Drawing and comics - Revisiting sport for development and peace

This chapter outlines how the use of an arts-based approach to ethnography, particularly the use of comic-making, has value for researchers interested in sport and development. The use of comics as a form of observation, information gathering, and representation has a long history in anthropology and development but has received less attention within studies of sport. Through this chapter, I argue that drawing, as a process, is inherently reflective as it requires researchers to critically engage with and represent their relationships with people, places, and histories. Further, drawings, as objects, allow for important forms of revisiting and reflection. At first glance, connections between sport for development and peace (SDP), ethnography, and drawing comics may not seem apparent. Yet, it was an essential part of my own ethnographic research project looking at sport and social change in a South African township. Through my experience, I came to the opinion that drawing and making comics as a methodology offered me something unique. In a recently published article, I argued that the medium of comics and the process of drawing contributed to a reflexive approach to ethnography that allowed for ongoing processes of wandering, wondering, and relationship building, across both time and space (Forde, 2021). Borrowing from the artist, critic, and art historian John Berger, I argued that drawing and comics acted as sites of departure and arrival and in this chapter, I explore Berger’s ideas by revisiting and reflecting on three sets of drawings. Through this process, I aim to show the possibilities that drawing can provide to researchers interested in SDP and ethnography.