De-sportizing physical activity: From sport-for-development to play-for-development

Although many initiatives use sport as a tool to blur boundaries and foster social mixing, the way physical activity is organised and displayed for such purposes suggests critical reflections about the potential of sport in terms of social inclusivity. When used for social purposes, mainstream sports often need to be adapted and partially de-structured by downplaying their competitive dimension, blurring categorisations through mixed-gender, mixed-age, mixed-ethnic, or mixed-ability teams, and reducing the distinction between players and spectators. Therefore, while the process of sportization has re-shaped old forms of play and games, re-framing them as sports, when it comes to using physical activity to foster sociability the tendency seems to be the other way around, meaning that sports are re-shaped (or de-shaped) into mere games and even less structured forms of play. Drawing on both fieldwork carried out by the author and the main literature in the field, the paper provides a theoretical and analytical exploration of such a de-sportizing trend.