Measured bodies and moving men
In apartheid South Africa, Drum magazine showed Black readers what it meant to be modern. But not everyone got to be modern in the same way.
Blog
What Cabo Verde’s World Cup debut means for African football
Cabo Verde’s historic run and the breakthrough performances of fellow African and Caribbean nations changed the conversation about visibility, opportunity, and the future of African football.
The ungovernable Gen-Z
The Kenyan government’s reaction to the present moment of necessary generational disobedience resembles the way colonial regimes used to respond to the question of the “detribalized native.”
South Africa in history’s struggle
Kevin Cox’s NLR essay on South Africa claims to correct liberal and culturalist accounts through historical materialism. But it reproduces the very epistemic and analytical failures it sets out to overcome.
No shortcuts
The Conference of the Left was not a solution to the crisis of the South African left, but an opening. What follows must be built differently from what came before.
The globalization of African football
Can a continent dominate global football while losing control of its own game?
What Mbappé, Olise and Yamal can’t fix
Football’s three mixed Maghrebi and Black African stars are not emissaries of a new pan-Africanism. And the continent doesn’t need them to be.
The indelible African superfan
Part performer, part cultural ambassador, and increasingly, a political flashpoint.
Football won’t rescue the nation
As club football becomes increasingly placeless and commercialized, international football begins to feel strangely real again.
The politics of the football terrace
In Algeria, football stadiums have long been sites of protest, expression, and resistance. As public space shrinks and surveillance rises, their political future hangs in the balance.
Celebrating from a divided country
Bafana Bafana’s World Cup exploits has South Africans chanting “No DNA, just RSA!” But against a rising tide of xenophobia, what South Africa are we actually rooting for?
The king of soccer
In 1957, three months after Ghanaian independence, the world’s most celebrated footballer came to Accra to teach. What Stanley Matthews left behind changed Ghanaian football forever.