Muscular Faith: The Interplay between Sport and Religion in Africa

Many young African lives are paused in ‘waithood’ (Honwana 2012): no longer children but unable to become independent adults. Many manage this situation through sport, religion, or both. The question at the heart of MFA is how sport and religion in tandem provide a way out of ‘waithood’.Sport and religion alternately reference each other as performance enhancers. Both have been posited as catalysts for development and integration, however, their interplay remains under-theorised. Social science views sport through a secular lens, while religious studies have been slow to recognise the ‘religious’ elements of sport. If they do, studies are limited to a Western, Christian context. MFA will span existing academic siloes by taking a multidisciplinary approach, considering the interplay between sport and religion from a non-Western, non-Christian perspective.Africa is known as the ‘sporting continent’ and Africans as the ‘most religious people’, making it a unique setting to investigate i) the ‘sport-religion nexus’ – how each appropriates the other’s values and practices and how they affect each other; and ii) how this nexus enables meaning and purpose. MFA will 1) deepen understanding of the sport-religion nexus; 2) innovate an Afrocentric, actor-oriented approach focused on lived experience; 3) centre Africa’s global sporting prowess, redressing misconceptions of Africa as peripheral; and 4) assess the potential of the sport-religion nexus as a catalyst for youth development. This will be achieved through case studies that document sports appropriating elements from different religions (Christianity, Islam, and African Endogenous Religions): boxing in Nigeria; soccer in South Africa; karate in Egypt; long-distance running in Kenya.MFA’s dissemination and open-access academic, creative, and policy outputs will contribute to decolonising knowledge production about Africa, fostering South-North collaborations, and enhancing capacity development in Africa.