Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville

In this pioneering book, Phyllis Martin opens up a new field of African research: the leisure activities of urban Africans. Her comprehensive study investigates the ways in which recreational activities, such as football and music, built social networks, humanised daily life and forged new identities.

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In this book, Phyllis Martin, a well-known Africanist scholar, opens up a whole new field of African research: the leisure activities of urban Africans. Her comprehensive study, set in colonial Brazzaville and based on a wide variety of written sources and interviews, investigates recreational activities from football and fashion to music, dance and night life. In it, she brings out the ways in which these activities built social networks, humanised daily life and forged new identities, and explains how they ultimately helped to remake older traditions and values with new cultural forms.