Innovative study of the role of sports in modernity in Africa.
Sports in Ethiopia was always more than a means of useful recreation. It was also a way to enjoy and define fun, as new modes of behaviour emerged that showed what it meant to be a modern man or woman. This book is the first academic study of the history of modern sports in Ethiopia during the imperial rule of the twentieth century. Showing how agents, ideas and practices linked societal improvement and bodily improvement, this innovative study argues thatmodern sports offers new possibilities to explore the meanings of modernity in Africa.
Drawing on written and oral sources in Amharic, Tigrinya, English, French, German and Italian, Bromber provides an in-depth analysis of the role of sports in modern educational institutions, volunteer organizations and urbanization processes. She examines sports' function as a political propaganda tool during the Italian fascist occupation (1935 - 1941), as well as in representations of successful modernization under Haile Selassie (1930 - 1974). The integration into global networks of ideas about the fit colonized body linked Ethiopia, which was never colonized, to the legacy of colonialism. Institutions such as schools, civilian sports clubs, and volunteer organizations were not only loaded with coercive procedures, but instituted modes of behaviour that developed into certain styles and affirmation of the self as well as their contestation. Examining the locations for practising sports in organized forms, informal leisure and practices consumption in Ethiopia, this book contributes to recent debates on the role of sports in the history of urbanization in Africa, as well as those on global modernity.
Ethiopia: AAUP
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Bromber's book is certainly an important one for those who study Ethiopian history to their shelves,
especially those who are particularly interested in debates about Ethiopian modernity, but its virtues
extend further. Theoretically and conceptually, the text offers new perspectives on the literature about
modernity, coloniality, urban development in Africa, sporting state formation, and regional development between the Middle East and Africa. Scholars working in any of these subfields would have much to learn from Sports and Modernity in Late Imperial Ethiopia. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW *
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 234 mm
Breite: 156 mm
Dicke: 13 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-84701-375-0 (9781847013750)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
KATRIN BROMBER is a senior researcher and research unit leader at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin and Associate Professor of African Studies at the University of Vienna. Her publications include Sport across Asia: Politics, Cultures and Identities, edited with Birgit Krawietz and Joseph Maguire (2013), and articles in The International Journal of the History of Sports, Annales d'Ethiopie, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, and Northeast African Studies.
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Transliteration, Titles, Currency, and the Ethiopian Calendar
Introduction
1. The Emergence of Ethiopia's Modern Sports Scene (1900-1935)
2. Sports and Propaganda during the Fascist Occupation (1935-1941)
3. Muscular Reconstruction: Urban Leisure, Institutionalised Physical Education, and the Re-establishment of Boy Scouting (1940s-1960s)
4. Training Leaders and Athletes: The Ethiopian YMCA (1940s-1970s)
5. Sports' Material Infrastructure and the Production of Space (1910s-1970s)
6. Conclusion and Outlook
Bibliography
Index
