The post-colonial challenges of climate change and sport for development and peace in the Anthropocene

In the context of the contemporary sport for development and peace (SDP) sector, the environment and climate change have proven difficult to address in both policy and practice. In this paper, by drawing on interviews with policy-makers in the sector and practitioners who design and implement programming, we attempt to tease apart the tensions shaping sport for development and peace in the Anthropocene. Reading interview data through the lens of postcolonial thought, we identify relations of power and knowledge production that have shaped discourses in and of the Anthropocene, and that produce disjointed visions of if, or how, sport may contribute to the wicked problem of climate change. We argue that these disjointed visions reinforce existing hierarchies and hinder meaningful climate action in SDP. We conclude by calling on actors in SDP policy and practice to understand and implement sport in ways that contend with both local particularities and the interconnected realities of the Anthropocene.