Performative conformity in the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of sport for development and peace: ‘seeing behind the curtain’

Based upon eight case studies from the authors’ previous research in South America, Africa and Europe (with an explicit emphasis on Global South practitioners), we examine the interplay between conformity and transgression among sport for development and peace (SDP) actors. Our multi-sited empirical evidence draws upon interview, observational, and participatory data and is synthesised by a diverse authorship (of Brazilian, Kenyan, and Irish birth). Our examinations unpack the confluence of funding and geopolitics as it relates to ontological and epistemological understandings of SDP. We argue that prescriptive expectations from funders stifle the transformational and decolonial alternatives in SDP. We focus on opportunities to establish a dialogical context for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in SDP, shifting away from the performative nature of “fact building” impressed upon Global South practitioners by Global North agents still grounded in positivistic thinking. We discuss three separate, yet interconnected, empirical analyses that speak to the importance of researchers accepting practitioners’ invitations to “see behind the curtain” of SDP – unpacking what we term transgression as “performative conformity”. We explore the lost opportunities stemming from a lack of “real conversations” grounded in equilibrium, authentic reciprocity, and actioned responses to bridge the divide across practitioners and funders globally.