Engaging sport-for-development for social impact in the South African context

The politics of development ideology and global leadership set the scene for sport (for) development in South Africa. Academic inquiry followed in an ad hoc way, mostly in the wake of contracted and/or externally and diverse disciplinary infused research paradigms. Diverse research agenda and donor requirements set the scene for Participatory Action Research as an enabling tool for researchers, funders and research participants whereby indigenous knowledge systems can be accessed and enriched in a collaborative venture of knowledge production. Four case studies of sport-for-development projects in the South African context explain the evolving architecture in this field. A discussion of three distinct and interrelated models, based on the rationale of Mintzberg (2006), affords insights within a social capital framework of a top-down, bottom-up and outside-in approach in various integrated formats. It is apparent that social impact and networking evolved around strategic alliance formation and development agendas of major stakeholders.