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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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"Let them stew in their own juice": The British late colonial state, "traditional rule", and ambivalent "modernisation" in Sierra Leone, 1945-1961
| Panel |
84. Rethinking Colonial Governance in sub-Saharan Africa: comparative perspectives on local actors, policies and practices (1915-1965)
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| Paper ID | 747 |
| Author(s) |
Keese, Alexander
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | A recent reinterpretation of the role of so-called "traditional chiefs" as a factor of the colonial regimes highlights the fact that chiefs faced serious constraints when it came to defining their behaviour towards "their subjects". In the whole of the colonial period and in most regions of sub-Saharan Africa chieftaincy did not mean simple exploitation and enrichment for a caste of African auxiliaries. In many situations, chiefs had to comply to the local rules of the game.
The European administrations did frequently not interfere in this state of affairs, independently of if they pursued a rhetoric of 'indirect rule' or of substitution of "despotic rulers". After the Second World War, however, the picture seemed to change. European governments emphasised a shift in African policy from "authentic structures" to modern and democratic African officialdom. This was particularly the case in British West Africa, where Gold Coast and Southern Nigeria were at the forefront of such processes, but closely followed by Sierra Leone.
However, the Sierra Leonean case shows the ambivalence of the whole process. Confronted with a complex situation in the countryside, in the so-called "Protectorate", British officials collaborated with what they found as local structures to create, frequently by improvisation, a particular pattern of informal co-operation. Those particular structures were embraced by the local chiefs, the latter frequently creating their own, neo-traditional legitimisation out of the blue. In this, they profited from both the British commitment to maintain (at least informally) established structures of indirect rule and from the willingness of local populations to accept the continuity of accepted dynasties, at least in many cases. Our case studies will shed lied on this pattern, and bring it into the broader context of 'traditional policy' of the late colonial states in West Africa. |
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