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As arts, culture and society editor at The Conversation Africa – our beautiful Pan African culture page is over here – I have been asked to take over the weekend newsletter and recommend some favourite reads. When I took the job I would never have expected my must-read list to be led with sports stories.
Growing up in apartheid South Africa, I took one look at rugby, a testosterone-fuelled contact sport, and headed to the tennis courts (though just as often the library). I disliked organised sports but I loved tennis. My family would gather around the TV set to watch every grand slam final, the players becoming entrenched in our childhood dreams of success. So the impact of a player like America’s Serena Williams or Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur is about much more than sports, they are cultural changemakers and role models.
Among my favourite reads this week is a gender scholar’s take on Williams’ pending retirement from the professional game and the issues informing elite women’s sports – like racism and mental health – that both Williams and Jabeur have faced. At the same time the article raises the realities for African girls taking up the game – a lack of development and access.
Or take the Chinese blockbuster Wolf Warrior II – one of the highest grossing Chinese films ever. Through the eyes of a media scholar and a sociologist, Wolf Warrior is much more than an action flick. It also tells the story of how China wishes to see itself on a political level – and how it views Africa, complete with racist tropes and clichés.
Whether it’s the power of poetry in Somalia or the cultural force of Beyoncé, the plight of waste pickers in Lagos, the perils in our rainwater or the birds in a Nigerian forest, the academics who share their research and insights with our readers each week give us beautiful easy reads that also get you thinking. Here are some of my recent favourites.
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