Project Details
Projekt
Creativity and Constraint on African State Boundaries
Applicant
Professor Dr. Gregor Dobler
Subject Area
Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
Term
from 2013 to 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 231775150
Borderlands are among the most dynamic social spheres in Africa. This is surprising: we find the most creative appropriations of state institutions in places where a powerful technology of control shapes social life. Due to this interplay between institutionalisation and dynamism, state boundaries are ideal places to analyse the relation between adaptation and creativity. The project uses case studies in three very different borderlands to describe how the possibility and need to adapt to institutionalisations implemented from above contributes to the emergence of novel forms of social actions. Comparing the borderlands between Namibia and Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali, we analyse the relation between the degree of institutionalisation and the likelihood of creativity to emerge from the interaction of a local population with the institution. The three case studies are linked by a systematic selection of cases to represent different border histories and different political settings, by a shared methodology and by shared work packages making data mutually comparable. The first project phase concentrated on local dynamics and on the appropriation and reinterpretation of technologies of control. In the second phase, we will build on our findings to focus on the role of global significations. We ask how ascriptions of meaning emerging in a global sphere become relevant on the local level, how and why they influence local agency, and how they shape the imaginations of the social on which people base their actions. We are particularly interested in the way new ascriptions of meaning affect the distribution of chances for local agency. In the first phase, one field of global significations has emerged as particularly important for each case study; we will use these themes as cases for the empiric analysis. On the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe, the focus will be on the interplay of global ideas about migration regimes, security and nature conservation. In the Namibian-Angolan case, we concentrate on ideas about the free global flows of goods and attempts to eliminate the friction of borderlands through transport corridors. In the border region of Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali, the main theme is the idea of a necessary connection between security and statehood. These questions address the central theoretical concerns of the Priority Programme in an empirical field that has increasing relevance for national and international political actors. By analysing concrete border situations from the theoretical perspective of the Priority Programme, the project is expected to generate important new insights for borderland studies as well as for policy actors. The project relies on qualitative methods, most importantly long-term participant observation and everyday conversations. Additional data will be gathered through interviews and archival work.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
