Speakers
Description
In the past two decades, NGO’s and community-based organizations have emerged in Mexico delivering programs where sports are used as tools to achieve objectives that go beyond the realm of recreation. Following the methods proposed by Svensson and Woods (2017), I conducted a systematic analysis where I identified 33 organizations involved in the operation of grassroots Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) practices in Mexico. Additionally, I conducted a thematic analysis on documents created by the Mexican government to legislate over sports and physical culture. The purpose of this presentation is to argue that the practices defined by the Mexican government as social sport are like those described in the literature as part of the global movement SDP, and at the same time, they fit the description presented by the organizations identified in the systematic analysis mentioned before. The coexistence of these notions to define similar practices suggests that in Mexico there is a contested field where interested actors are negotiating in different arenas the boundaries and specificities of such field.
