Voetsek! Get[ting] lost: African sportswomen in ‘the sporting black diaspora’

Abstract

In this article, I revisit the women’s 800-meter track final during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in order to revise normative constructions of “the black athlete,” black women’s masculinities, and African women’s place in the “sporting black diaspora.” Specifically, I consider the discussions about masculinity and black athleticism that followed the South African track athlete, Caster Semenya, after she won the silver medal in August 2012. I argue that Semenya’s position on the world stage and her unapologetic embrace of a queer black masculinity disrupts prevailing accounts of “the black athlete” by affirming the position of black sportswomen and postcolonial African athletes within that narrative.