The Precarity of Masculinity

"[This book] is a welcome addition to the literature on African masculinity, global professional sport, neoliberalism, and Pentecostalism. I find it particularly laudable that the book is concise and relatively short. Its main arguments and analytical observations are well written and empirically saturated." ⢠JRAI (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute)

"Overall, the book is a very exciting journey into one of the shadiest corners of the global football industry... [It] is an important analytical contribution to the fields of sports science, ethnography, and other disciplines focusing on contemporary postcolonialism, the global economy, and young masculinities. It contains an impressive breadth in its research overview as well as a clarifying depth in its analysis...KovaÄ's book is an eye-opener for anyone prepared to see and understand. Football's systematic exploitation of young men, a kind of trafficking, is going on at this very moment and the question is whether the majority of us wants to keep the current order or try to change it. After reading KovaÄ's book, I am doubtful that this system is sustainable in the long run." ⢠idrottsforum.org

"This is an extraordinarily high-quality book, destined to make a mark in Africanist scholarship. Simply by demonstrating the connection between football and Pentecostalism in Cameroon, Kovac's manuscript takes a step I have never seen before, examining a kind of confluence of two global movements into a local production of masculine subjects." ⢠Sasha Newell, Universit© libre de Bruxelles, author of The Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Cote D'Ivoire

"Tells the fascinating story of young Cameroonians, who opt for football as a career to bring them global mobility and attain what the author calls 'moral masculinity' ... The story is full of unexpected turns, bringing in a wide array of aspects and actors." ⢠Peter Geschiere, University of Amsterdam, author of The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe