Entrepreneurial Goals: Development and Africapitalism in Ghanaian Soccer Academies

The idea that the African private sector will generate economic prosperity and social wealth attracts attention in business and policy circles. Dubinsky’s ethnographic research offers an innovative theoretical approach by assessing three soccer academies through an Africapitalist prism. He demonstrates that these business endeavors realize many of the educational, financial, and community building ambitions of the region, while also exposing the contradictions of for-profit development initiatives that purport to reap collective social benefits.

Itamar Dubinsky is a visiting assistant professor of history at Oregon State University. His research focuses on sport and development in Africa, specifically in Ghana, and the contemporary and historical intersections of sport and society, culture, politics, and economics.