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Decolonization and sport

This is an excerpt from Social Issues in Canadian Sport by Marty Clark,William Bridel.

By  Daniel Henhawk

Sport for Decolonization, Reconciliation, and Cultural Resurgence

While the following discussion is not intended to be an exhaustive look at all the nuances of sport in relation to Indigenous resurgence, reconciliation, or decolonization, the hope, dear student, is to give you a space for dialogue around issues related to settler colonialism, the impact of which we are all continuing to struggle with in the present, and even within those spaces we believed were removed from the violence of settler colonialism. I hope you can find space that allows you to wrestle with your questions and your ideas about how to move forward with a good mind. I also hope you can create space in which to reframe sport within those histories of colonialism that may appear disconnected but are indicative of Indigenous struggles for decolonization and resurgence that re-establishes our (as in all human beings) relationships to the world as Onkwehón:we—as original people. To this end, I leave you with a final thought from Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2006, 158) that I hope entices you to imagine new possibilities for sport:

To imagine a different world is to imagine us as different people in the world. To imagine is to believe in different possibilities, ones that we can create . . . Imagining a different world, or reimagining the world, is a way into theorizing why the world as it currently is unjust and posing alternatives to such a world from within our own worldviews.

Decolonization

It is paramount to engage with the concepts of decolonization, reconciliation, and resurgence, concepts that will continue to be talking points as society strives to address the histories of colonization and Indigenous oppression. Decolonization is often discussed in terms of what society should be doing to address colonialism in many spheres of life. Of course, this is a very general notion of what decolonization is, and we must critique this notion to illustrate that without a clear understanding of what the term decolonization means, then the term itself becomes highly problematic. In the public discourse, there is disagreement about what the term means and whether how it is used may actually continue to privilege settler colonial ideals. Tuck and Yang (2012, 2) remind us that the term decolonization has been appropriated and used superficially when people call for certain spheres to decolonize: “It is not uncommon to hear speakers refer, almost casually, to the need to ‘decolonize our schools,’ or use ‘decolonizing methods,’ or ‘decolonize student thinking.’” They argue that using the term in such ways effectively turns decolonization into a metaphor for what settlers want rather than working toward what decolonization should mean, which is “the repatriation of Indigenous land and life” (1).

Understanding that settler colonialism was intent on taking control of Indigenous lands and thus destroying Indigenous relations to land, it then stands to reason that decolonization demands the return of land so that Indigenous cultures can be restored. The return of land in this sense is not grounded in settler colonial and capitalist notions of ownership, but in the imperative to re-establish Indigenous notions of relationship to restore Indigenous knowledge and culture. This connection is based in an Indigenous notion of relationality that Wilson (2008, 80) puts forth as a way of relating to each other and all non-human entities that exist on the earth and in the cosmos: “Rather than viewing ourselves as being in relationship with other people or things, we are the relationships that we hold and are part of.” This suggests that the imperative of any act of reconciliation or resurgence is dependent on decolonization, or in other words, the restoration of Indigenous land and life.

Reconciliation Through Sport

What then to make of reconciliation after the realization that decolonization is about the “repatriation of Indigenous land and life” (Tuck and Yang 2012, 1)? Darnell and Hayhurst (2011, 193) argue that sport, and the wider Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) movement, may provide an opportunity to support Indigenous desires for decolonization, sovereignty, and self-determination by “resisting corporate and/or state-sponsored hegemonic development forces.” The challenge is to recognize when development continues to be tied to settler colonial notions of progress and modernity that are also rooted in settler colonial perspectives of Indigeneity.

Coakley observes that the current SDP movement operates with a belief that education through sport can, and should, address the “deficits” of a population. He argues that the popularity of “elite, organized, competitive, commercial sports (EOCCS)” (Coakley 2011) is being used to promote neoliberal ideologies of competition, meritocracy, and individual character, with the view that populations, particularly youth, will be empowered to transform their individual situations. However, this is an example of where SDP remains complicit in a continuing neocolonial cycle of settler colonialism that is promoted and enacted through contemporary sport. Reconciliation through sport must be a countermovement organized around the explicit recognition that sport must also attend to the imperatives of decolonization that view Indigenous resurgence as possible only when land is returned and Indigenous people are able to re-establish their understandings of relationality. Action through sport must then take a critical stance and interrogate sport for the ways that neocolonialism is enacted through the sports in which we engage. Returning to the example of lacrosse as a tool for cultural resurgence, how might the current engagement in lacrosse be contributing to neocolonialism versus genuine movements for reconciliation?

Indigenous Cultural Resurgence

Cultures are not static. They are ever changing and adapting to influences from within and abroad. Yet a culture can be stifled through the various institutions and structures we have come to depend on, such as sport and the sport system. Alfred (2005, 24) argues that Indigenous resurgence “cannot be made from within the colonial structure. Institutions and ideas that are the creation of the colonial relationship are not capable of ensuring our survival.” As such, there is a growing movement of Indigenous resurgence through land education, a movement that centres Indigenous understandings of land, languages and “analyses of settler colonialism as a structure, a set of relations and conditions” (13). However, land education is not synonymous with Western outdoor education. As Mullins and colleagues (2015, 51) discuss, there is a need for “healing the split head” of outdoor recreation and outdoor education to heal the rift between Indigenous knowledges and Western conceptualizations of the outdoors. Colonial understandings of land have been rooted in the idea of “land as space to be conquered, occupied and visited, but not inhabited, and culture as place-independent.” This orientation to land and culture has then been reified through the likes of the Scouting movement and Outward Bound (Mullins et al. 2015).

Kapyrka and Dockstator (2012) suggest that a “two-worlds approach,” a pedagogy that upholds both Indigenous and Western worldviews, might provide the space to begin to understand what divides Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. They argue that this approach can create an ethical space that provides neutral ground upon which Indigenous and non-Indigenous students can come together to learn and understand the differences in worldviews and conceptualizations about how to exist in relation to, and in relationship with, the land, everything within it, and the cosmos. They note that the contexts of environmental education might offer the space in which to engage in this approach. Could sport and other recreational contexts also offer space to restore relationships and engage in a two-worlds approach?

Case Study

Intersections

The North American Indigenous Games (NAIG), held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2023, are a multi-sport competition similar to the Canada Games, the Pan American Games, or even the Olympic Games. Like these mega sporting events, the NAIG welcome thousands of athletes, coaches, and team staff (estimated at 5,000 people for 2023) from over 750 Indigenous Nations across North America. Communities from across the continent send their youth to compete in their respective sports, with opportunities to engage in various Indigenous cultural activities as well as the host community’s cultural and tourism offerings. The 2023 Games were the 10th iteration since the inaugural event in 1990. The Games have achieved a high level of support, both financial and otherwise, and offer an opportunity to ask questions about sport’s continued role in Indigenous resurgence movements, and to contrast the aims of sport with discussions of reconciliation and decolonization.

An initial question we can ask is why Euro–North American sports persist in Indigenous communities given the many attempts to use sport to inculcate and assimilate Indigenous people. In their historical analysis of the development of the NAIG, Forsyth and Wamsley (2006) note how Indigenous leaders perceived elite-level sport as a space for Indigenous people to demonstrate their social, cultural, and political distinctiveness. They argue that as a social practice and a contested site of cultural struggle, sports and games provide Indigenous people with the opportunity to realize a measure of self-determination and cultural renewal. However, a question remains that relates to the broad ideals of self-determination and what is meant by the resurgence of culture and cultural identity. Within the imperatives of decolonization, the ability of sport to bolster movements for self-determination, resistance, and cultural resurgence is not simple. Going back to the example of lacrosse, there are several issues embedded within the sport—its normative values and culture that speak to issues of neocolonialism in the current way Indigenous people are engaged in that sport. Until sport in the Indigenous context addresses the ways it is inherently connected to the colonization of Indigenous lands, the ability of sport to play a role in reconciliation and cultural resurgence is diminished.

Alternatively, land-based education is one avenue in which Indigenous communities are actively engaged in revitalizing Indigenous knowledges and ways of being. This is demonstrated in the increasing additions of land-based curriculum within elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Land-based education is an approach to learning that connects students to Indigenous ways of knowing, including traditional knowledge about and relationships to the land. Land-based education connects students to Indigenous knowledges that are founded on relational ways of living and engaging with the land and the non-human entities of the earth. There is some hope that land-based education can be coupled with sport to provide pathways for Indigenous resurgence that start first with respectful and reciprocal relationships that speak to this way of being in the world.

Discussion Questions

1. Outline the ways in which the North American Indigenous Games maintain a colonial space, and then juxtapose your list with ways the Games can work to promote cultural resurgence.
2. Does a modern multi-sport event such as the NAIG provide space for cultural resurgence given the imperative of a return of land for Indigenous cultural resurgence?
3. How can we recreate or re-envision sport with the imperatives of land-based education?
4. Can sport be used for cultural resurgence and reconciliation alongside land-based education?

More Excerpts From Social Issues in Canadian Sport

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