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Sport for development (SFD) research and practice has become more critically examined recently, with many scholars calling for better understanding of how and why sport might contribute to the global development movement. Developing and refining theoretical approaches is key to unpacking the complexities of SFD. Yet, theory development in SFD is still relatively young and often relies on oversimplified theory of change models. In this article, the authors propose a new theoretical approach, drawing upon the capabilities approach and critical feminist perspectives. The authors contend that the capabilities approach is effective in challenging neoliberal ideologies and examining a range of factors that influence people’s lived experiences. They have woven a “gender lens” across the capabilities approach framework, as feminist perspectives are often overlooked, subjugated, or misunderstood. The authors also provide an adaptable diagrammatic model to support researchers and practitioners in applying this framework in the SFD context.

While sport for development programming has flourished, the complex social and economic environment in the postcolonial Eastern Caribbean is often overlooked by researchers. This case study examines sport for development with 'at risk' adolescent girls in St. Lucia (n = 16). These young women, who have been removed from mainstream public schools due to behavioural issues, participated in focus group discussions regarding their experiences and perspectives on sport. Their sport participation included single-sex, organised programming at the Upton Gardens Girls Centre and mixed-sex, unsupervised football play. Results of the study indicate that these sporting activities contributed towards the capability development of the participants, with limitations toward challenging gender stereotypes and encouraging kinetically focused body image. While the female-only sport participation encouraged a positive sense of self-efficacy and fostered peer/mentor relationships, engagement in co-educational football supported girls' empowerment and the challenging of gender stereotypes. However, outcome towards progressive perspectives on sport and body image gleaned mixed results. As a whole, these results point to larger concerns within the sport for development field and the need for more in-depth and comprehensive critical research to better understand how sport impacts development initiatives.

The history of modern sport has been one of movement from local to regional, national and then global contexts. Colonialism has been a driving force behind the dissemination of modern sport around the world, reflecting and reinforcing the political, economic and cultural dynamics of liberal and neo-liberal imperialism. The evolution of modern sport encompasses a complex intersection of these colonial histories, including their oppressions and exploitations, and changing social norms on race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and more. In the United States of America, baseball became so popular that Albert Goodwill Spalding, a former player and sporting goods pioneer, financed a world baseball tour in 1888 (Lamster 2006). Although the world did not take to baseball as easily as Spalding had hoped, neither did Cuba take up cricket as Winston Churchill famously predicted in the late 1890s (Klein 2006). Spalding's tour did not lead to baseball storming the world; however, along with other endeavours, it did begin to put an American stamp on the global sports marketplace. Most notably, baseball's imprint thrived in areas where American imperialist interests were strong such as Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico and the Philippines. American missionaries also promoted the spread of baseball in addition to emerging trading interests in Japan, Taiwan and Central America as Gerald Gems outlines in his work (Gems 2012). American missionaries were partly responsible as well for the spread of soccer (football) in sub-Saharan Africa as they believed it to be a good sport for urbanizing Africans to play (Cobley 1997; Nauright 2010). Sporting organizations are legitimating institutions that have done little to challenge the dominant world system propagated by the West and North and spread through the imperial and neo-imperial mechanisms of conquest, economic control and political intervention. Indeed, when athletes actively protest at sporting events, organizations frequently take steps to punish such activity. Parrish (2018) and Ueda (2017) have shown that the global flows in sport are not unidirectional, however, particularly in the cases of polo and judo. Virtually every sport has followed an expansion pattern from localized roots to global impact, though some remain largely concentrated in a small number of countries such as Australian or American football. Even these sports are becoming more and more global with players from other countries in the professional leagues. The arrival of the eSports industry has created global platforms for VR sports-related gaming possible. In this collection of studies from around the world, we follow the trajectory of sport in the international realm

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