African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World's Game (Paperback or Softback)

Alegi, Peter

ISBN 10: 0896802787 / ISBN 13: 9780896802780

Published by Ohio University Press 2/14/2010, 2010

About this Item

African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World's Game.

Seller Inventory # BBS-9780896802780

Bibliographic Details

• Title: African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World's Game (Paperback or Softback)
• Publisher: Ohio University Press 2/14/2010
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0896802787
• ISBN 13: 9780896802780
• Binding: Paperback or Softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 0.63 pounds
• Book Type: Book

About this title

Synopsis

From Accra and Algiers to Zanzibar and Zululand, Africans have wrested control of soccer from the hands of Europeans, and through the rise of different playing styles, the rituals of spectatorship, and the presence of magicians and healers, have turned soccer into a distinctively African activity. African Soccerscapes explores how Africans adopted soccer for their own reasons and on their own terms. Soccer was a rare form of “national culture” in postcolonial Africa, where stadiums and clubhouses became arenas in which Africans challenged colonial power and expressed a commitment to racial equality and self-determination. New nations staged matches as part of their independence celexadbrations and joined the world body, FIFA. The Confédération africaine de football democratized the global game through antiapartheid sanctions and increased the number of African teams in the World Cup finals. In this compact, highly readable book Alegi shows that the result of this success has been the departure of huge numbers of players to overseas clubs and the growing influence of private commercial interests on the African game. But the growth of women’s soccer and South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup also challenge the one-dimensional notion of Africa as a backward, “tribal” continent populated by victims of war, corruption, famine, and disease.

About the Author

Peter Alegi is an associate professor of history at Michigan State University and the author of Laduma! Soccer, Politics, and Society in South Africa. He is an editorial board member of the International Journal of African Historical Studies and book review editor of Soccer and Society.