Unpacking the politics of ‘safeguarding’ in international sport: what is the use?

Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s framework of ‘the uses of use’, this study examines the term ‘safeguarding’, tracing its British origins in child protection to question its current role as a response to interpersonal violence within the Olympic Movement. Adopting a multi-step qualitative abductive approach, based on document analysis, this article examines ‘safeguarding’ as a travelling concept, tracing its trajectory across three dimensions: its circulation and adoption in sport, the construction and redefinition of its meanings, and its embodiment through policies and practices. The findings demonstrate that safeguarding, shaped by its British approach, has been promoted by the IOC and is now a widely adopted approach by ISOs through their communications, the publication of documents and the development of dedicated initiatives. After decades during which violence in sport was minimised or concealed, this broad democratisation is particularly noteworthy and constitutes genuine progress. Nevertheless, while this evolution is undoubtedly commendable, it also calls for a critical reflection on the term itself, which has increasingly become a portmanteau expression. Indeed, this framing also obscures and depoliticises the very violence it seeks to address by hiding the mechanisms of violence and the power relations that underpin it. In this sense, safeguarding may verge on becoming a form of ‘branding’, raising the concern that some organisations engage with it only superficially – a phenomenon that could be described as ‘safewashing’, a new form of organisational washing.