This edited volume addresses key debates around African football, identity construction, fan cultures, and both African and global media narratives. Using the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as a lens, it explores how football in Africa is intimately bound up with deeper social, cultural and political currents.

This edited volume addresses key debates around African football, identity construction, fan cultures, and both African and global media narratives. Using the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as a lens, it explores how football in Africa is intimately bound up with deeper social, cultural and political currents.

Introduction: Towards an Epistemology of African Football - the Symbolic Significance of 2010 FIFA World Cup; Nhamo A. Mhiripiri and Tendai Chari 1. Nation-Building and the FIFA World Cup, South Africa 2010; Nathalie Hyde-Clarke, Rune Ottosen and Toby Miller 2. To the Cape and Back: A World Cup Diary - Football Tourism, Narratives of South Africa and the FIFA 2010 World Cup; Luke Jones 3. The 2010 World Cup Celebrations in a Non-Hosting Location: Voices from the Periphery; Kiran Odhav 4. South African FIFA World Cup 2010: African Players Global Labor Distribution and Impact on the Domestic Game; Njororai Wycliffe 5. New-Found Fan Culture; Emma Durden 6. Zimbabwean Female Audiences: Negotiating (En)Gendered Spaces in the 2010 FIFA World Cup; Rosemary Chikafa 7. Noisemaker or Cultural Symbol: The Vuvuzela Controversy and Expressions of Football Fandom; Jeffrey W Kassing 8. Nigeria: Media Narratives and Reports of Football from Within; Chuka Onwumechili 9. Unmaking the Dark Continent: South Africa, Africa and the Image Make-Over Narrative in the South African Press; Tendai Chari 10. Imploding or Perpetuating African Myths through Reporting South Africa 2010 World Cup Stories on Economic Opportunity; Joyce Tsitsi Mhiripiri and Nhamo Anthony Mhiripiri 11. The FIFA World Cup 2010 in the German Media: Presentation and Construction of a Large Sports Event; Thomas Horky and Christoph G. Grimmer 12. A Unique Period? An Analysis of the Coverage of Africa during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Selected Western Media; Teke Ngomba 13. Of Sunsets, Savagery, and Soccer: Framing Africa during the Final Days of the 2010 World Cup; Bernadine Jones 14. Afro-Pessimism in the French and British Press Coverage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa; Toussaint Nothias