Dear all,

We are very pleased to announce Paul Hayes’ presentation of his research next Thursday in CEDEJ Khartoum:

Sudanese Wrestling in East Nile, Khartoum

Paul Hayes 

PhD Candidate in Anthropology, Australian National University

Visiting Scholar, CEDEJ Khartoum

Thursday 6 September 2018

5pm – CEDEJ Khartoum

Abstract

In this seminar, Paul Hayes, from the Australian National University, will give an update on his ethnographic fieldwork among professional Sudanese wrestlers in Khartoum’s East Nile district. Despite emerging as a popular tourist attraction, Khartoum’s ‘Nuba wrestling’ has received only brief scholarly attention so far. For his research, Paul sets out to understand what it means to be a contemporary Sudanese wrestler in East Nile, noting that the athletes are increasingly non-Nuba. He seeks to make sense of how the sport emerged in Khartoum as a ‘professional’ and ethnically-inclusive variant of the ‘tribal’ sport that continues to be practiced in the Nuba Mountains today, and explores the ongoing tensions and (dis)continuities between the two varieties of wrestling practice. In the seminar, Paul will discuss the project’s objectives and methods, before delving deeper into the rules of the game and the broader social universe(s) that constitute the life of a Sudanese wrestler.