Sports in African History, Politics, and Identity Formation

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of tables
List of contributors
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction
	Sport as a mode of inquiry: Why sports?
	Chapter overview
	Notes
1. “I was really disgusted at seeing healthy young boys playing Ping-pong”: Ping-pong and masculinity in post-World War II Nigeria
	Introduction
	Post-World War II Nigeria
	History of Ping-pong in the colony
	Recognition and newspapers
	Elders’ response
	Experiences of youth and Ping-pong
	Conclusion
	Notes
2. Pas de deux as I tell you: Physical education, dance, and the remaking of discipline in World War II Brazzaville
	Introduction
	Shimmying away from another uprising: Discipline and physical education
	Choreographing the perfect image: Dance and gymnastics in AFL photography
	Conclusion
	Notes
3. Cameroonian cricket: The interface between local and dominant colonial ideologies
	Introduction
	Cameroon history: Colonial influence and cultural divide
	Sport and imagined communities
	Using a postcolonial lens to explore imagined communities: The story of Cameroonian cricket
	Marginalized anglophones and the growth of cricket in Cameroon
	Methodology
	Cricket development and the reimagination of the British Empire
	The ideologies of Cameroon cricket
	A masculine game
	Association with a British cricket organization and notions of racebased superiority
	Personal benefits from an association with “the whites”
	Conclusion
	Notes
4. Political action in sports development during the National Liberation Council Era in Ghana
	Introduction
	Historiographical context
	Findings of investigative bodies
	The Tibo Committee recommendation and government action
	Conclusion
	Notes
5. “The best of the best”: The politicization of sports under Ghana’s Supreme Military Council
	Introduction
	Sports and politics in Ghana
	Demise of SS’74
	Conclusion
	Notes
6. “We have material second to none”: Colored sportsmen and masculine competition in the South African press, 1936–1960
	Introduction
	The White world of sports
	Threatening the “Great White Hopes”
	The “Black Flashes” and the “Brown Bomber”
	Colored Springboks and Maori All Blacks
	“The fair name of sport” and the Olympic Games
	Conclusion
	Notes
7. Playing away from home: The nature of soccer integration in South Africa, 1978–1984
	Introduction
	Background
	Policy matters
	Crossing the divide: Uncertainty abounds
	Trends in NPSL spectatorship
	Player movement
	Conclusion
	Notes
8. Examining physical culture in a local context
	Introduction
	British origins of physical culture
	Evolution of physical culture in twentieth-century Cape Town
	A Cape Town physical culture and play case study
	Conclusion
	Notes
9. “Visionary courtyard players”: The Robben Island Rugby Board and the transition to postapartheid South Africa, ca. 1972–1992
	Introduction
	Race, rugby, and the struggle for equality
	Recreation and the Robben Island prison regime
	Establishment and functioning of the Island Rugby Board
	Fashioning the postapartheid rugby dispensation
	Conclusion
	Notes
10. The birth of the Springboks: How early international rugby matches unified white cultural identity in South Africa
	Introduction
	Race and national identity in South African rugby
	First reconciliation: The British tour of 1903
	Becoming the Springboks: Preparing for the 1906–07 tour
	First successes on foreign soil
	Expressions of Springbok fanaticism
	The financial success of the tour
	Conclusion: White relations after the tour
	Notes
11. A tale of two sports fields: Contested spaces, histories, and identities at play in rural South Africa
	Introduction
	Historical and political organization of South African sports
	Geographical organization of sports in Rawsonville
	Accessing the sports fields
	Conclusion
	Notes
12. The bulldog, the pharaoh, and the football: British imperialism and Egypt’s national sport and identity, 1882–1934
	Introduction
	Egyptian National Team
	Royal Engineers Association Football Club (AFC): The Sappers
	War
	A new Egyptian army and identity
	Educating Egypt
	Learning culture
	Critical mass
	War and football
	Political football
	Notes
13. Sports and physical education in Ethiopia during the Italian Occupation, 1936–1941
	Introduction
	The birth of modern sports and physical education in Ethiopia
	Introduction of football and the first football teams
	Football and the origins of Ethiopian nationalism
	Sports and the Fascist regime
	The Legacy of the Italian occupation in sports and physical education
	Conclusion
	Notes
14. Commercialization of football in Africa: Prospects, challenges, and experiences
	Introduction
	Background: Football in Africa
	Experiences with commercialization in African football
	Challenges facing commercialization of African football
	Prospects for the commercialization of football in Africa
	Conclusion
	Notes
15. Islam and the foreign Other: Representing the alterity of Hakeem Olajuwon
	Introduction
	Covering Islam, black immigrant Muslims, and Abdul-Rauf
	Constructing the foreign black Other
	Maintaining essentialized Islam
	Conclusion
	Notes
16. Afro-Orientalism in the global village: Media imaginations of South Africa and Africa in the coverage of the 2010 World Cup
	Introduction
	Constructing the Orient: BBC Online
	Generalizations, interviewing patterns, and contesting content
	Conclusion
	Notes
Index