TY - BOOK
T1 - Entrepreneurial Goals
T2 - Development and Africapitalism in Ghanaian Soccer Academies
AU - Dubinsky, Itamar
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - “Entrepreneurial Goals creates a new body of evidence on the relationship between African sport and society, a field of inquiry of growing significance. The author’s numerous interviews with Ghanaian coaches, staff workers, players, parents, fans, and others shed new light on the everyday operation of soccer training centers and their wider impact.”—Peter Alegi, Michigan State University. The idea that the African private sector will generate economic prosperity and social wealth - an objective many governments and foreign charitable organizations have failed to achieve—continues to attract attention in business and policy circles. Yet little research has actually been conducted on Africapitalist endeavors. With the immense popularity of sports and the many aspirations they foster, the successes and shortcomings of soccer academies have kicked their way into the spotlight. Entrepreneurial Goals breaks away from studies that focus on the international relations consequences of soccer ventures, which are often rebuked as extended forms of European colonialism and exploitation of local talent, and instead centers Ghanaian establishments and the opportunities they create for local development within their surrounding communities. Itamar Dubinsky’s extensive ethnographic research offers an innovative theoretical approach by assessing three institutions - Mandela Soccer Academy, Kumasi Sports Academy, and Unistar Soccer Academy - through an Africapitalist prism. He demonstrates that these business endeavors, when viewed from the perspective of local interests, realize many of the educational, financial, and community building ambitions of the region. This pioneering examination of locally owned academies in Ghana reflects Dubinsky’s aim of illuminating the entrepreneurs and programs whose success passes to participating youth and their families, while also exposing the contradictions of for-profit development initiatives that purport to reap collective social benefits.
AB - “Entrepreneurial Goals creates a new body of evidence on the relationship between African sport and society, a field of inquiry of growing significance. The author’s numerous interviews with Ghanaian coaches, staff workers, players, parents, fans, and others shed new light on the everyday operation of soccer training centers and their wider impact.”—Peter Alegi, Michigan State University. The idea that the African private sector will generate economic prosperity and social wealth - an objective many governments and foreign charitable organizations have failed to achieve—continues to attract attention in business and policy circles. Yet little research has actually been conducted on Africapitalist endeavors. With the immense popularity of sports and the many aspirations they foster, the successes and shortcomings of soccer academies have kicked their way into the spotlight. Entrepreneurial Goals breaks away from studies that focus on the international relations consequences of soccer ventures, which are often rebuked as extended forms of European colonialism and exploitation of local talent, and instead centers Ghanaian establishments and the opportunities they create for local development within their surrounding communities. Itamar Dubinsky’s extensive ethnographic research offers an innovative theoretical approach by assessing three institutions - Mandela Soccer Academy, Kumasi Sports Academy, and Unistar Soccer Academy - through an Africapitalist prism. He demonstrates that these business endeavors, when viewed from the perspective of local interests, realize many of the educational, financial, and community building ambitions of the region. This pioneering examination of locally owned academies in Ghana reflects Dubinsky’s aim of illuminating the entrepreneurs and programs whose success passes to participating youth and their families, while also exposing the contradictions of for-profit development initiatives that purport to reap collective social benefits.
U2 - 10.2307/j.ctv2v3mhkr
DO - 10.2307/j.ctv2v3mhkr
M3 - Book
SN - 9780299335601
T3 - Africa and the diaspora: history, politics, culture
BT - Entrepreneurial Goals
PB - The University of Wisconsin Press
ER -