'Grown-ups on white plastic chairs:' soccer and separatism in Senegal, 1969-2012

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Periodical article

Title:	'Grown-ups on white plastic chairs:' soccer and separatism in Senegal, 1969-2012
Author:	Deets, Mark
Year:	2016
Periodical:	History in Africa (ISSN 1558-2744)
Volume:	43
Pages:	347-374
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Senegal
Subjects:	Casamance conflict sports separatism
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/hia.2015.25
Abstract:	The author argues that the postcolonial Senegalese soccer stadium became a space for imagining and performing the nation for separatists from the Casamance region who tied their separatist discourse to the fortunes of Casa-Sports, a soccer club based in Ziguinchor. The twin histories of Casamançais soccer and separatism demonstrate the interplay of 'space' and 'place' in the stadium - constructed originally for defining and controlling the Senegalese nation but commandeered by separatists for subverting it. Non-elite Casa-Sports supporters, however, contested or ignored separatist assertions that supporting Casa-Sports meant supporting separatism, and vice versa. Thus, these non-elites revealed the stadium as a 'space-place' for simultaneous, multiple national imaginings. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French [Journal abstract]