Boxing, Gender and Development: An Organisational Ethnography of Boxgirls Kenya

Since the early 2000s, the UN has supported Sport for Development (SfD) interventions focusing on girls, young women and gender equality, with the intention of contributing to a wide array of development goals. Taking a postcolonial feminist approach, this research sought to understand the lived experiences of those who engage in such interventions and the impacts that SfD organisations may have on both female participants and the wider community. The thesis is based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and interviews, with Boxgirls Kenya (BGK), a SfD organisation which uses boxing as a tool for social change for girls and young women. The structure of the thesis reflects the findings that, first, boxing may or may not contribute towards development aims, specifically those relating to gender equality, and second, various relationships are important in recruiting and retaining participants as well as influencing individual and collective change.

Within the existing research on women and girls in SfD, the study makes a number of distinctive contributions. Firstly, I argue that the whole organisation is important in shaping participants’ experiences and any changes which occur as a result of their engagement in BGK. Secondly, I nuance existing critiques that SfD primarily only influences individual change through demonstrating the importance of relationality. I also demonstrate how BGK directly engages with various community members through what I term a ‘spokes approach’, suggesting that SfD may be able to influence both individual and collective change in particular ways. Furthermore, given that SfD is entangled in neoliberalism, I demonstrate the ways in which BGK provides participants with strategies to navigate neoliberal environments. Finally, girls and women participating in boxing simultaneously confirm and challenge traditional gender norms within Kenya. Yet, boxing can provide participants with skills that they may be able to use to improve their life situations in future.