Round-up: Sport & Forced Displacement

News:

Refugees are participating in two major international sporting events over the next two months. Today is the opening day of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. A team of 37 refugee athletes will be competing in 12 different sports. More info is available on the official Paris Olympics website. The Paralympic Games begin on 28 August 2024, and include a refugee team of eight athletes and one guide runner competing in six sports. 

Related UNHCR press releases include:

- At Paris Olympics opening, UNHCR’s Grandi hails refugee athletes as a beacon of hope and peace (26 July 2024) [text]

- IPC unveils largest Refugee Paralympic Team ever for Paris 2024 (9 July 2024) [text]

- IOC Refugee Olympic Team to represent more than 100 million displaced people at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 (2 May 2024) [text]

UNHCR publications:

Evaluation on the Relevance and Effectiveness of Sport Programming for Refugee Inclusion and Protection, EVO/2022/12 (UNHCR & IOC, April 2022) [text]

- See also related Annexes.

More Than a Game: The UNHCR Sport Strategy 2022-2026 (Nov. 2022) [text]

Sport for Protection Toolkit: Programming with Young People in Forced Displacement Settings (UNHCR, IOC & Terre des Hommes, Oct. 2018) [text]

- Other language versions are available here. See also a related guide for implementing partners.

Olympic Games: Objectives & Assessments

"Disrupting the global refugee crisis or celebrity humanitarianism? Media frames of the Refugee Olympic Team at 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo summer games," Sport in Society, vol. 25, no. 3 (2022) [ResearchGate]

Diversity at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: Gender, Race and Refugees (CAp-UERJ, 2023) [open access]

- Scroll to p. 133 for the section that focuses on refugees.

Olympic Refuge: safe spaces for sport (Olympic Refuge Foundation, 2020) [text]

Refugee Olympic Team: A Message of Hope and Solidarity - Media Kit (International Olympic Committee, 2021) [text]

"Respecting the Right to Nationality in International Sport," Chapter in Sports and Human Rights (Springer, 2024) [open access]

- Scroll to p. 149.

"Understanding Olympic Diplomacy: The Refugee Team at the 2020 Tokyo Games," Cuerpo Cultura y Movimiento, vol. 13, no. 1 (2023) [open access]

General:

"Editorial: Realising the cross-cutting potential of sport in situations of forced displacement," BMJ Global Health, vol. 7, no. 4 (2022) [open access]

Research based interventions in the sports ecosystem (Sportanddev.org, Nov. 2022) [text]

- "Inclusive and collaborative research is needed to better address the needs of forcibly displaced people."

"'Should I really be here?’: Problems of trust and ethics in PAR with young people from refugee backgrounds in sport and leisure," Sport in Society, vol. 25, no. 3 (2022) [open access]

- Focuses on Participatory Action Research.

Sport, Forced Migration and the 'Refugee Crisis' (Routledge, Feb. 2023) [open access]

- Chapter 2 provides a "State of the Art Research on Forced Migration and Sport."

Sport in Society, vol. 25, no. 3 (2022) [contents]

- Special issue on "Forced Migration and Sport." The introduction is freely available and four articles are open access. Note: This was subsequently published as a book.

"Sport, Refugees, and Forced Migration: A Critical Review of the Literature," Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 10 Oct. 2019 [open access]

"A Systematic Review of Research on Sport Migration," Migration & Diversity, vol. 1, no. 1 (2022) [open access]

Integration & Belonging:

"Beyond integration: football as a mobile, transnational sphere of belonging for refugee-background young people," Leisure Studies, Latest Articles, 12 Aug. 2021 [open access]

"Critically examining a community-based participatory action research project with forced migrant youth," Sport in Society, vol. 25, no. 3 (2022) [open access]

"Developing a multi-level framework for analyzing public sports-based programmes to integrate migrants and refugees into organized sports," Sport in Society, vol. 27, no. 7 (2024) [open access]

"European voluntary sport clubs’ enabling and constraining effects on refugees’ social inclusion: an integrative review," Sport in Society, Latest Articles, 4 April 2024 [open access]

"Informal sport and (non)belonging among Hazara migrants in Australia," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 49, no. 17 (2023) [open access]

"Migrant Integration and Cultural Capital in the Context of Sport and Physical Activity: A Systematic Review," Journal of International Migration and Integration, vol. 20, no. 3 (Aug. 2019) [open access]

"Team and Nation: Sports, Nationalism, and Attitudes Toward Refugees," Comparative Political Studies, vol. 54, no. 12 (Oct. 2021) [open access]

- Focuses on the 2019 Africa Cup football match between Kenya and Tanzania.

"Ukrainian refugees and the Swedish sports movement: new opportunities and challenges," European Sport Management Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 3 (2024) [open access]

What does "safe sport" mean for forced migrant athletes? Stories and lessons for forced migrant athletes resettled in Canada, Final report for the IOC Olympic Studies Centre Advanced Olympic Research Grant Programme (2022) [text]

"Young refugees’ experiences of accumulating horizontal and vertical social capital through organised and informal sports," International Review for the Sociology of Sport, OnlineFirst, 6 Dec. 2023 [open access]

Physical/mental health benefits:

"The (in)significance of footballing pleasures in the lives of forced migrant men," Sport in Society, vol. 25, no. 3 (2022) [open access]

"Precariousness, Sport Participation and Hope among Young People after Rejections in the Swedish Asylum Process," Nordic Journal of Migration Research, vol. 14, no. 3 (2024) [open access]

"'They play together, they laugh together': Sport, play and fun in refugee sport projects," Sport in Society, vol. 25, no. 3 (2022) [open access]

Think Sport. Think Refuge Podcast Series (Olympic Refuge Foundation, 2024) [access]

- "Explores sport's role in promoting peace, belonging, and well-being for refugees."

Uniting the sport and mental health fields to support young people affected by displacement (Sportanddev.org, June 2024 [text]

Winning the Game: How Sport for Development supports the psychological well-being of adolescent refugees (UNICEF, April 2023) [text]

Resource:

Sport and Development [access]

- "This page is aimed at organizations currently using, or aiming to use, sport in their work with refugees, internally displaced people, asylum seekers and host communities. It provides background information on the subject, information and links to key resources, as well as guidance and advice on some of the key considerations when working with displaced people."