Colonial Control and Sporting Institutions

Today we are joined by Claire Nicolas, a chercheuse du Fonds National Suisse at Basel University, a holder of a prestigious Ambizione Research Grant, and the author of Une si longue course: Sport, genre, et citoyenneté au Ghana et en Côte d’Ivoire (années 1900-1970) (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2024). In our conversation, we discussed physical culture in colonial and post-colonial Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the differences and the similarities between the imperial and post-imperial biopolitical strategies in both places, and the way that sports histories benefit from sustained engagement with critical theory.

In Une si longue course, Nicolas engages in a sustained comparison between the colonial and post-colonial physical cultural life of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. She organizes her work into two sections: one on colonial West Africa and another on post-colonial West Africa. Each section has three chapters covering physical education, scouting and sports. Her work addresses athletic life from the top down and the bottom up. In doing so, she shows that contrary to any simple history of teleological progress or sport as a crucible for nationalism, physical education, scouting and sport have been imperfect tools for imperial and post-imperial states. Athletes, scouts, and students found innovative ways to reshape the physical cultural priorities of the state to suit their own agendas.

This deeply ambitious work significantly adds to our understanding of physical culture in colonial and post-colonial West Africa through a comparative approach. It draws upon extensive primary source research: Nicolas works in the archives of the British and French colonial states, the ministries of post-colonial Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, and the repositories of international sporting organizations in Switzerland. She also relies upon oral histories conducted with Ghanaian and Ivoirian sportsmen and women.

Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Great Britain, and France: their physical cultural programmes shared continuities and ruptures. Colonial empires concerned with the mise en valeur of their subjects sought biopolitical solutions to increase the birthrate, expand agricultural and industrial production, and prepare men for the defence of the empire. They worried that physical cultural programs – if poorly managed – would become sites for resistance, but Nicolas’ work shows that sporting clubs, scouting halls, and schools could confound any simple collaboration/resistance dichotomy.

Nicolas’ work also demonstrates the deeply gendered nature of both colonial and post-colonial physical culture. Newly emergent post-colonial nations sought to produce new men (and women) in ways that replicated the essentialism of their imperial predecessors.

Nicolas’ engaging work, thoroughly researched, and beautifully presented will be of broad interest to people invested in British, French, and West African history. It has broader conclusions for people interested in colonial and post-colonial theory.

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