Young Kings: Marcus Rashford and Theopolitical Charisma

In the aftermath of the UK loss in the 2020 Euro Football Cup, I analyze a theopolitical force of contemporary black football players, as a sovereignty from below epitomized by the figure of Marcus Rashford. Given his meteoric rise in British culture and his prominent social activism against child h...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Napolitano, Valentina 1964- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group 2023
In: Political theology
Year: 2023, Volume: 24, Issue: 1, Pages: 70-81
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Rashford, Marcus 1997- / Influence / Politics
IxTheo Classification:KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
NCD Political ethics
Further subjects:B Sovereignty
B Charisma
B Football Euro Cup
B Marcus Rashford
B elasticity
B Theopolitics
B Iconicity
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:In the aftermath of the UK loss in the 2020 Euro Football Cup, I analyze a theopolitical force of contemporary black football players, as a sovereignty from below epitomized by the figure of Marcus Rashford. Given his meteoric rise in British culture and his prominent social activism against child hunger, Rashford, among the other targets of racial abuse, is a particularly apt exemplar. By integrating anthropological ideas on theopolitics, totemism, charisma, and the sacrality of substance, this paper asks how the iconography, life histories, and social media interventions of young, kingly, Black (mainly Christian) athletes, effect a theopolitical force as an elastic movement of self-referentiality and sovereignty from below that is agonistic rather than antagonistic to the state. Specifically, it explores how these black footballers enliven an exemplar of theopolitical sovereignty that does not decide on letting live or making it die, but on doing a work of undoing injustice.
ISSN:1743-1719
Contains:Enthalten in: Political theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2022.2133804