How colonial history shaped bodies and sport at the edges of empire

By Francois Cleophas, Senior Lecturer in Sport History, Stellenbosch University

Since the 1990s, studies of sport have tended to focus on science, at the expense of physical culture studies. The once thriving field of physical culture studies – how people shape their bodies culturally – has also had a bias. It has tended to focus on body strengthening, healthy living and beautifying (or neglect), all from a Eurocentric perspective.

The result is that ordinary people uncritically accept modern marketing of what it is to be healthy – fad diets, expensive gyms, branded sportswear and more.

There is more to sport, though, than a performance element. Sport…

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