Source: Women's Sport In Africa
Date: 7 March 2011
Location: United Kingdom, Oxford
Catherine Ndereba.  Tegla Loroupe.  Caster Semenya.  These names are widely recognised both in Africa and around the world.  However, despite the importance of sport in the lives of many Africans, women's sport is an undeveloped area of academic research. In order to create a forum for an interdisciplinary discussion of this topic, a conference devoted to 'Women's Sport in Africa' will take place at the University of Oxford on 7 March 2011.

The organisers invite papers that offer new accounts and interpretations about how women's sport has emerged in Africa, and especially encourage authors to consider how women's sport might serve as a lens through which to explore other social and economic themes. 

Key questions include, but are not limited to: How might we try to explain the relative success or not of women's sport in different places?  Were there any particular periods of expansion or of decline, and how can these be explained?  How do national politics influence the development of women's sport?  What is the role of the state, either in actively promoting the development of womens sport or in hindering it?  How can we understand the historical development of women's sport in Africa in relation to other economic and social trends, and processes such as urbanisation, globalisation, and rising/falling living standards?  What is the relationship between women's sports and men's sports?  How has that relationship changed and how can we explain such a change?  To what extent are international relationships in women's sport shaped by inequality, power, and colonial or post-colonial relations?  How, and to what extent, is women's sport in Africa integrated into sport at the global level?

For more information on this event, please click here