According to dominant views in African studies, prior to colonial rule domination/ power over people was more important than control over land. Consequently, ‘indigenous’ borders have found much less interest among scholars than the borders of colonial and post-colonial states. The panel will analyze non-colonial African borders and their importance for our understanding of control over economic resources, social belonging and political power.
The
emergence of narratives on traditional African boundaries in the context of
current institution building and development programmes. An empirical insight
from Mozambique.
Major
Warden's Knife: African and European Conceptions of Land and Border in 19th
Century Central South Africa. David B. Coplan
(University of the Witwatersrand)
Border Gerrymandering in Pre-colonial
and Colonial Africa: A Comparative Analysis of the Border Dynamics along the
Ikale-Ondo-Ijebu and Edo Borderlands
