Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T00:51:50.234Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Game for the Good?: Football, youths and the Liberian civil conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Holly Collison
Holly Collison*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Sports Science, Brunei University, London
Get access

Extract

Africa's first republic was founded in the mid-19th century by recently freed American and Caribbean slaves originally stolen from Central and West Africa. This West African nation became fittingly known as Liberia or “Land of the Free”. In 1847 the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Liberia written by Baptist Minister Hilary Teage was signed by representatives of the major counties, Liberia adopted a constitution based on the American model and until the 1980s was considered a beacon of stability in Africa. Shortly after this date the small West African nation was a global byword for atrocity, carnage and child soldier militias. The execution of President William Tolbert on the 12th April 1980 in a military coup d'etat fronted by Sergeant Samuel Doe and supported by the Peoples Redemption Council represented the end of the Americo-Liberian “settler” political dominance and reflected the indigenous people's desire for change.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 116: Africa, Sport and the Archive: the SCOLMA Conference 2011 , 2011 , pp. 53 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Durham, Deborah (2000) ‘Youth and the social imagination in Africa: Introduction to parts 1 & 2’, Anthropological Quarterly 73 (3), pp.113-120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericksen, Thomas Hylland. (2001) Small Places, Large Issue: an introduction to social and cultural anthropology. 2nd Ed. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Maanen, John Van (1988) Tales of the Field: on writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ogi, Adolf (2003) Sport and Development International Conference. ‘The Magglingen Declaration and Recommendations’ www.sportanddev.org/data/document/document/50.pdfGoogle Scholar
Pelissier, Catherine (1991) ‘The anthropology of teaching and learning’, Annual Review of Anthropology 20, pp.75-95, www.annualreviews.org (accessed 10.11.11)CrossRefGoogle Scholar