Sara Rich Dorman, Daniel Patrick Hammett, Paul Nugent, eds.  Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and Citizenship in Africa.
Leiden Brill, 2007.  xii + 277 pp.  $107.00 (paper), ISBN 978-90-04-15790-3.

Reviewed by Cheryl McEwan (Durham University) Published on H-Africa (February, 2010) Commissioned by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Nations, States and Citizenship in Africa

I read this book at a time when the kind of “violent Orientalism”[1] to which African states have long been subjected was emerging yet again in another part of the world. Writing about Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake in January 2010, New York Times columnist David Brooks exclaimed:

“Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.  We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.”[2]

This kind of demonization of a particular culture as inherently violent and irresponsible, and the idea that some cultures are “progress-resistant,” has long been a feature of expert and popular writing about Africa and, in particular, of accounts of “failed” states or corrupt governance. Scholars, journalists, international donors, and nongovernmental organizations posit a culture of violence and/or corruption as responsible for democratic deficits, state crises, and enduring violence and conflict. As _The Economist _claimed in the wake of political violence in Sierra Leone, “state-sponsored thuggery” and corruption fuel the failure of African states; and while “brutality, despotism and corruption exist everywhere ... African societies, for reasons buried in their cultures, seem especially susceptible to them.” The article went on:
“Sierra Leone manifests all of the continent’s worst characteristics. It is an extreme, but not untypical example of state with all the epiphenomena and none of the institutions of government…. It is ...a symbol for Africa.”[3]

In contrast, scholars across a range of disciplines have attempted to redress the balance and to challenge such sweeping and reductive stereotypes. They have done so by exploring the legacies on state formation of particularly destructive forms of imperialism and neo-imperialism, and by examining the complexities that individual African states face in nation-building and citizenship formation. Inspired by the likes of Mahmood Mamdani (_Citizen and Subject:Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism_, 1996), they have also resisted theorizing African states through Western models, which fail to acknowledge either historical legacies or cultural complexities and fail to problematize expectations that African states should achieve fully functioning democratic structures and a measure of stability that it took European countries centuries to attain. While not explicitly setting itself against Orientalist writings on African states, _Making Nations, Creating Strangers _is a welcome addition to this tradition of informed scholarship on states, nations, and citizenship in Africa. The individual chapters do not shy away from discussing ethnic violence, conflict over land, politics of exclusion, xenophobia, and other problems that beset specific African states. However, they set these problems and challenges within their historical and contemporary contexts, including the influence of processes of globalization and liberalization. They examine both the manipulation of citizenship by elites, but also the possibilities for resistance and agency from the margins. Refreshingly, the book does not set out to deconstruct the African state, and thus avoids reading state processes through discourses of failure; instead it sets out to understand the permanence of African states and why nation and citizenship remain sites of contestation within these states.

_Making Nations, Creating Strangers _emerges from an African studies conference on “States, Borders and Nations: Negotiating Citizenship in Africa,” held at the University of Edinburgh in May 2004. Aimed primarily at an African studies readership, the collection addresses a conceptual and theoretical gap in understanding the ways in which nation, nationalism, and citizenship in Africa are negotiated in reference to states and borders. It brings together scholars from diverse disciplines (including history, African studies, development studies, anthropology, political science, and sociology) to explore the historical roots and development of nationalism and national identities in a range of different contexts, drawing out the ways in which these identities are contested and the significance of both power relations and the agency of marginalized groups. African nationalisms, in contrast to ethnic identities, have been relatively neglected in African contexts; in attempting to fill this gap, this volume thus makes a timely and valuable contribution. All bar two of the eleven substantive chapters are each highly specific and focused at the level of individual African countries—only the final two chapters are comparative—but the collection is held together through a common examination of the complex dimensions of nationality, citizenship, and identity.

In the first chapter of the book (which also constitutes part 1), the editors attempt to draw out the key themes that are addressed throughout subsequent chapters. These include: the complexities of nationalism, identity and belonging in postcolonial African states; the complexities of nation-building and resultant exclusions; the construction and maintenance of insider-outsider divisions in numerous African states, and the recent reinvigoration of state borders as political, social, and economic boundaries and markers of belonging; the use of history and education in the creation of a sense of nation and citizenship; the recent emergence of xenophobia in states that are attempting to resolve internal divisions; the significance of land as a marker of belonging and symbol of citizenship; and the potential for new formations of citizenship and for progressive politics emerging from the margins of African states.

The introductory chapter develops these themes succinctly, but it could perhaps have done more to flesh out the specific objectives of the book and the particular contributions it aims to make to existing debates. This is only hinted at rather than fully explicated.

The subsequent chapters develop rich accounts of the key variables in the development of states and citizenship in specific African contexts, ranging from histories of colonialism and post-independence state formation, patterns of inequality, land pressures, complex allegiances and identities, and the influence of geographies of resource location. The chapters are organized into four distinct parts. Part 2 covers themes of inclusion, exclusion, and conflict.

The first chapter is an excellent account by Ruth Marshall-Fratari of the historical roots of the Ivorian crisis. The chapter examines the ways in which ethnic identity has been produced by both the colonial and postcolonial state, organized specifically around notions of an autochthonous and allogenous binary that distinguishes “strangers” from people “of the soil.” The chapter claims that the revitalization of autochthony as a political issue raised the question of who is a foreigner in Côte d’Ivoire. It also produced territorialized and ethnnicized definitions of citizenship and national identity that led to conflict, primarily over land tenure, in the early part of this century. Marshall-Fratari argues that the failed coup of 2002 was not simply a struggle for state power, but a struggle to redefine the very nature of citizenship, a struggle that has not been fully resolved in contemporary Côte d’Ivoire. The second chapter in part 2 is an equally compelling account by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja of the complex conceptions of citizenship in the Great Lakes region, specifically, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The chapter provides a brief historical analysis of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict and the ethnic cleansing in Katanga, illustrating the ways in which the politics of citizenship can, ironically, be used to constrain political emancipation and democratization. The author concludes with a plea for a more inclusive politics of citizenship in multi-ethnic and multicultural societies like those in the Great Lakes region, drawing on both transnational/global conceptualizations of citizenship and the ideals of pan-African solidarity.

Part 3 contains three chapters organized around the theme of land and belonging. The first chapter by Sam Hickey is an empirically rich analysis of the disadvantaged positioning of the Mbororo Fulani in Cameroon. Against a context in which land and territory is articulated as the basis of citizenship through a discourse of autochthony, the chapter illustrates how the non-territorial structures of the pastoralist Mbororo Fulani create conditions for their marginalization. The chapter explores how land and political representation and participation are key dimensions in the process of citizenship formation and resultant exclusions. Hickey argues that the Mbororo have been excluded from local definitions and practices of citizenship because they represent an internal “other” against whom dominant notions of citizenship are formed and used within the local and national politics of citizenship. He concludes, however, that while it is difficult for the Mbororo to challenge constructions of citizenship based on notions of autochthony, they are able to challenge subject-positions and have potential agency in re-imagining citizenship in ways that are more politically progressive.

The second chapter in part 3, by Blair Rutherford, discusses citizenship in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe, specifically the relationship between citizenship and rights to land use, and the historical processes by which farm workers have been constituted by the state as less virtuous citizens within the nation of Zimbabwe.

The chapter explores this public location of farm workers, whom the state has represented as migrant workers to diminish their contribution as historically limited to white farmers. It also examines how this has been used to depict farm workers as less deserving, and even as foreigners, with regards to access to land. The author then explores how this relates directly to current debates about democracy and social justice in Zimbabwe. In the final chapter of this section, Deborah James examines the vexed relationship between land and citizenship in the context of the South African land reform. The chapter examines specific disputes over land entitlement, ownership, and occupation in post-apartheid South Africa and how these conflicts are articulated through recourse to citizenship. The chapter elucidates the continuing rift between the African middle classes (landlords) and the African poor (tenants) through the example of Pedi and Ndebele in Mpumalanga province, and how state policy is both entrenching the power of chiefs in traditional rural areas and empowering new intermediaries through its use of land brokers. The chapter concludes that such policies provide the basis only for “second-class” citizenship for rural people.

Part 4 contains three chapters focusing on nation-drawing boundaries. Nicodemus Fru Awasom focuses on language and citizenship in Cameroon, where English and French, despite being alien languages, have the capacity for generating conflict. The chapter attempts to address the focus on conflict by previous accounts of the relationship between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroonians by highlighting countercurrents that emerge from historically rooted bonds that hold both groups together. Awasom argues that precolonial ethnic ties provide common ground, but that different colonial heritages provide the basis for differential identification and exclusion, specifically in terms of Francophone dominance of access to positions of power in government and to resources. He concludes that only constitutional reform, decentralization, and greater federal autonomy can resolve these inequities.

The second chapter in part 4 examines race and nationalism in Tanzanian schools, focusing specifically on the relationship between those categorized as Indian and African in the postcolonial period. Ned Bertz highlights the commonalities between Tanzanian Africans and Indians, arguing emphatically that conflicts, such as those articulated around race, nationalism, and education, are a necessary part of the creation and transformation of Tanzanian society. Moreover, Bertz argues that intensifying interracial interaction, rather than segregation, has shaped Tanzanian history and continues to inform the identities of its peoples, in contrast to popular perceptions. While racial disputes occasionally flare, everyday relations between Tanzanian Africans and Indians “can be normal, civil, and mutually valued” (p. 179). The final chapter in this section, by Brian Raftopoulos, explores the current situation in Zimbabwe. It focuses on the emergence of a revived, but more virulent, form of nationalism that serves to define insiders and outsiders. The chapter examines Robert Mugabe’s ideological project, based around a black/white binary, and demonstrates how national identity has been deployed instrumentally against all other forms of identification and belonging. Key to Mugabe’s campaign has been the discursive location of political opponents on the “white” side of the divide as an “alien” political force, as “unpatriotic” and as “puppets of the West.” It also relies on a selective reading of nationalist history and an exclusivist construction of the nation.

The ideologically driven political assault on Zimbabweans through the media and state policy has, as Raftopoulos argues, effectively closed down spaces for alternative debates about citizenship and national belonging.

The final section of the book contains three chapters that explore the present, past, and future of citizenship in Africa. Neville Alexander’s chapter on nation-building in South Africa is an eloquent reflection on what was achieved in the first ten years after apartheid. Alexander accuses the African National Congress (ANC) of missing a unique historical opportunity to “initiate a completely different socio-psychological and cultural trajectory” through promoting national unity and social integration (p. 206). Instead, the ruling party has perpetuated apartheid-style racial categorization through its affirmative action and other policies, which fail to address “disadvantage at all levels, regardless of colour, creed or gender” (p. 213). The chapter concludes that class and racial divisions have been entrenched, and national chauvinism is increasingly expressed through xenophobia. Alexander argues that notions of identity in South Africa need to be thought of not as entrenched and static, but as fluid, hybrid, and open to change.

The second chapter in part 5 is the first of two comparative chapters. Here, Will Reno examines the question of whether African rebels are interested in having their own citizens. The chapter focuses on warlord politics in numerous settings such as Somalia, Sierra Leone, and Congo, and attempts to rethink citizenship in relation to resource control and violence. It contends that even where rebels are concerned, the important dynamics of politics in African contexts are not that different to those in other parts of the world. Instead, issues of citizenship in these contexts reveal the centrality of the relationship of the control of resources and violence to the nature of political authority, which emanates in very specific ways in the context of the political economy of patronage politics. The final chapter also takes a more thematic and comparative approach to consider some broader questions of nation, ethnicity, and citizenship in Africa. Crawford Young produces an instructive conclusion to the collection in which he draws out the relationship between identity, territory, and conflict through a reflection on processes of democratization in Africa since the 1990s.

The chapter traces the paradoxical attachment to colonial boundaries within expressions of nationalism and in secessionist violence and attempts to characterize the kinds of nationalisms found in Africa.

It sketches out African versions of ethnicity and explains why these rarely emanate in the form of ethno-nationalisms, before outlining citizenship and its relation to identity in African states. Young argues that although partial restoration of authoritarianism has occurred since the wave of democratization in the 1990s, new spaces for civil society have prevailed in which issues of identity and citizenship can be articulated. However, these spaces prevail at the same time that two zones of conflict—in the Horn of Africa and from Central into West Africa—have also entrenched prolonged disorder into the political landscape. Young is optimistic, however, that there cannot be a return to the forms of rule that prevailed in the 1980s and that there has been significant progress with respect to civil order in most areas of violent conflict. This chapter provides a wide-ranging analysis of the key themes developed in previous chapters, and serves as a useful conclusion to the book as whole.

Despite the effectiveness of the final chapter, there are a few areas in which a brief concluding chapter by the editors would have helped to bring together some of the important themes running through many of the preceding chapters. While Young successfully pulls together ideas about states, citizenship, nationalism, identity, ethnicity, conflict, and education, the major omission across the volume as a whole is the failure of individual chapters to develop the theme of the permanence of the African state, as identified by the editors in the introduction. This is a potentially compelling and original line of argument and the editors perhaps missed an opportunity by not returning to this in a concluding summary. Similarly, while the chapters go some way towards filling the gap in the scholarly attention to citizenship laws in Africa, which is also identified in the editors’ introduction, this theme could also have been further developed in a summary. Migration is clearly an important issue throughout Africa, both historical and contemporary, and raises difficult questions for notions of citizenship, yet this also remains somewhat understated in the volume, despite the discussion in several chapters of autochthonous and exogenous notions of belonging and the challenges that migration poses for questions of citizenship. The issue of refugees and peoples displaced by conflict is also not interrogated in relation to citizenship at any point in the volume.

Despite these omissions, _Making Nations, Creating Strangers_ is a valuable addition to studies of citizenship in different African states and its novel focus on the question of nation and nationalism will be of particular interest to Africanist scholars. The book makes a number of significant arguments. First, it highlights how rigid categorizations of people by ethnicity emerged during the colonial period and have been manipulated and used subsequently by post-independence leaders for their own ends. Second, most of the chapters allude to or exemplify the need for broader understandings of citizenship beyond individuals and rights to land to include non-indigenous and territorially mobile populations. These are challenges faced in other multi-ethnic and multicultural contexts and there is potential, therefore, in rethinking citizenship in African contexts to not only draw on debates elsewhere, but to contribute to new conceptualizations of citizenship. Finally, as in many other states, translating de jure citizenship into de facto citizenship in African states is likely to remain constrained by enduring relationships of power. The volume manages to tease out the major problems and challenges facing African states in relation to citizenship and belonging, while developing subtle and informed counterpoints to analyses of African states that seem unable to move beyond the teleology of “failure” and other reductionist stereotypes.

There are few places where closer editing would have helped (for example, the unfinished sentence at the bottom of p. 100). However, the volume is an extremely interesting read and provides a good grounding in questions of state, nation, and citizenship in Africa.
It is broad-ranging in approach and each chapter is engagingly written, and insightful in its lines of argument and use of examples.

The book will be of deserved interest to scholars, especially advanced undergraduates and graduates, across a range of disciplines, particularly those with an interest in African politics, identity, and citizenship in the context of nation and statehood.

Notes

[1]. S. Springer, “Culture of Violence or Violent Orientalism?
Neoliberalisation and Imagining the ‘Savage Other’ in Post-transitional Cambodia,” _Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers _34, no. 3 (2009): 305-319.

[2]. _The New York Times_, January 14, 2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html?em, accessed January 18, 2010.

[3]. _The Economist_,_ _May 11, 2000:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PPPQNJ,
accessed June 15, 2008.

Citation: Cheryl McEwan. Review of Dorman, Sara Rich; Hammett, Daniel Patrick; Nugent, Paul, eds., _Making Nations, Creating Strangers:
States and Citizenship in Africa_. H-Africa, H-Net Reviews. February, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25776