Discourses of social inclusion in sport and recreation in rural Ontario

Social inclusion and community development are recognised as both central processes and outcomes of sport and recreation programming in many communities. However, these practices are discursively constructed and embedded in broader understandings of belonging. Little research has examined these discursive constructions and how discourse analysis can serve to deconstruct aforementioned processes to better understand how power dynamics operate in different community contexts. For this research, we used a social constructionist-informed Critical Discourse Analysis and an instrumental case study to examine discourses of social inclusion in a region of Northern Ontario, where recent policy has encouraged increased levels of immigration, ultimately changing the demographic makeup of communities. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with practitioners and document analysis, and critical discourse analysis was used to analyse how discourse shapes the way social inclusion is understood. Our analysis identified two key discursive constructions related to social inclusion and sport and recreation: We’re all in this together but ‘they’ aren’t from here; and Inclusion is important, but whose responsibility is it? This research highlights how discursive constructions of solidarity, colourblindness, othering and ambiguity of responsibility for social inclusion work may inform practice and underpin structures of inequality in sport and recreation in rural contexts.