Revisiting the notion of cohesion in community sport: a qualitative study on the lived experiences of participants.

Abstract

Dit onderzoek sluit aan bij de vraag of en zo ja, hoe, vrijetijdsactiviteiten bijdragen aan sociale cohesie en segregatie kan tegengaan. Community sport wordt vaak gezien als een vrijetijdsactiviteit die met dat doel kan worden ingezet. De ervaringen van jongeren die deelnemen aan dergelijke community sport activiteiten worden in dit artikel bevraagd. Op basis van kwalitatief onderzoek met 28 jongeren stellen de auteurs de eenzijdige focus op sociale cohesie in vraag door te wijzen op de politieke en economische dimensie van segregatie en de rol die dit speelt in de levens van de deelnemende jongeren. 

Research has focused on the question if and how leisure can create social cohesion and can alleviate cultural segregation in divided community contexts. Community sport in particular is believed to create socio-cultural cohesiveness, as it aims at a sense of community, a task in which regular sports often seem to fail. However, the experiences of participants in relation to socio-cultural cohesiveness in community sport remain absent in the existing body of research. This article provides insights into those experiences, by drawing on a qualitative study in Flanders, Belgium. Based on the findings, we challenge the one-sided focus on socio-cultural cohesiveness to obtain a sense of community, as the perspectives of participants reveal that also political and economic dimensions of cohesion are relevant, next to socio-cultural dimensions. We argue that community cannot be reduced to sociocultural cohesion, but should be understood from the intersection between cultural, economic and political dimensions of cohesion. Implications for practice, both in relation to community sport and the broader leisure field and further research are given.