ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a nuanced perspective on 'sport for development' and the role of Northern actors in sports in the Global South, with insights gained from the local-expatriate (South-North) relations played out in Vanuatu beach volleyball. Scholars have noted that cultural diversity, unfinished processes of nation- and state-building, economic informality and other complexities impede prospects for the pursuit of inclusive development in Vanuatu and broader Melanesia. Ni-Vanuatu women’s relationship with sport in general and beach volleyball in particular is situated in this context, where kastom, nationalism and modernity intersect with barriers to, and opportunities for, their hitherto-unorthodox pursuits. The sport has acquired mainstream status and is included in nationwide sporting events like the National School Games and the Vanuatu Games. The women athletes, ranking among the world’s best alongside Northern nationals, and commanding the level of prestige never previously associated with a women’s sport in Vanuatu, demonstrate the powerful transformative potential of an authentic, subversive South-North alliance.
