About Sports Africa Conferences
In Fall 2003, a handful of African Studies scholars met during the African Studies Association conference in Boston to discuss the state of African Sports Studies in higher education. At this meeting, they founded and launched the Sports Africa Network.
The Institute for the African Child and the Center for Sports Administration hosted the first ¡°Sports, Youth and Africa¡± conference in February 2004. This conference was attended by participants from fourteen institutions from Africa and the United States.
From 2004 to 2014, the conference was held at Ohio University. The first 10 annual meetings addressed a variety of theoretical and practical themes: economics, gender, health, communication, politics, globalization. Training, financing, infrastructure, etc¡
After ten annual meetings at Ohio University in Athens (USA), the conference moved to Africa in 2017 where it was first hosted by the Institute for Peace and Social Justice at Bloemfontein Free State University (South Africa). The theme of this eleventh Sports Africa Conference was “Sporting Subalternities and Social Justice“. In 2018, the twelfth conference was hosted by the University of Zambia under the theme Pan-African Sport Studies: Beyond Physical Education. In 2019, Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar (Sénégal) have the honor of being the first French and non-English-speaking country to host the conference. The conference, established as the flagship activity of Sports Africa Network, continues to be an exclusive forum for research on the theory and practice of sports in Africa to be produced, exchanged, and disseminated.
Sports Africa Upcoming Conference
The 2020 conference is postponed to 2021. The date will be announced once the 2021 host institution calendar of events and conferences is confirmed.
Past conferences
Popular Sports, Mass Sports and Elite Sports in everyday Africa
Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (Dakar Sénégal)
June 20-21-22, 2019
Pan-African Sports Studies: Beyond Physical Education
University of Zambia (Lusaka, Zambia)
26 to 28 March 2018
Sporting Subalternities and Social Justice
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
April 10-13, 2017
Sports in Africa, Ten years – What’s next?
April 10-12, 2014
Sports in Africa and the Global Sports Forum
April 12, 2013
Sports and Community Building in Africa
April 6-7, 2012
Africa and the Global South
March 11, 2011
Politics and Globalization
March 5-6, 2010
Communications, Media and Sport in Africa
February 23-24, 2008
Health, Sciences and Sports in Africa
February 23-24, 2007
Women, Gender and Sports in Africa
February 24-25, 2006
Sports Across Disciplines
February 04-05, 2005
Youth Sports and Africa
February 25-26, 2004
