Sports in Africa, Past and Present

These groundbreaking sports studies essays demonstrate how Africans past and present have utilized sports to forge complex identities and shape Africa's dynamic place in the world. Since the late-nineteenth century, modern sports in Africa have both reflected and shaped cultural, social, political, economic, generational, and gendered relations on the continent. Originally intended as a means of civilizing" indigenous populations and upholding then-current notions of racial hierarchies and "muscular Christianity," Africans soon appropriated these sporting practices to fulfill their own varied interests. This social history collection encompasses a wide range of topics, including women footballers in Nigeria, Kenya's world-class long-distance runners, pitches and stadiums in communities large and small, fandom and pay-to-watch kiosks, the sporting diaspora, sports pedagogy, sport as resistance and as a means to forge identity, sports heritage, the impact of politics on sport, and sporting biography"--