Beschreibung
Examining the social and political significance of football in Cameroon,
Bea Vidacs’s anthropological study goes beyond sports. Encompassing the
period between 1994 and 2006, the work throws light upon changes in
Cameroonians’ political attitudes and interpretations of politics and of
football as the revolutionary fervor of the early 1990s waned over time
and increasingly turned into political disillusionment. Taking the ethos
of sport as an ethnographic starting point she addresses such issues as
politics, power, powerlessness, identity construction on a local, national
and international scale, as well as the meaning of the postcolonial
experience both on an individual and national level.
“Rich in ethnographic detail and command of relevant literature, the study
demonstrates how, and with what consequences, Cameroonian football
impinges upon and is influenced by local, national and global
socio-cultural, economic and political realities. This original and highly
informative work is pleasantly accessible in style, with a simplicity that
is bound to appeal beyond the ivory tower of academia, reaching down to
the very heart of ordinary folks with football at heart.”
(Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Department of Social Anthropology, University of
Cape Town, South Africa)
Bea Vidacs is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany.
