As part of the 7th Biennial Congress of the Association for African Studies in Italy (ASAI), we are organizing a panel on cross-border communities in Africa. This panel welcomes papers from various disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, particularly those interested in the individual and collective dimensions of territorialized and individualized relations at international borders, which Amilhat Szary and Giraut (2015) call “borderities.”

VII Biennial Conference Longing for Belonging: Communities and Divides in Africa,

This panel will take place from September 12 to 14, 2024, at the University of Messina (Italy).

Argument

The African borders inherited from colonization have partitioned many homogeneous ethnic groups. Based on the myth of the concordance between the political and ethnic-linguistic border (Lefebvre, 2004), this situation has long been the central argument of the common idea of a Balkanized Africa, divided between the colonial powers during Berlin’s “diplomatic butchery” (Onguené, 2002). However, a vernacular approach (Perkins & Rumford, 2013), which analyses borders through the prism of individuals’ daily lives, shows that “hyphen communities” (Mokam, 2001) have created a border continuum that challenges African borders’ shell function of establishing a territorial-based identity. This situation has also altered these borders’ fulcrum, filter, panopticon, and jurisdiction control functions. More importantly, it created a situation of blurred citizenship.

This panel welcomes papers from various disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, particularly those interested in the individual and collective dimensions of territorialized and individualized relations at international borders, which Amilhat Szary and Giraut (2015) call “borderities.” It is particularly interested in research highlighting the stakes and challenges of the various forms of cross-border ethnic solidarities and citizenship in African borderlands. This panel seeks to provide space for discussion and analysis of cross-border identities, belongings, and the specific issues they pose. Above all, it is a question of promoting the study of cross-border communities as a tool for the disarmament of African borders and the pacification of intra-African relations.

Submission guidelines

The deadline for submitting proposals is June 9, 2024.

To submit a proposal, please download the form (docx) and send it directly to the panel organizers.

There, information about registration fees and payment details is also available.

Convenors

• Aimé Raoul Sumo Tayo, University of Liège, Belgium, raoulsumo@gmail.com  
• Francis Romuald MVO’O, University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon, francisromuald1@gmail.com
• Michel Bertin Medjo Medjo, University of Dschang Cameroon, michbertin@yahoo.fr  

Discussant

Eric Henri Bell Bell, University of Douala, bell_henri@yahoo.fr

References

• Amilhat Szary Anne-Laure & Giraut Frédéric, “Borderities: The Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders”, In Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders, ed Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, A.-L., & Frédéric Giraut (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015).
• Lefebvre, Camille “Histoire des frontières du Niger”, Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps, 73, (2004).
• Mokam, David “Les peuples traits d’union et l’intégration régionale en Afrique centrale : le cas des Gbaya et des Moundang”, In Dynamique d’intégration régionale en Afrique Centrale, 1 & 2, dir. D. Essomba, J-M, Njeuma, M-Z, de la Ronciere (eds), (Yaoundé: PUY, 2001).
• Onguené, Abraham Bernard “Frontière et intégration sous-régionale : le cas de l’Afrique centrale (1960-2002)”, [PhD thesis, International Relations Institute of Cameroon, 2002]
• Perkins, Chris & Rumford, Chris. “The Politics of (un)fixity and the vernacularization of borders.” Global Society, 27(3), (2013): 267–282.