programmes are designed in the Global North and ‘exported’ to the Global South, with little
consideration for local knowledge in the design or delivery of initiatives (Darnell, Giulianotti et al.,
2018). This approach to the delivery of SFD has been widely criticised for reinforcing the hegemonic
relationships between Northern donors and Southern recipients (Donnelly et al., 2011). Whilst the
majority of SFD programs delivered within Indigenous communities are funded domestically, the
power relations discussed within international literature have considerable relevance. A greater
engagement with both the colonial and racial discourses imbued within Indigenous SFD is essential
if SFD is to have relevance as a social development tool within Indigenous communities.

Decolonising sport for development

Scholars within international SFD have been instrumental in highlighting the need for
a decolonisation of SFD across policy, practice, and research. Such research has emphasised the
need for participatory approaches that value the knowledge and contribution of local communities
in the design and delivery of SFD programming (Lucas & Jeanes, 2019). Throughout the literature
relating to SFD and Indigenous Australians, there is a notable absence of calls to decolonise SFD
and enable Indigenous communities to have significant direction and control over how sport is used
within their communities. As a result, further analysis is required to place decolonising principles
more firmly on the policy agenda within Australia. Engaging with approaches, theories and
methodologies highlighted within the international SFD literature, examining decolonising pro­
cesses and the embedding of local cultural philosophies and approaches within programmes would
likely provide an important framework to begin to address these issues within an Australian
context. Additionally, as Mwaanga and Banda (2014) have advocated, local Indigenous scholars
should be supported to lead and develop these processes, in order to ensure that research agendas
are driven from within the communities that SFD initiatives seek to target.

Conclusion
As outlined above, research focussing on SFD initiatives targeting Indigenous Australians has largely
focussed on evidencing the ‘power of sport’ narrative and has yet to engage in a substantive critical
analysis of its use in policy or practice. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of research that has
systematically engaged with issues raised throughout the international literature that considers
broader issues associated with the use of SFD targeting marginalised communities. This may, as
Strakosch (2019) argues, be due to the fact that policy approaches targeting Indigenous Australians
are ‘depoliticised and presented as a neutral administrative space that seeks to redress material
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage’ (p. 116). The nature by which Australian
 LEISURE STUDIES 7

government’s attempt to exploit the positive attributes of sport throughout these policy approaches
represents a myopic view to the use of sport (Burnett, 2015), which conceals a wider range of issues
and competing theorisations in policy design and implementation.
Through this research note, we have advocated for future research approaches that demonstrate
greater critical engagement with SFD initiatives targeting Indigenous Australians, particularly
surrounding the themes of conceptual clarity and evidence, sport as social control, neoliberalism,
neo-colonialism and decolonising practice. As a result, future research should move away from
a focus on gathering evidence that fails to ask broader questions of the Australian Indigenous SFD
policy and practice context. Further attempts to continue to produce ‘evidence’ merely feeds into
the notion that successful policy interventions simply require greater technical sophistication
(Strakosch, 2019), as opposed to deconstructing the assumptions upon which policy approaches
are based that continue to marginalise Indigenous Australians. We would argue that the growing
dialogue within SFD literature that examines decolonising practices, greater inclusion of local
voices, and advocacy for community-led programs have particular relevance in an Australian
context where Indigenous viewpoints are rarely sought or used to drive policy and practice.
Whilst attempts at enacting decolonising approaches are evident within other areas of Australian
social policy, this discourse has not permeated the sport and social policy context in any meaningful
way (Green & Baldry, 2008). In order to advance the discussion surrounding the use of SFD to
achieve social outcomes for Indigenous Australians, future research must seek to privilege the
voices of Indigenous Australians, in order to capture the lived realities, and to better understand the
role that sport may contribute (if at all) to addressing levels of disadvantage.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback in preparing this manuscript, and Will
Sanders from the Australian National University for his helpful assistance in responding to reviewers’ comments.

Disclosure statement
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors
Ryan Lucas is currently undertaking doctoral studies at Monash University, with his research focussing on the role of
sport in Indigenous youth development programs in remote communities of the Northern Territory of Australia.
Ryan’s research interests include sport and social policy, sport for development and inclusivity in sport for margin­
alised populations.
Dr Ruth Jeanes is an Associate Professor within the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Ruth is a social
scientist whose research interests focus on the use of sport and active recreation as a community development
resource, particularly to address social exclusion amongst acutely marginalised groups.
Zane Diamond PhD, is a Professor in the Faculty of education, Monash University. Zane’s research investigates the
alienation from mainstream education that people from non-dominant cultures report. Zane’s research interests
include Indigenous and traditional wisdom in modern universities and schools, culturally inclusive pedagogies, and
an overarching study of the pedagogies of wisdom development in university and school students.

ORCID
Ruth Jeanes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3907-0108
8 R. LUCAS ET AL.

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