Bodily Practices and Colonialism: Sport and Physical Culture in Luanda, 1860–1930

Abstract

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Luanda, the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, institutionalized colonial sport and physical culture practices revealed social conflicts and racial categories. They also influenced expressions of social and cultural identities. Newspaper accounts of sport and physical culture published in and circulated around Luanda reveal the cultural interests and political positions of competing social groups. As in many other colonies and regions, bodily practices in Luanda defined and redefined social arrangements during the processes of modernization and Westernization.