Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Boundaries, Communities and State-Making in West Africa
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2019
Print publication year:
2019
Online ISBN:
9781139105828
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139105828
Subjects:
Area Studies, African Studies, History, Politics and International Relations, African Government, Politics and Policy, African History
Series:
African Studies (144)
Information

Book description

Border regions are often considered to be the neglected margins. In this book, Paul Nugent argues that through a comparison of the Senegambia and the trans-Volta (Ghana/Togo), we can see that the geographical margins have shaped notional centres at least as much as the reverse. Through a study of three centuries of history, this book demonstrates that states were forged through an extended process of converting a topography of settled states and slaving frontiers into colonial borders. It argues that post-colonial states and larger social contracts have been configured very differently as a consequence. It underscores the impact on regional dynamics and the phenomenon of peripheral urbanism. Nugent also addresses the manner in which a variegated sense of community has been forged amongst Mandinka, Jola, Ewe and Agotime populations who have both shaped and been shaped by the border. This is an exercise in reciprocal comparison and shuttles between scales, from the local and the particular to the national and the regional.

Reviews

‘This must-read West African showpiece, magnificently executed in the finest traditions of African historical scholarship, with notably intensive archival and library research and extensive fieldwork, should be replicated for other regions to bridge a yearning gap in African and global historiography.’

Anthony I. Asiwaju - University of Lagos, Nigeria

‘A model example of deeply-contextualized comparative research. It makes a compelling case that the analytical framework within which African states are viewed should be shifted from 'neo-patrimonialism' to 'social contract' - the latter being deftly deployed throughout this well-written and accessible study.’

Gareth Austin - University of Cambridge

‘This ambitious work argues that to understand states and state-making in contemporary Africa, one must focus on 'the margins' - that is, on the making of boundaries and borders. This radical redefinition of analytic perspective, developed in a text of grand historical and spatial sweep, has produced a book that will be a great interest to historians, political scientists, geographers and anthropologists.’

Catherine Boone - London School of Economics and Political Science

‘A tremendously creative study, masterfully bringing to the West African fore that which has hitherto been seen as marginal: the edges of the colonial and postcolonial state. With his fine frontier brush, Nugent paints us a different conceptual picture of how we ought to reimagine the centres and perimeters of African polities.'

William F. S. Miles - Northeastern University, Boston

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Page 1 of 2

Contents

Page 1 of 2

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.