Postcolonial Borderland Legacies of Anglo-French Partition in West Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2097984 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William F S Miles (0000-0001-5557-9222, Universidad del Noreste, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 191-213 |
| Publication date | 2015-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Studies Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-0206 • E-ISSN: 1555-2462 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/asr.2015.71 |
| OpenAlex | W2282166722 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 41 |
More than five decades after independence, Africa still struggles with the legacies of colonial partition. On the territorial frontiers between the postcolonial inheritors of the two major colonial powers, Great Britain and France, the continuing impact of European colonialism remains most acute. On the one hand, the splitting of erstwhile homogeneous ethnic groups into British and French camps gave rise to new national identities; on the other hand, it circumvented any possibility of sovereignty via ethnic solidarity. To date, however, there has been no comprehensive assessment of the ethnic groups that were divided between English- and French-speaking states in West Africa, let alone the African continent writ large. This article joins postcolonial ethnography to the emerging field of comparative borderland studies. It argues that, although norms of state-based identity have been internalized in the Anglophone-Francophone borderlands, indigenous bases of association and behavior continue to define life along the West African frontier in ways that undermine state sovereignty. Although social scientists tend to focus on national- and sub-national-level analyses, and increasingly on the effects of globalization on institutional change, study of the African borderlands highlights the continuing importance of colonial legacies and grassroots-derived research
Colonialism · Decolonization · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Frontier · Grassroots · Indigenous · Partition (number theory · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Writ · African Studies and Geopolitics · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
Partitioned Africans
West Africa Partitioned
The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective
Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa
Women in Muslim Societies
Western Yorubaland under European Rule, 1889-1945
Hausaland Divided
Darfur and Chad
Boundaries and Conflict in the Mano River Region of West Africa
Smugglers, Secessionists and Loyal Citizens on the Ghana-Togo Frontier
Provisional notes on the postcolony
Nationalism Versus Ethnic Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa
The creation and matintenance of national boundaries in Africa
Institutions, Context, and Outcomes
Dismemberment and Suffocation
West Africa Partitioned
Ghana and the Ivory Coast
Cyclical History in the Gambia/Casamance Borderlands
Partitioned Royalty
Divide and Rule
Development, not division
Ethnicity in Ghana
Shari'aas De-Africanization
British and French Colonial Technique in West Africa
Citizen and Subject
Borderlands in Africa
The Irony of Indirect Rule in Sokoto Emirate, Nigeria, 1903-1944
British Administration and the Decline of the Patronage-Clientage System in Northwestern Nigeria, 1900-1934
Ethnicity in Ghana
The 'True Nzema
This is Ghanaian territory
We are the border
Fulbe Continuity and Change under Five Flags Atop West Africa
The Clandestine Movement of Groundnuts across the Niger-Nigeria Boundary
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,43 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |