Forming the association-like organisation : On civil society, welfare provision and sport as a means of social inclusion

This article concern how sport is conceptualised as a response to challenges of segregation, exclusion and conflict. We examine a sports-based social intervention and analyse how an association-like organization is set up as a means of promoting social inclusion and community. The examinations are based on statements made by representatives of the intervention and analysed from a governmentality perspective. In discourse, it is articulated that self-generating social exclusion reinforces patterns of ethno-cultural segregation. In response, the sports-based intervention provides an association-like arena, where role-models can reach out to youths, enact proper conduct and Swedish-ness, introduce to Swedish civil society associations and promote social inclusion. The association-like organisation alerts how traditional sector divides are contingent, and that the welfare state and civil society are entangled. Consequently, we need to look beyond this divide in order to focus on how social problems are countered in contemporary society