African Ladies on Colonial Grounds: Negotiating Sports Practice in Colonial Ghana

Dr Claire Nicolas (SOAS University of London)

In 1951, a group of Ghanaian schoolgirls were prevented from entering their sports fields because of repeated abuses, eventually leading the authorities to cancel their participation to a long-awaited sports festival: “like a bubble [their hopes] burst in clear air”.  

At the crossroads of gender studies, sport history and Ghana history, this research focuses on young African women’s participation in sports – from their very introduction in the 1900s to the 1957 independence. Following early informal sports competitions, women sporting activities became closely linked to schooling and afar from the growing institutionalisation of men’s sports. This presentation argues that, as sports became part and parcel of elite missionary-trained young women’s leisure, these activities were framed by intersecting feminist claims, social philanthropy, and racial and gendered assignations. 

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