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The methodological dance: critical reflections on conducting a cross-cultural comparative research project on ‘Sport for Development and Peace’

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-04-17, 14:07 authored by Holly CollisonHolly Collison, Richard GiulianottiRichard Giulianotti, David Howe, Simon Darnell
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Social scientific research requires engagement with individuals, groups and or organisations embedded within specific sectors and locations. The ‘Sport for a Better World?’ project aimed to examine the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector within multiple international locations through fieldwork conducted by a four-person research team. This paper discusses the methodological benefits and challenges of this methodological approach, with a particular focus on working with individuals and groups as gatekeepers, encultured informants, translators and volunteers. In turn, we describe and contextualise the levels of exchange expected by stakeholder partners as well as the implications of our identity as white, international researchers. Overall, we argue for the importance of understanding: the agency and needs of local actors amidst transnational networks; the extent to which history and politics inform everyday experiences and contemporary research encounters; and the likelihood that unequal power relations, particularly along lines of race, class and geography will affect data collection and interpretation. We also discuss various methodological strategies we negotiated in-the-field, and how these insights inform our understandings of the social, political and cultural environment in which SDP programmes operate in different locations.

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) [grant number ES/L002191/1].

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Qualitiative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health

Volume

8

Issue

5

Pages

413 - 423

Citation

COLLISON, H. ...et al., 2016. The methodological dance: critical reflections on conducting a cross-cultural comparative research project on ‘Sport for Development and Peace’. Qualitiative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 8(5), pp. 413-423.

Publisher

© Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-06-23

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Qualitiative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health on 08 Jul 2016, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2016.1206610.

ISSN

2159-6778

eISSN

1939-845X

Language

  • en