Reconceptualising informality in sport participation: Towards understanding (in)formalisation of sport governance

Abstract

The ongoing change in sport participation patterns is discussed often in the context of ‘informal’ sport on the rise and ‘formal’ sport struggling to attract more participants. While studies have revealed both ‘self-organised’ and ‘regulated’ aspects of ‘informal’ sport and indicated complex power relations in its governing processes, the possibly incongruent terms of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ as modifiers of sport participation have not been fully explored. Drawing on an approach to (in)formality developed in urban studies, we aim to develop an alternative view to (in)formality in sporting contexts with which to better understand the governing processes of sport participation. This aim is better achieved after highlighting the risk of the terms ‘informal’ and ‘formal’, and associated binaries – organised/unorganised (self-organised), regulated/unregulated, and institutionalised/non-institutionalised – that can substantialise in/formality in a particular domain of sporting activities. The alternative view repositions (in)formality as processes rather than categories of participation forms. This perspective can reveal power relations manifested in the negotiation practices that stabilise and destabilise sporting resources, institutions, and even the differentiation between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sport itself, which will lead to unequal opportunities for participation.

Introduction

‘Informal’ sport and ‘formal’ sport form an intuitive yet ambiguous classification with which to understand sport participation. Formal sport intuitively refers to club-based sport for which sport governing bodies (e.g. the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, the National Football League, England Football, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and School Sport Australia) can make important decisions, enact governance and constitute ‘long-established sporting structures’ (Jeanes et al., 2019, 81). Informal sport can be, again intuitively, considered as sport played ‘outside’ of these structures, such as park soccer, cycle bunch rides (O’Connor and Brown, 2007), ‘parkrun’ (Hindley, 2022), skateboarding contests (Beal, 1995), and sport events organised through social media platforms.

The term ‘informal’ sport is found across the literature including cultural studies of lifestyle and action sport (e.g. Wheaton, 2013; Wheaton and O’Loughlin, 2017) and sociological studies of sport participation more broadly (e.g. Jeanes et al., 2019; O’Connor and Brown, 2007; Van Den Bogert, 2023), urban studies of sport (Aquino et al., 2022; Bach, 1993), physical education (O’Connor and Penney, 2021) and statistical analyses of sport participation (e.g. Eime et al., 2020; Kokolakakis et al., 2017). Although the usage of the term is growing in popularity, what is meant by the concepts of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ remains ambiguous and not discussed in the literature.

Reconsidering the link between informal and formal sport participation is timely, not least because the binary view is increasingly being recognised as inadequate in revealing the complex relations between ‘formal’ club-based or elite sport and ‘informal’ sport participation. This blurring of the binary view of sport participation is illustrated by, for example, the incorporation of action sports in to the Olympic Games (Thorpe and Wheaton, 2011), the development of organisational bodies for parkour (Wheaton and O’Loughlin, 2017) and inequalities of resources between club-based sport and informal sport in sport participation governance (Jeanes et al., 2019).

These studies, rather than confirming the nature of ‘informal’ sport as played ‘outside of formal structures’, indicate power-laden negotiations for legitimacies or authorities regarding particular forms of sport participation. The term ‘informal’ sport may not reflect these political processes which can impact on participation opportunities and experiences.

The unquestioned categorisation of sporting activities can be problematic because it can, as we argue below, lead to unequal participation opportunities among differentiated sport participation forms through substantiating their very ‘informal’ or ‘formal’ nature. For example, ‘formalised’ sport clubs are typically granted access to sport facilities while ‘informalised’ groups and individuals struggle to navigate various regulations including liability insurance and facility booking requirements (Jeanes et al., 2022). Instead of the static informal/formal category, we propose that developing a more nuanced view of informal–formal relations can help to better understand the power dynamics inherent in the ongoing changing patterns in participation (Jeanes et al., 2019) and challenge the current state of sport provision and its capacity to meet the diverse need of society.

Our primary objective of this paper is to develop an alternative view to (in)formality with which to better understand the governing processes of sport participation. This is done by drawing on a theoretical lens primarily developed in urban studies where (in)formality has been used to critically engage with informal–formal relations. Using the notion of informality as a mode of negotiation, we conceptualise the processes of (in)formalisation through which particular forms of sport participation are (un)authorised and (il)legitimised in a nuanced manner. We also argue the risks of the terms ‘informal’ and ‘formal’, and associated binaries – organised/unorganised (self-organised), regulated/unregulated, and institutionalised/non-institutionalised – that can substantiate informality/formality in a particular domain of sporting activities. These concepts risk blurring or overlooking how the very ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ in different forms of sport participation are enacted in a nuanced manner and subject to negotiation, especially through the urban processes of organising spaces and spatial regulations. By moving away from the informal/formal dichotomy, this paper contributes to Gilchrist and Wheaton's (2017) call for non-dualist thoughts that take into account the governing processes of the diverse forms of sport participation.

In the following, first, we identify possibly problematic binary assumptions in the current usage of the term ‘informal’ sport in the literature on sport participation. Second, we introduce a brief context of urban informality debates and the theoretical idea of informality as a mode of negotiation processes (Alsayyad, 2004; McFarlane and Waibel, 2012; Roy, 2005). Third and finally, we translate the lens of urban informality into the context of sport participation governance.

The meanings and risks of ‘informal’ in sport participation

This section reviews the usage of the term ‘informal’ sport in the literature and identifies its risky binary assumptions about the nature of particular participation forms. These binary views must be questioned before conceptualising an alternative (in)formality because these can limit the better capturing of nuanced governing processes of sport participation explored in the later sections.

Meanings of ‘informal’ sport in the literature

Across the usage of the term ‘informal’ sport, we can recognise binary assumptions about how particular forms of sport participation are governed. In characterising a form of sport as ‘informal’, researchers typically refer to the relative autonomy of sport participants from the long-standing authorities of sport (i.e. sport associations, clubs, and coaches). For example, Jeanes et al. (2019, 81), in referring to the diverse usage of the term ‘informal sport’ in the literature, summarises that this term can refer to forms of participation that ‘fall outside of long-established sporting structures’. Bach (1993), in the perhaps first historical attempt to distinguish ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sport, defines that ‘informal sport activities’:

contain such sports and activities not offered, organized, and actively supported by schools, sports clubs, employers, the work place, or other commercial or non-commercial ventures. In informal sports, spontaneous participation is an important criterion, since these activities need neither be conditioned on established rules, regulations, and forms of sportified competition, nor on available, high performance facilities. (Bach, 1993, 283)

‘Informal’ is especially tied with ‘lifestyle sports’ which refers to the expanding list of subcultural sporting activities that were (at least until the 1990s) marginal compared to Western traditional sports (e.g. football, rugby, and tennis), including windsurfing (Wheaton and Tomlinson, 1998), snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX, rock climbing, and parkour (Wheaton, 2004). Wheaton (2013, 37) states that ‘One of the defining features of lifestyle sports is their spontaneous nature, with participation predominantly taking place in informal settings, often with a lack of external regulation or institutionalisation’. Their relative autonomy is associated with the aspects of consumerism, lifestyle, and identity formation in sport participation (Wheaton, 2004). This focus orients informal (and lifestyle) sport studies towards exploring participants’ lived experiences to understand different and shared nuances of sporting cultures and associated lifestyles (e.g. Atkinson, 2009; Green et al., 2015; King and Church, 2015).

‘Informal’ sport, especially but not limited to lifestyle sport contexts, emphasises its ‘self-organised’ nature. Studies often frame ‘informal’ sport as involving ‘self-organised’ cultures whereby participants learn about sporting practices from each other without being supervised (Säfvenbom et al., 2018) and generated within a ‘self-governance’ consisting of participants and managers sharing the cultural understanding of a sport (King and Church, 2017). The practice of ‘self-governing’ across lifestyle sports and more traditional sporting disciplines may include scheduling participation (Blue, 2017; O’Connor and Brown, 2007), organising sessions by using social media (McGrath, 2019), engaging in comparison and competition via digital technologies (Barratt, 2017) and negotiating or co-creating a shared space made up for the informal activity (King and Church, 2015; L’Aoustet and Griffet, 2001; Rinehart and Grenfell, 2002).

Risks of the informal/formal sport binary

Understanding ‘Informal’ sport as ‘self-organised’ and sport that has a ‘lack of external regulation or institutionalisation’ is problematic as it renders less visible (a) the regulated, institutionalised, and organised aspects of ‘informal’ sport, and (b) how formality, legitimacy and authority are produced and thus how resources and institutions for sport participation are negotiated through governing processes.

There are many cases of ‘informal’ participation where its various aspects, such as space, equipment, schedule, and sporting rules, are negotiable to participants only to limited extents. For example, Fahlén (2017) described a Swedish ‘informal’ sport provision project that aimed to increase youth participation in organised club sport, that was government-funded and conducted by a local sport club. In this project, ‘organised spontaneous sports’ (Fahlén, 2017, 503) were offered in the form of non-competitive activities without requesting its participants any form of club membership, participation fees, and pre-registration. Participants could join a session whenever they wanted (as long as a session was held). Forming of a social running event of ‘parkrun’ produces an interesting cross over that incorporates both highly regulated and unregulated elements of sport (Hindley, 2022). Participants can decide their degree of commitment and pursue enjoyment, socialisation, health, achievement, or any other goals, yet it is scheduled, permitted, measured and managed. Thus, framing participation forms as either formal/informal, organised/unorganised (self-organised), regulated/unregulated, and institutionalised/non-institutionalised is inadequate to capture nuanced regulations and deregulations of sports.

The apparent autonomy assumed in ‘informal’ sport is especially questioned in the emerging perspectives of ‘spatial politics’ (Van Den Bogert, 2022) in sport participation. Public spaces where ‘informal’ sport happens, including, urban streets, parks and football courts, are subject to various types of written and unwritten regulations (Jeanes et al., 2022; Van Den Bogert, 2022). Written regulations can be seen in, for instance, facility booking systems (Jeanes et al., 2022) and signage in streets and parks (Gilchrist and Osborn, 2017). Space users can implicitly de/legitimise particular groups’ access to the space based on gender, age, and other identity factors (Van Den Bogert, 2022). ‘Self-organised’ participation, in fact, has to undergo negotiations with these regulations.

In this context of spatial politics, it is the taken-for-granted distinctions of in/formalities, il/legitimacies, and un/authorities that need to be critically explored. Naturalising the ‘informality’ in particular forms of participation can even uncritically reproduce its less legitimated and authorised status compared to the participation through state-recognised sport clubs.

What characterises ‘informal’ sport participation is likely to be the hybrid elements of regulation and deregulation, which leads to blurring the boundary between ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ sport. Informality and formality in sport participation should be reconsidered to account for this hybridity and the negotiation processes for informal and formal statuses themselves. In the next section, we turn to the discussion of informality in urban studies where a similar problem of this dichotomy is addressed.

Conceptualising informality

We seek to reconceptualise informality in the sport participation context by drawing on a cohesive body of the literature on informality in urban studies where urban ‘informal’ phenomena such as ‘informal economy’ and ‘informal settlement’ are investigated (Alsayyad, 2004; Banks et al., 2020; Boudreau and Davis, 2017; Herrle and Fokdal, 2011; McFarlane, 2012; McFarlane and Waibel, 2012; Roy, 2005). We do not attempt to define ‘informal sport’ itself by clarifying the difference between ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ phenomena. Rather, it is used to overcome the dichotomy that frames a particular form of sport participation as ‘formal’ and the others ‘informal’. The result is an understanding of (in)formal sport that is more open in describing the relations among actors and their practices that co-construct the governing processes of sport participation.

The informality debates in the field of urban studies primarily originated in the 1970s from the emergence of the ‘informal’ economic sector consisting of self-employed and unprotected labour, such as street vending and small artisans. This labour was increasing due to more rural-urban immigrations in developing countries (Alsayyad, 2004). In the same vein, the International Labour Office's (1972, 504) popular view stated that ‘Enterprises and individuals within [the informal sector] operate largely outside the system of government benefits and regulation’. This dualism positioned the informal sector in contrast to the formal sector and came to be used to frame other urban phenomena such as ‘informal’ settlement and more generally the lives of urban poor, known colloquially as the ‘informals’ (Alsayyad, 2004).

More recently, this dualistic view of informality underwent criticism as alternative views were developed. Roy (2005) pointed out informality does not exclusively belong to the communities of urban poor but also exists in rich lives such as in the form of gated communities, and many forms of informalities are shaped through the government's regulations and resource redistributions. Thus, Roy conceptualised informality as a ‘mode of urbanisation’ rather than a sector. McFarlane and Waibel (2012) drew on Alsayyad (2004) and Roy (2005) to define informality as a ‘negotiable value’ where rules and norms are kept flexible and constantly renegotiated. Herrle and Fokdal (2011) sought to move away from the term ‘informality’ and argued for focusing on the process of negotiation that (de)legitimises or (il)legalises a particular practice intuitively labelled as ‘informal’.

Boudreau and Davis (2017), in questioning the binary between the traditional ‘informal’ and the modern ‘formal’, referred to informality as ‘ongoing processes’ coupled with ‘formalisation’ rather than static conditions that essentialise ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ objects. As we elaborate below, these urban informality debates essentially indicate the shift from attributing informality to a particular domain of activities or ways of life typically considered outside the ‘formal’ realm towards understanding informality as ‘processes’ whereby negotiation outcomes, such as resources, rules, and legitimacies of urban activities, are kept flexible rather than fixed.

The challenge urban informality research faces surprisingly resonates with those recently discussed under the term ‘informal’ sport. Roy (2005, 2011) questions the dominant discourse that identifies the ‘informal’ with either urban poor's subordination to or their ‘self-organised’ heroic resistance against the ‘formal’ elite bureaucracy. This is because the production of ‘informal’ objects delegitimises or unauthorises urban poor and their places while the state can claim and control these ‘informal’ places by ‘formalising’ them (Roy, 2011). Roy (2005) proposes to rethink of the informal–formal relation as the problem of ‘policy epistemology’ which reflects on strategies and devices with which the state legitimises or authorises particular ways of living. In sport, a similar problem of policy epistemology is indicated in the recent discussions that highlight how policies such as governmental funding and facility distribution are legitimised based on the dominant understanding of sport provision and sporting space (Jeanes et al., 2019; King and Church, 2017; Neal et al., 2023). Going beyond the ‘management’ of the designated ‘informal’, this problem of informality is addressed towards inquiring how legitimacy and authority regarding different forms of (sporting) activities are produced (Roy, 2011).

By translating urban studies’ general approach to informality into sport studies, we can critically reconsider the binary assumptions about sport participation reviewed earlier and develop better understandings of informality not associated with the nature of how a particular form of sport is (self-)governed but with negotiations that (de)legitimise resources and institutions for participation. The alternative concept of (in)formality serves as a ‘heuristic devise’ (Roy, 2011, 233) to identify the flexibility and fixity of (un)authorised and (de)legitimised resources and institutions that potentially exclude particular sport participation forms and groups. In the following, we unpack the meaning of informality as processes.

To grasp this lens of informality, it may be better to start with what ‘formalisation’ is. Boudreau and Davis (2017) argue that formalisation ideals are embraced, but not exclusively, in the modernisation projects of the state:

the construction of the modern state combined with the requisites of capitalist development to give life to multiple efforts to order complex social and economic practices, often with the aim of better controlling societies and enabling more robust markets. (Boudreau and Davis, 2017, 152)

In relation to sport, the state's projects of formalisation may be observed in the development of the sporting structures in which club-based sports are organised, the provision of physical education in compulsory educational curricula, and the provision of public sport facilities such as stadia, courts, pitches, gymnasiums, pools, and tracks. For Boudreau and Davis, these formalising ideals helped establish the dichotomies of the formal and the informal. These, in turn, contributed to characterising the state's practices as ‘formal’, orderly, and legitimate whilst viewing the ‘informal’ as distinct from the former, unregulated, and sometimes even illegitimate.

However, these ‘formal’ systems do not operate coherently in practice (Boudreau and Davis, 2017). Public infrastructure is unevenly distributed. The law is occasionally suspended. In a governance, some groups of people more influence decision-making than others. This ‘uneven modernisation’ (Boudreau and Davis, 2017) implies that informal processes, understood as flexibility, exist behind the very ideals of the state-formalisation. These include internal contradictions (Haid, 2017), suspension of rules (Roy, 2005) and (re-)negotiability of decisions (McFarlane, 2012).

The categories of the state-formal and the informal are inadequate to capture the state's involvement in informalisation that can condition the activities labelled as ‘informal’. Banks et al. (2020) argue that the binary view of informality risks having too narrow a focus on the individual domain (i.e. informal sport) or group (i.e. informal sport participants), ‘overlooking the complex relationships and processes beyond that domain or group that shape and determine them’ (Banks et al., 2020, 227). This does not necessarily mean locating the state as a backdrop of sport participation in the analysis as if the state's influences are unconditionally present in situations of participation. Instead, this relational thinking looks at positions, strategies and tactics, and channels between actors beyond the in/formal domains who are involved in the relational governing processes of urban activities (Banks et al., 2020). In other words, these processes happen within a constellation of actors’ negotiating agencies (e.g. authority to set rules and norms, legitimacy of particular conducts, and access to resources, and ability to violate, circumvent, and overwrite rules), which are not based on their conceived statuses, such as the ‘state’, the ‘formal’ and the ‘informal’.

The very statuses of the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ are, too, negotiated within governance. In analysing the politics regarding ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ urban agriculture, McClintock et al. (2021) argue that:

Regulations, plans and codes are operationalized to regulate and facilitate certain forms of urban agriculture that match the contemporary neoliberalized orientation of planning and policymaking… The governance of urban agriculture is also a field of political negotiation, resistance and differential inclusion in which some are involved enough to influence and benefit from the formal regulations while others operate outside of them, either as a result of exclusion or in order to envision different practices and landscapes. (McClintock et al., 2021, 499)

The status of ‘formality’ is constructed through the practices of rule-making and selective enforcement on which some actors have more influences than others. Identifying the power relations in this negotiation can only be achieved by abandoning the preconception of formality and informality respectively tied to the ‘formal’ sporting systems and clubs, and ‘informal’ participants.

The ‘ambiguous’ operations of the state authority in the governance of a park observed by Haid (2017) provide an example of what the political, practical processes of (in)formalisation might look like. Haid (2017) reports about food selling activities at a park in Berlin that were taking place even though residents complaint of smells, left garbage, and occupancy had led the local government to create a set of rules to restrict this particular form of activities. For Haid, these activities continued to exist in part because the government's response to them involved ambiguities: the government officers were reluctant to eliminate the activities or give them formal permission. In practice, these officers believed some residents would protest against forced displacement and therefore tolerated the activities by not fully enforcing the regulation (Haid, 2017). Haid points out the state created the apparent informality, or ‘permanent temporariness’ (Haid, 2017, 296) of the food selling at a park by imposing a standard and, at the same time, suspending its enforcement. The governance of public sport facilities involves similar processes. The persistence of many sporting activities that do not fulfil the official requirements of insurance permits and facility bookings is perceived ‘problematic’ (Jeanes et al., 2022). However, the ‘informal’ status of these activities is relationally created through those very requirements and their partial enforcement.

Conversely, what is regarded as an ‘informal’, ‘self-organised’ practice can be interpreted as some degrees of regulation or formalisation. Schindler (2014) observes ‘everyday governance regimes’ that enable sustained street vending in New Delhi, despite the state's plan to limit this activity. These regimes consist of street vendors and non-state actors that share local interests and manage to access or control resources to enable the activity. Schindler argues that governance is not singular as typically conceptualised but there exist ‘multiple governance regimes’ (Schindler, 2014, 415). Similar ‘regimes’ can be recognised in sporting contexts. For example, O’Connor and Brown (2007) observe groups of cyclists who bunch-ride through urban streets without joining competitive cycling clubs in Australia. The authors report that those groups were not completely informal because they structure practices, adopt quasi-leadership roles, schedule ‘events’ on social media, and organise their own uniforms. However, Schindler (2014) emphasises that these apparently self-organised ‘regimes’ exist in parallel with other regimes involving the state officers’ practices, forming the complex interactions among the state and non-state actors.

Consequently, ‘formal’ sport and ‘informal’ sport are each not in and of itself fully formal or informal. Across this distinction of sport participation forms, both formal and informal processes exist. This hybridity of (in)formality indicates that instead of trying to redraw a distinction between the two, one should recognise the relationality among different actors and their practices in the governing processes of what is intuitively labelled as ‘informal’ (Boudreau and Davis, 2017). Sport participation practices are shaped relationally by actors negotiating resources, rules, and norms. By focusing on the processes of (in)formality, one can see how sport participation typically considered ‘informal’ happens not only in relation to its participants’ practices but also institutional processes that are typically considered to belong to the state and club- and elite-sport systems.

Negotiation mechanisms in (in)formalisation processes include ‘interpretation, interaction, adaptation, and domination’ (Boudreau and Davis, 2017, 163). To turn back to the example of the park food selling activities provided by Haid (2017), government officers could interpret rules set by the government themselves to only partially enforce them. Officers’ continuous interaction with the food sellers in regulating the activities resulted in both parties’ adaptation to the situation, such as the vendors’ retreating from the park only when officers appear (Haid, 2017). As for domination, Haid (2017, 297) notes ‘the state always remained sovereign; that is, able to determine what is tolerated and what is not’ but in a negotiated manner. It is through these relational practices that legitimacy and authority, and resources, and rules regarding a particular form of activities are continuously (de)stabilised.

Dichotomising the formal and the informal, as typically presented in the literature of sport studies (e.g. Jeanes et al., 2019; Säfvenbom et al., 2018; Tomlinson et al., 2005; Wheaton, 2013) involves the risk of overlooking the relational practices of (in)formalisation that crosscut categories such as the state, and ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sport stakeholders. Drawing on (in)formality as processes can be useful to unearth power relations manifested in the negotiations of sporting resources and institutions, including the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ statuses, through the governing practices of sport participation. The next section seeks to develop an alternative view that enables us to focus on this under-explored aspect of sport governance.

An alternative view of (in)formality in sport participation governance

As we have seen in the literature, notions of ‘informal’ sport are typically associated with ‘unregulated’, ‘un-institutionalised’ and ‘self-organised’ dimensions while regulated, institutionalised, and organised aspects of the activities offered the counter perspective. Drawing on the notion of (in)formality as processes, the former aspects of ‘informal’ sport may be understood as flexibility or negotiability of resources and rules while the latter as fixity or less negotiability of them (Boudreau and Davis, 2017; McFarlane, 2012). However, these processes are enabled by relations of the practices of actors involved (Boudreau and Davis, 2017) which can lead to destabilising what was stable, and vice versa. By focusing on these processes, we can better address the problem of the informal/formal sport binary that risks overlooking the hybridity of (in)formality involved in almost any forms of participation and the negotiated authorities and legitimacies that impact on the distribution of sporting resources and institutions. Consequently, this theoretical lens can be used to deconstruct the ‘formality’ in current sport provision systems by revealing power-laden negotiation practices behind the idealised informal/formal sport distinction.

Boudreau and Davis (2017) ideas of interpretation, interaction, adaptation, and domination can be useful also in sport context to analyse how resources and institutions are made negotiable or less so through various practices. For example, how ‘informal’ sport participants’ access to a sport facility becomes negotiable/non-negotiable is a question that requires critically analysing the operations of actors including the state and/or ‘formal’ sporting structures. A facility booking system can be a means by which facility access becomes less negotiable, while at the same time leaving a room for negotiation for particular groups through uneven enforcement of this regulation (Jeanes et al., 2019). How public officers interpret and interact with participant groups to enforce spatial regulations about sport and physical activities can fluctuate based on officers’ assumptions about gender, racial, or other identities (Jeanes et al., 2019; Paechter et al., 2023; Van Den Bogert, 2022). Adapting to the non-negotiable booking system, a third party such as a not-for-profit organisation may mediate participants’ access to a sport facility to circumvent the booking requirement (Jeanes et al., 2019). ‘Domination’ should be considered in a nuanced way as in this case of the not-for-profit's intervention. Although it is undeniable that the state officers and ‘recognised’ sport clubs and associations have more authority and discretion to determine resource distributions and rules, there is room for negotiation.

Practices of domination for authority and legitimacy can be mediated by other social, economic, and political relations, including migration (Aquino et al., 2022; De Martini Ugolotti, 2022), class (Aulakh, 2022; Silverstein, 2000), age (Van Den Bogert, 2022), and neoliberal policies (Smith, 2021). Although (in)formality is ubiquitous and operative at the everyday level, sport participation in ‘informal’ settlements or working-class neighbourhoods described, respectively, by Aulakh (2022) and Silverstein (2000) is illustrative of complex processes through which different interests and beliefs – nationalism, capitalistic development, marketing, racism, philanthropy, belonging to the space, and more – of the state-oriented development programmes, private and charity organisations, and groups of residents are at work in legitimising different forms of sporting activities and spaces. (In)formality as process can be used to investigate how logics and sentiments of belonging, conflict, discrimination, and ideology are deployed through (in)formalisation practices.

With this lens of (in)formality, the labelling of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ is subject to negotiations (McClintock et al., 2021; McFarlane, 2012; Roy, 2011). Clear examples of this point come from the (in)formalisations in the governance of sporting facilities. At least in Nordic countries, ‘formal’ sport clubs and organisations are influential in planning and designing publicly funded sporting facilities (Bergsgard et al., 2019). However, Rafoss and Troelsen (2010, 646), by referring to Norwegian governance structure, argues that the apparent legitimacy of the clubs’ and organisations’ access to the public funding for sporting facilities is largely founded on a ‘close informal relationship between the state and the sport organizations’. Similarly in Australia, ‘formal’ sport clubs ‘historically’ have their prioritised access to these spaces and go largely unquestioned (Jeanes et al., 2022, 8). Who should be included and excluded in the governance of sport facilities is flexible rather than codified. Nevertheless, clubs that have gained the ‘formal’ statuses from this process have ‘legitimate’ access to public facilities, while it is harder for participants intuitively labelled as ‘informal’ to gain legitimacy to use the facilities. Authorities can use the rhetoric of ‘formality’ to exercise power that legitimises particular activities over others (McFarlane and Waibel, 2012). ‘Formality’ and ‘legitimacy’ are enacted through (in)formalising processes which are worth exploring to uncover power relations between the forms of activities labelled as ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ (Haid and Hilbrandt, 2019).

The intermingled (in)formality in the political processes around ‘recognition’ is also found in lifestyle sports, although, unlike in traditional disciplines of sport as competition (Borge, 2021), the focus of negotiations tends to centre on the cultural values tied to these physical activities (including whether they should even be framed as ‘sport’) (Sterchele and Ferrero Camoletto, 2017; Wheaton and O’Loughlin, 2017). Puddle et al. (2019) describe the legitimising process of a form of parkour activities through the work of an organisation founded by local parkour practitioners in New Zealand. This process involved the organisation that became registered as a ‘charity’ instead of a ‘national sport organisation’ in both gaining public recognition and credibility and maintaining the values of parkour held by the organisation's members (Puddle et al., 2019). This case illustrates how the ‘legitimacy’ of a particular form of parkour was negotiated, whereby the parkour practitioners were bound to the dominating traditional framework of sport governance and yet adapted themselves to it by taking advantage of what was negotiable for them. In a nuanced way, they challenged the more conventional way of governing sport by gaining a negotiated ‘formal’ status.

Recognising the negotiation of the ‘formal’ statuses of sporting clubs and organisations leads to an important question: Which affiliation is made ‘legitimate’ in the sport participation governance? Presupposing particular groups of sport participants (e.g. members of a sport club) as ‘formal’ and others as ‘informal’ can overlook this critical question by reproducing these apparent ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ that respectively legitimise and delegitimise the access to certain decision-makings and sporting infrastructures. To be critical of the apparent ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ of given sport participation forms, it is important to analyse the processes through which the distinction was produced. Legitimacy regarding what activities can (not) be done and the authority to make the activities (not) happen in a particular space is subject to various processes of (in)formalisation, including allocating funding, planning and regulations of sporting infrastructures, setting eligibility criteria to join an event, making competition rules, and forming internal rules of sporting communities. Identifying formalisation and informalisation and untangling their intricate relations can serve as a heuristic guide for analysing these processes.

While the differentiations of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sporting groups have a profound impact on creating the inequality of participation opportunities between them, one should not only emphasise the tensions between the two as this reproduces a relational form of formal/informal dichotomy (Boudreau and Davis, 2017). (In)formalisation generates different qualities of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ statuses and thus legitimacies to a particular form of sport participation. Street basketball is, of course, ‘legitimate’ in terms of the use of the facility when participants play on a public basketball court designed for it by following the facility regulations.

What we particularly emphasise is not the tension between ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ sport themselves, rather, negotiations that happen along (in)formalisation of resources and institutions at various spatialities and temporalities. The different qualities of more nuanced ‘informality’ and ‘formality’ produced through these processes form ‘porous boundaries’ (Davis, 2017, 322) with which none of the sporting activities cannot be categorised as either. As a result, (in)formality as processes can be a useful tool to reconsider the state-legitimated sport participation, and sporting resources and institutions.

Conclusions

This paper addresses a dualist thought of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ sport categorisation to better conceptualise (in)formality in the governing processes of sport. The intuitive framework of informal/formal sport has formed ambiguous understandings about ‘informal’ sport as both ‘self-organised’ and ‘regulated’ in the sport participation literature. While studies have shown that both of these aspects are likely to be the case (e.g. Aquino et al., 2022; Jeanes et al., 2019; Van Den Bogert, 2022), the possibly incongruent terms of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ as modifiers of sport participation have not until now been challenged. This is despite the discussions featuring ‘informal’ sport as being on the rise and ‘formal’ sport struggling to attract more participants (CSRIO, 2013; Eime et al., 2020; Harris et al., 2017). It is important to clarify the limitations of this overly simplistic categorisation and begin to develop a more nuanced view of (in)formality that can reveal power relation or marginalisation in the governing processes of (de)legitimising particular forms of sport participation.

The conventional dualist thought that sees one form of sport participation as ‘formal’, ‘regulated’ and ‘institutionalised’ and others as ‘informal’, ‘unregulated’ and ‘un-institutionalised’ contains risks of substantialising ‘informality’ or ‘formality’ in particular participation forms. This view can overlook not only the nuanced legitimacies or the hybrid (in)formal statuses in almost any participation form but also negotiation processes that produce these legitimacies particularly in relation to urban and spatial politics of sport participation.

Drawing on an approach to (in)formality developed in the research area of urban informality (Alsayyad, 2004; Banks et al., 2020; Boudreau and Davis, 2017; Herrle and Fokdal, 2011; McFarlane, 2012; McFarlane and Waibel, 2012; Roy, 2005), we develop an alternative view of (in)formality as processes that sees informality as a flexibility and negotiability of resources and institutions and formality as fixity and less negotiability of them. This view directs us to focus on negotiation practices rather than codified governance, rules, and informal/formal statuses. Through negotiation practices, actors with various interests continue to stabilise and destabilise what is meant to be ‘formal’, ‘legitimate’ and ‘authorised’ and thus resources and institutions that can support or limit particular forms of sport participation. Nuanced formalities, legitimacies, and authorities produced in these processes of (in)formalisation at various spatial and temporal levels create complex, hybrid statuses of (in)formal participation forms which cannot be captured with the informal/formal binary. (In)formality as processes can provide a refined perspective of power relations in sport participation by questioning ‘how governance is produced’ (Boudreau and Davis, 2017, 157, emphasis in original).

Methodologically, understanding the processes of (in)formalisation requires researchers to attend to the actual practices of actors involved in the governing processes of sport participation. This proposed perspective in part seeks to engage with ‘policy epistemology’ (Roy, 2005) which critically analyses the state practices of producing legitimacy and authority.

Social, economic, and political relations can be seen in practices of (in)formalisation in the forms of interests, logics, and sentiments that consist of legitimacy claims in relation to particular participation forms. How these relations are enacted in actual (il)legitimacy-making practices is an important area to explore in future research. For instance, as indicated in the studies of ‘spatial politics’ in sport participation (Jeanes et al., 2022; Van Den Bogert, 2022), gender, race, and class relations can be manifested in particular practices that (de)stabilise resources and institutions, which will lead to unequal and unjust opportunities of participation.

One of the notable insights drawn from the lens of (in)formality is that the differentiation of ‘formal’, ‘recognised’ sport clubs and ‘informal’ sporting groups can be a result of political processes. Unequal negotiation opportunities for the ‘recognition’ of a particular sporting form or group or participants suggests that the current sporting authorities cannot necessarily view some forms of participation as ‘problematic’ or ‘illegitimate’ to access, for example, funding or facilities because of their ‘informal’ statuses. The very distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sporting forms can produce an unequal negotiation field. Therefore, strengthening other similar calls (Jeanes et al., 2019; Wheaton and O’Loughlin, 2017), there is a need for a shift from the current model of sport governance that predominantly allocates resources and designs regulations for participation in ‘formal’, ‘recognised’ sport clubs, which consist of only limited ways of doing sport, to a governance that equally recognises and legitimises diverse forms of (in)formal sport participation.

Although it moves away from substantiating the binary classification of sport participation, the processual view of informal–formal relations does not fully do away with a kind of dualism. (In)formality as processes still predicate on the dualistic terms of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’. As a result, this view can fall into another essentialising binary thinking that decontextualises and classifies negotiation practices and outcomes (McFarlane and Waibel, 2012). Yet, this view is sufficient to disturb the risky informal/formal binary in sport participation and account for the processes in which the very differentiation between ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ are produced.