Local meanings of a sport mega-event's legacies: Stories from a South African urban neighbourhood

Abstract

Studies on sport mega-events and their legacies often seem only loosely connected to local experiences. Stories on sport mega-event legacy appear as a setting-the-scene or function as a reference to illustrate specific types of legacy. However, stories themselves are never the primary focus in these studies. What is generally lacking from these studies is an interpretive perspective, giving voice to ordinary citizens’ everyday experiences of legacies in mundane aspects of their lives and their local environment. The article aims to add an analysis of stories to the existing body of knowledge as an innovative way of interpreting sport mega-events’ legacies. We introduce a narrative ethnographic approach for studying sport mega-event legacy, by looking at the way stories and narrative analysis are used to conceptualise legacy in the sociological subfield of ageing-studies. In our case study we show how citizens from one Johannesburg township make sense of the legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup one year after the event, by analysing people's stories about two sport-for-development projects. We conclude that local residents of the township of Alexandra perceive changes in public safety and the image of Alexandra as the most important positive legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. At the same time they take a critical stance towards the World Cup's legacy, because personal situations and community structures were often disrupted, rather than improved. We maintain that a narrative ethnographic approach provides extensive accounts about sport mega-event legacies, which help to better understand the different faces of sport mega-events’ legacies at a micro level.