The conception of this work is both global and decentralised. The nine chapters and accompanying afterword spring from a collaborative research project undertaken by French, Dutch, Belgian and British historians. Their joint investigations centre on the life courses of a set of carefully selected sporting figures: all-rounder Pim Mulier, boxers Harry Sparendam and Battling Siki, cyclists Adriaan Kerkhoven and Abdelkader Zaaf, distance runner Abebe Bikila, and footballer Zinedine Zidane.

The resulting portraits focus attention on sporting champions whose origins lie in formerly colonized territories. Each chapter interrogates the binary relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, exploring the complex origins of the sporting space. Sport is thus revealed to be a privileged site for the historical investigation of colonial and post-colonial relations between Europe and the rest of the world.

Publication details

Title: Who’s who? Les champions sportifs à l’épreuve des colonisations et des migrations / Sporting champions’s encounter with colonization and migration
Authors: Niek Pas, Yvan Gastaut and Pascal Delheye (eds.)
Publisher: Les Perséides
ISBN: 978-2-37125-030-7