About.

Eleven Named People explores football as a site of political and cultural struggles and economic exploration, revealing the racial and class dynamics shaping national and global identities.

The Substack takes its name and preoccupation from Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012), the British historian of global capitalism and nationalism and passionate supporter of the Austrian club Rapid Wien. As he once noted, "The imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people."

As for my qualifications, I was born and raised in one of Cape Town’s working-class coloured townships during apartheid. I studied in South Africa, Britain, and the United States.

I have worked as a political researcher and journalist. I am now fa ull professor and director of the graduate program in international affairs at The New School in New York City.

One of the courses at The New School is “Global Soccer, Global Politics,” co-taught with Tony Karon.

I founded (2009) and edited (2009 — 2023) Africa Is a Country. I am now its Publisher.

Some of my writing on sports culture has been published in The New York Times. Soccer & Society, Radical History Review, Al Jazeera English, Roads & Kingdoms, Herri, The Nation, Jadaliyya, and Medium.