Sports in Postcolonial Worlds

This book explores several cultural and historical paths intertwined in the genesis and development of sport and physical activities within colonial and postcolonial contexts. As far as youth organizations and Western-based sports are concerned, the Independencies political split needs to be reconsidered, from a cultural perspective with practices overlapping spatial, chronological and epistemological borders. When looking at the variety of practices, the colonial legacies and the ensuing migration journeys through a global perspective, there is a need to understand the diverse ways of composing and building the postcolonial sport worlds. Multiculturalism (South Africa, France, Algeria), transnational journeys (Pacific Islands), rebuilding of national identities through sporting institutions (Ireland, West Africa), racialization of the society (Rwanda, South Africa), gender control (from the West-East to the North-South gap), sportization of traditional/old games (Americas), and so on. Following the various studies shaping this book, the ambivalence of sporting and physical activities’ paths comes up. It is apparent these trajectories have generated a mixed feeling of adhesion and repulsion towards Western hegemonies in postcolonial societies.

Nicolas Bancel is historian and professor at the University of Lausanne where he is Director of theInstitut des sciences du sport et de l’education physique. He is a specialist in the history of sport in a colonial and postcolonial context and also works on the political imaginary of colonialisation.

Thomas Riot is researcher and teacher at the Institute of Sport Studies of Lausanne University. He currently realizes (as part of a post-doctorate) a cultural and comparative history of African de-colonizations.

Stanislas Frenkiel is socio-historian of sport with a specific interest in international sporting migration. He currently works as lecturer at theUFR STAPS of the University of Artois-Lievin.