On neoliberal global sport and African bodies

Abstract

This paper examines the intersection between history, colonialism, neoliberalism, postcolonialism and the African body in the context of sport, in an attempt to promote alternative ways of seeing which might move from an ‘Orientalist’ view to one of genuine mutual exchange. In order to get to that point, however, the themes outlined above are unpacked and it is demonstrated how they have worked to create and sustain economic inequality as well as inequitable social interaction whereby the African body is always constructed as ‘Other’ and viewed as ‘lesser than’ bodies of the Global North, a corporeal political economy of perpetual inequity.

Keywords:

• African bodies
• colonialism
• neo-imperialism
• globalization

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Corrigendum

Notes

1. Numerous studies have examined the mega-event developments since, at the least, Los Angeles 1984, the reference lists in the sources cited here provide access to most of this literature.

2. One can argue that missionary promotion of sports for converts throughout the colonial world in the late 19th and 20th centuries constitutes earlier attempts to use sport for development; however, in the contemporary sense of the term, we see renewed efforts at sports proselytism from the 1970s onwards with significant development since the latter 1990s.

3. Football4Peace is an NGO housed at the University of Brighton with partner programmes at the University of Ulster.