Bodies in action: culture and body skills in post-conflict Sierra Leone

Abstract

This book is about human body movement and culture. The body skills of a sample of Sierra Leoneans are analyzed in terms of acquisition of the skills, the importance of learning these skills to become part of a community and the physical consequences of the activities. It focuses on skills in football as well as skills used in mundane daily life. Using a combination of technical and anthropological research methods, it offers an example of how to study human body movement in a real-life setting and how culture can be studied by analysis of the techniques of the body. Anneke van der Niet is a human movement scientist and africanist. She is currently preparing a PhD study on a comparable topic as the present study, again in West Africa