IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gig/afjour/v44y2009i1p19-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“New” Nationalism and Autochthony – Tales of Origin as Political Cleavage

Author

Listed:
  • Morten Bøås

Abstract

The conflicts in Liberia, Eastern DRC and Côte d’Ivoire can be “read” as “wars of modernity” as they are concerned with the composition of their respective polities: who is a citizen and who is not. However, these contemporary conflicts are deeply embedded in a long history of violence: integral to this history is the issue of land. Citizenship in itself does not secure access to land, but at the very least it allows those with this status a legitimate entry to the competition for land. There is therefore a direct link between contested citizenship and land rights issues. Drawing on fieldwork material from the above-mentioned countries, this article will show how localised identity narratives under certain circumstances destroy as well as reformulate national identities, and that insight from ethnographic work on autochthonic issues can help us understand conflicts in a broad range of African countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Morten Bøås, 2009. "“New” Nationalism and Autochthony – Tales of Origin as Political Cleavage," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 44(1), pages 19-38.
    • Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:1:p:19-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/afsp/article/view/27/27
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ingrid Samset, 2002. "Conflict of interests or interests in conflict? diamonds & war in the DRC," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(93-94), pages 463-480, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arne Schollaert & Dirk Van de gaer, 2008. "Boycotts, Power Politics, or Trust Building: How to Prevent Conflict?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(2), pages 356-379, June.
    2. Cassimon, Danny & Engelen, Peter-Jan & Reyntjens, Filip, 2013. "Rwanda’s involvement in Eastern DRC: A criminal real options approach," MPRA Paper 46993, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Doussoulin, Jean Pierre & Mougenot, Benoit, 2022. "Mapping mining and ecological distribution conflicts in Latin America, a bibliometric analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Eliezer Majambu & Salomon Mampeta Wabasa & Camille Welepele Elatre & Laurence Boutinot & Symphorien Ongolo, 2019. "Can Traditional Authority Improve the Governance of Forestland and Sustainability? Case Study from the Congo (DRC)," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-12, April.
    5. Engwicht, Nina, 2016. "Illegale Märkte in Postkonfliktgesellschaften: Der sierra-leonische Diamantenmarkt," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 88, number 88.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:44:y:2009:i:1:p:19-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andreas Mehler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dueiide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.