Animated by uncertainty : rugby and the performance of history in South Africa / Joshua D. Rubin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rubin, Joshua D., author.

Series:

African Perspectives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rugby football--Political aspects--South Africa.

Rugby football.

Sports--Political aspects.

Sports.

South Africa--Politics and government.

South Africa.

South Africa--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 pages)

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2021]

Summary:

"In Animated by Uncertainty, Joshua D. Rubin analyzes South African rugby through the lens of aesthetic politics. Building on 18 months of ethnographic research with rugby coaches, players, and administrators, the author argues that rugby is a form of performance and further that the qualities that define rugby shape the political ends to which the sport can be put. In this respect, Animated by Uncertainty demonstrates that theories of sporting politics cannot afford to overlook the qualities of the sports themselves, and it provides a theoretical approach to illustrate how these qualities can be studied. The book also analyzes the ways that apartheid and colonialism inhere in South African institutions and practices. Drawing inspiration from the observation that South Africans could always abandon rugby if they chose to do so, Rubin highlights how the continuing significance of rugby as a form of performance brings traces of South Africa's apartheid and colonial past into the country's contemporary political moment"-- Provided by publisher.

"In Animated by Uncertainty, Joshua D. Rubin analyzes South African rugby through the lens of aesthetic politics. Building on 17 months of ethnographic research with rugby coaches, players, and administrators, the author argues that rugby is a form of performance and further that the qualities that define rugby shape the political ends to which the sport can be put. In this respect, Animated by Uncertainty demonstrates that theories of sporting politics cannot afford to overlook the qualities of the sports themselves, and it provides a theoretical approach to illustrate how these qualities can be studied. The book also analyzes the ways that apartheid and colonialism inhere in South African institutions and practices.Drawing inspiration from the observation that South Africans could always abandon rugby if they chose to do so, Rubin highlights how the continuing significance of rugby as a form of performance brings traces of South Africa's apartheid and colonial past into the country's contemporary political moment"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Making Art from Uncertainty: Magic and Its Politics in South African Rugby

Chapter 2. Sons and Commodities: Work, Play, and the Politics of Autonomy at the Margins of Professional Rugby

Chapter 3. Residual Uncertainty: Play, Injuries, and Rugby's Masculine Ideal

Chapter 4. Searching for Certainty: Rugby and Male Identity in a Former Model C School

Chapter 5. Fractured Frames: Rugby, Imaginative Resistance, and the Legacies of the Struggle against Apartheid

Chapter 6. In Apartheid's Image: Rugby and Nationalist Spectacle in South Africa

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-472-12939-2

OCLC:

1246786022