Try reversing the norm! Playing sports and exercising like in Overvecht
Soccer association SVO De Dreef in the Utrecht neighbourhood Overvecht is not only a sports club, but also a living room for the neighbourhood. Children, youngsters and their parents can come here to play sports, exercise and seek each other out. Kathrine van den Bogert from Utrecht University did ethnographic research into the societal impact of the association. In a new video and a blog, she shares its outcomes. She speaks out in favour of policy makers and researchers not always looking at neighbourhoods and people in poverty from the perspective of a ‘flaw’. This is because they tend to treat the groups they belong to themselves as the norm with almost no exception. On top of that: if you really zoom in on the neighbourhood of Overvecht, you really see all the beautiful things happening there too.
The research by Kathrine van den Bogert was a part of a collaboration between Utrecht University, FC Utrecht and SVO De Dreef, in which Van den Bogert spent two years intensively following the players, trainers, volunteers, board members and neighbourhood coach Abid, and also participated in activities.
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Try reversing the norm! Playing sports and exercising like in Overvecht
Blog by Kathrine van den Bogert
Sports research and policy about Overvecht or comparable neighbourhoods, currently often called “attention neighbourhoods” or “low SEP neighbourhoods”, usually focus on the lack of playing sports and exercising in these neighbourhoods: “Residents in attention neighbourhoods play sports less”, “Adults in low socio-economic positions exercise much less” and “Low SEP in sports”. In such research projects and grant calls, neat graphs and infographics make an inexhaustible differentiation between people with “high SEPs” (or as Tim ’S Jongers put it: people with money) and people with “low SEPs” (people who live in poverty), almost always by people who themselves belong in the “high SEP” graph.
No matter how nuanced this “high SEP” sometimes tries to be by rightfully giving attention to the underlying structural factors of social inequality, how many experience experts from the “low SEPs” they may involve in it (often unpaid!), the underlying final message still always is: “Play sports more. Participate more. Become like us.”
Good intentions solve nothing
Researchers and policy makers structurally look at neighbourhoods and people in poverty from the perspective of a ‘flaw’ (they do not play sports enough, they do not participate enough, they do not eat healthily enough), and they continuously uphold the group they belong to themselves as the norm with almost no exception. I have also seen that this virtually always comes out of good intentions and sincere concerns. But: good intentions solve nothing, only make the situation worse in the worst-case scenario, if the focus is off. This grant call should not be “residents in attention neighbourhoods play sports less”, but “poverty policy makes healthy living and playing sports impossible”.
This way, you address the true problem: the inhuman system which has to continue in order to fight poverty but only maintains the social inequality and poverty in the end. It is an unfair form of ‘broccoli paternalism’ - imposing ‘living healthily’ for someone's ‘own good’ - in order to say that people despite poverty and all the additional energy this costs, often physically taxing jobs at unholy times (crucial professions like the cleaning and healthcare sectors) should also play sports more on top of that, in what little free time they have left. I would say: do not send sports-stimulating projects or researchers to these people but really appreciate their inestimable value to society for a change.
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The fun of playing sports and playing outside together
On top of that, this focus on ‘flaws’ is not the entire picture by a long shot. If you really zoom in on the neighbourhood Overvecht, and not simply capture the residents in some little numbers on sports participation, you will then see all the beautiful things which are happening there too. Children who are having fun and are learning new things, parents watching proudly from the sidelines and enjoying the beautiful weather together. Mothers on social media sharing videos of training sessions and appreciating teams and volunteers.
Then you will see all these various ways in which residents do actually already participate, already exercise, already play sports, already “participate”. How they take care of each other, set up meaningful sports and societal initiatives together; exactly in a neighbourhood like Overvecht where an individual gym membership is not affordable to many people.
Even if you look well at the little numbers, you will see that adults in “low SEP” spend much less of the day sitting than people in “high SEP” and that children with low-income parents play outside much more than children in richer neighbourhoods. Playing outside is a combination of creativity, discovering, exercising, playing together, intercultural meetings, solving conflicts by yourself and autonomy. Skills which are of inestimable value in a society experiencing the increasing problems of individualisation, and which cannot be practised like that in all organised sports by far. Then why do we never read “Children in rich neighbourhoods play outside far less”, “Adults in rich neighbourhoods contribute far less to the sense of community” or “People in high SEP sit much more”? It is about time to reverse the norm and focus on what some people in richer neighbourhoods can learn from people in poorer neighbourhoods.
Not consuming but contributing to the community
In the entire width of sports, existing forms of sports organisations and sports participation are under pressure. Associations have difficulty keeping (youth) members and volunteers involved, especially in an individualistic, capitalist society in which people have come to see sports more and more as a “consumption product” that you purchase instead of a community in which everyone contributes. At SVO De Dreef, they have successfully turned this trend around. The teams and volunteers have almost doubled in the past years, and board members and volunteers' dedication remains unabatedly high. Tirelessly, they dedicate themselves to ensuring that each child from the neighbourhood can go to the sports association, and that they receive the required facilities for this, such as an additional grass pitch.
So: Be like the Overvechters. Be like the players, volunteers, trainers and board members of SVO De Dreef. Play sports and exercise like in Overvecht!
The video was made by Kathrine van den Bogert in collaboration with Tess Kanters, Wouter Verwijlen and Tobias Mathijsen (Utrecht University Media Productions).