Social Science Research Council

The ideas of national citizenship and a plural nation-state have been under crisis and challenge since the early 1990s, with processes of national integration disrupted and transformed. In Africa, as in other parts of the world, one particularly dramatic effect has been the upsurge of a wide array of diffuse and highly volatile forms of political, social and cultural identity. Older languages of ethnicity have been transformed into even more vague—and sometimes more violent—discourses on belonging, "autochthony" (a widely prevalent term for a variant of indigenousness: literally a claim to have 'sprung from the soil') and the exclusion of "strangers" who are often citizens of the same state. This emphasis on more localist forms of belonging, sovereignty, and authority has implied a direct attack on the institution of national citizenship and the ideal of formal equality of all citizens before the law. These new manifestations range from debates over the "real" origins of candidates in election campaigns to violent contests in rural areas where claims of indigeneity and autochthony are often tied to access to land and resources, as well as to the reworking of the very basis of personhood and citizenship.

Influences both internal and external contribute to this trend, including the onset of democratization, economic liberalization and the "decentralization" of development strategies and institutions. The crisis of national citizenship and the weakening of the nation state, both in its redistributive capacities and as a focus of identification, and the concomitant effects on national citizenship, seems to leave a void that is filled by a variety of more diffuse forms of identity . Authochthony is thus often used as a metaphor for indigenousness, a language of the soil, with appeals to heritage and ancestral traditions, creating strong emotional appeal. The appearance of being rooted in what's "natural," however, belies the complexities of an often nervous discourse. Who is "in" today, can be redefined as being "out" tomorrow.

The SSRC's Africa Program aimed to promote deeper understanding of the present-day crisis of citizenship in Africa and to place it in a broader global context. Exploring alternative forms of belonging and the causes of these changes will help to address the future of the nation-state and the ideology of liberal citizenship in Africa and the implications for countries worldwide facing similar challenges. An initial planning meeting was held in September 2003 in Amsterdam, and a sponsored panel was held at the 2004 African Studies Association in New Orleans.

For information on the cross-regional Council program on Citizenship and Belonging, please click here. An April 2005 meeting was held in Dakar, Senegal to discuss the cross-regional initiative.