Tag Archives: Soccer

African Week in Review Feb 4-11

Posted on by
1

The week in Africa was dominated by the State of the Nation by Jacob Zuma in South Africa. His speech on the future projects of South Africa was generally well received and lots of links are provided below on the build up and recap. The Africa Cup of Nations decided the two finalists in fairly ordinary fashion. The defense orientated Cote d’Ivoire relied on a great individual goal from Gervinho, and Zambia rode its luck against Ghana after saving a penalty to get a place in the final.  All this seemed to overshadowed the building tension in Sudan, and it’s possible cool down. The best story in tech is definitely out of Kenya this week. Read below for how a traditional leader is using Twitter to interact with his community. Continue reading →

Advertisement

The African Week in Review: Jan 28-Feb 4

Posted on by
Reply

Tons of activity on the continent this week, ranging from the farcical diplomatic movements at the African Union, to the unveiling of Africa’s own tablet, to anti-Wade Protests in Senegal, and finishing up with the commencement of the knock-out rounds in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Continue reading →

Introducing The Week That Was

Posted on by
1

As a researcher at the Center for Public Diplomacy, I came to appreciate the need and the convenience of a timely recap of the news. With so much going on in many different fields, and various mediums through which to receive and explore news and information, having one source with a quick summary and commentary on the current events is invaluable.

The Week That Was

The African File will begin to publish a weekly recap of news from the African continent, with a focus on my three areas of interest/specialty: technology, politics, and sport. The weekly digest isn’t meant to cover the biggest news stories, but examine a range of topics that might be interesting for those who are interested in keeping up on events from the continent. It will contain links to the stories so that readers may gain a deeper inside, and The African File will attempt to add thoughtful, or at least satirical, commentary to the news each week. It will publish under the title: ‘The Week That Was’ (TWTW).

With a brief preview of the format, a sample from this week is below: Continue reading →

Second Published Work – African Studies Quarterly

Posted on by
Reply

My first book review accepted for publication, but the second to hit the presses, takes a look at Peter Alegi’s Laduma!: Soccer, Politics and Society in South Africa (2010). My review was published in the University of Florida-produced journal, the African Studies Quarterly. This was the second edition of Alegi’s well received book first published in 2004, and updated for this past year’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

I had been very interested in the book having just returned from the World Cup in South Africa, but found it to be much more of a historical text about the origins of football in the colonial period and how it progressed up to the 1970s, rather than an analytical text about what soccer has contributed to society. Many of the connections were there, but obviously that part of the text is limited by Alegi’s training as a historian and not a sociologist, or political scientist. However, anyone doing that kind of study would definitely need to use Alegi’s work because, as shown through in the text, his use of original text is one of the highlights of a very interesting book.

You can check out my review here, and the pdf here.

[Update]

My review has been reposted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press here and Amazon is selling my review for 10USD!