103 research outputs found
Popular culture and community politics: Alexandra Township c. 1930 - 1960
Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6-10 February, 1990
Levelling the playing field: Human capability approach and lived realities for sport and gender in the West Indies
Understanding the role of gender in sport for development and peace (SDP) has sparked new and critical research recently, aligning with the focus on gender equality in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Researchers tend to explore gender in terms of how girls and women access and experience sport. The academic literature often describes sport participation for girls as a form of empowerment, but fails to critically examine the masculinised, heteronormative framework of sport and rarely includes the voices of girls and boys together. This unique study is the first to apply the human capability approach (HCA) to explicitly investigate gender role attitudes from the perspective of boy and girl participants in SDP. We believe it is vital to include voices of all participants to more critically examine how SDP might both challenge and reinforce restrictive gender norms. This paper is drawn from a research project for a doctoral thesis in Development Studies and focuses on adolescent participants, youth coaching trainees, programme facilitators and government administrators involved in SDP programmes in Barbados and St. Lucia (n=104).2 The primary author conducted surveys, focus group discussions, interviews and journaling to gather the data presented here and in the thesis. Using the HCA as a theoretical framework, we argue that these SDP programmes tend to integrate participants into masculinised, heteronormative forms of sport that may unwittingly reinforce restrictive gender norms for both boys and girls. In order to better support the capability development of all participants, SDP leaders must actively challenge restrictive gender role attitudes of masculinity and femininity
Sport and recreation on Robben Island
The article provides insight into an important part of South Africa’s sport history that
has not been explored yet: What was the role sport and recreation played on Robben
Island in the days when it served as political prison? The research has been a
collaborative project of the Department for Cultural Affairs and Sport, Western Cape
Sports Council, Mayibuye Centre and the University of the Western Cape’s
Interdisciplinary Center for Sport Science and Development. Facilitated by the
establishment of a ‘Robben Island General Recreational Committee’ in the 1960s, sport
and recreation took a very special form on the Island. Unknown to South Africans and
the world, during Apartheid, sport and recreation on Robben Island were used as a
vehicle to unite people and to promote values of respect, integrity, dignity, teamwork
and fair play as an integral part of a holistic person. Leisure activities became a place of
triumph of human spirit, body and soul. The research facilitated the process of
digitisation of archives from the Island. Numerous sources were discovered, giving an
insight into the role of sport and recreation for many of South Africa’s past and present
leaders. The study also highlights the role sport and recreation played in the unique
journey to freedom and democracy.International Bibliography of Social Science
How Obama's backing for NBA Africa venture could boost basketball on the continent
First paragraph: Former US president Barack Obama’s decision to invest in the National Basketball Association’s Africa venture reflects a lot about his past – his basketball playing youth and his African roots. It also signals that his future ambitions stretch beyond US borders.https://theconversation.com/how-obamas-backing-for-nba-africa-venture-could-boost-basketball-on-the-continent-16669
Urban football narratives and the colonial process in Lourenço Marques
Support for Portuguese football teams, in Mozambique as well as in other former
Portuguese colonies, could be interpreted either as a sign of the importance of a
cultural colonial heritage in Africa or as a symbol of a perverse and neo-colonial
acculturation. This article, focused on Maputo, the capital of Mozambique –
formerly called Lourenc¸o Marques – argues that in order to understand
contemporary social bonds, it is crucial to research the connection between the
colonial process of urbanisation and the rise of urban popular cultures. Despite
the existence of social discrimination in colonial Lourenc¸o Marques, deeply
present in the spatial organisation of a city divided between a ‘concrete’ centre
and the immense periphery, the consumption of football, as part of an emergent
popular culture, crossed segregation lines. I argue that football narratives, locally
appropriated, became the basis of daily social rituals and encounters, an element
of urban sociability and the content of increasingly larger social networks.
Therefore, the fact that a Portuguese narrative emerged as the dominant form of
popular culture is deeply connected to the growth of an urban community
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