The transnational prosocial activities of elite African footballers in their communities of origin

Abstract

Through a digital ethnography of Twitter and Instagram and semi-structured interviews, this paper examined the different forms of prosocial activities of elite African footballers in their home countries. A few studies have examined ‘give back’ activities in communities of origin in the form of remittances to family and friends and social philanthropy initiatives. This approach has proven to be limited as it does not capture their non-material contributions to society. By framing the research problem around the concepts of prosocial behaviour and athlete citizenship, this study added new dimensions to our understanding of African players’ prosocial activities in their home countries. The findings show that African players are socially conscious agents who are obliged by their social norms and cultural values to support their communities in many different ways, including through active citizenship. The implication is that conceptions of the elite African athlete need to recognise them as ‘citizen athletes’ whose non-sporting lives go beyond remittances and philanthropy.

Keywords:

• Transnationalism
• athlete citizenship
• prosocial behaviour
• give back behaviour
• African footballers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pseudonym.

2 Pseudonym.