Critical reflections : on physical culture at the edges of empire

Colonisation was imposed upon indigenous people, not only through brute power of military conquest, but also through cultural assimilation. This assimilation was not homogeneous, and the colonised often produced a different outcome to what the coloniser expected. This collection of essays thus portrays new ontologies of decolonising themes in physical culture. They recognise the depth of previous exclusions and start a process of reconstituting qualitative histories of excluded voices of the past. They conform to what the writer, Sindiwe Magona, relayed at a recent community gathering: “I write for ordinary people ... to understand the power of domestic workers over domesticity.” In imitation of Andre Odendaal’s (2018:2) work on cricket, they put into place “new paradigms for understanding [physical culture’s] past and present by rooting the accounts in it’s social, economic, political and global context”. The foundation of this publication, with chapters of varying lengths, is that the gains made by oppressed and marginalised sport persons in colonial contexts are not innocent – they come with the baggage of coloniality (Mignolo, 2013). The writers of this publication are therefore wary not to make past grievances mythical in the present (Leipoldt, 2000:108). What these essays do is expose the interconnectivity between physical culture and the underbelly of colonial society. In more explicated terms, these essays explore physical culture beyond the mainstream narratives endorsed by imperial structures of power and knowledge. The contributors thus approach physical culture with two propositions: First, the body is always dialectic, which is to say its meanings are produced by, and are productive of, wider contexts and social structures. Second, the body is political and politicising, which means it actively contributes to systems of power rather than passively receiving their affects (McLeod & Matthew, 2020:87)... Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Creating a decolonising South African physicalculture archive: A case study of Ron Eland 2. The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa: David Isaacs and others 3. Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions: On gender and the limits of female emancipation in the Sokol gymnastic movement 4. Steeplechase: personal reflections on Fit2Run’s race of life 5. Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses: Harry Crowe Buck and Charles Harold McCloy take the‘Y’ to India and China in the early decades of the 20th century 6. Re-engaging non-racial sport: The Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) and the school sport movement in the Western Cape, 1956-1994 7. Of boots and bare feet: Footwear, race and civilisationin Australian sport before World War II 8. Health for the masses? Physical culture, radio and the state in 1930s Ireland 9. Bats, balls and boards: Islands, beaches and decolonising Pacific sport 10. From apartheid to democracy: the response of Cape Town‐based mountain clubs to the changing political landscape, 1970-1994 11. Sport and physical culture at the edges of the imperial project Contributors "This groundbreaking anthology provides a transnational view of the use of physical culture practices - to strengthen, discipline, and reimagine the human body. Exploring theses of colonialism, gender disparities, and race relations, this international examination of bodily practices is a must read for all sport historians and those interested in physical training and its meanings. Erudite, solid, enlightening, this is a truly valuable book for our field."