New Nationalism and Development in Africa: review article

Kohnert, Dirk (2009): New Nationalism and Development in Africa: review article. Published in: Africa Spectrum , Vol. 44, No. 1 (15 May 2009): pp. 111-123.

Abstract

About fifty years after the independence of most former colonies on the African continent, books on African nationalism again rank high on the agenda of the international academic discussion. A selection of three recent publications demonstrates the advances made in scholarly analysis in the meantime as well as the wide range of related subjects. The new nationalism in Africa and elsewhere shows remarkable differences both in its roots and its impact, compared with that of the national independence movements of the early 1960s. Review article of: * Chipkin, Ivor (2007), Do South Africans Exist? Nationalism, Democracy and the Identity of the “People”. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, ISBN 1868144453, 261 pages. * Dorman, Sara, Daniel Hammett, and Paul Nugent (eds.) (2007), Making Nations, Creating Strangers. States and Citizenship in Africa. African Social Studies Series, Leiden: Brill, ISBN 9004157905, 282 pages. * Simpson, Andrew (ed.) (2008), Language and National Identity in Africa. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199286751, 448 pages

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Nationalism; nation building; democratization; civil society; national identity; xenophobia; Africa
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy > F52 - National Security ; Economic Nationalism; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O2 - Development Planning and Policy > O24 - Trade Policy ; Factor Movement Policy ; Foreign Exchange Policy; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration; N - Economic History > N0 - General > N00 - General; P - Economic Systems > P4 - Other Economic Systems > P48 - Political Economy ; Legal Institutions ; Property Rights ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Regional Studies; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J7 - Labor Discrimination > J78 - Public Policy; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification; K - Law and Economics > K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law > K33 - International Law; F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I38 - Government Policy ; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N17 - Africa ; Oceania; A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A14 - Sociology of Economics

References

Amoah, Michael (2007), Reconstructing the Nation in Africa: The Politics of Nationalism in Ghana, International Library of Africa Studies 19, London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies

Anderson, Benedict (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1983; revised edition, July 1991

Bodea, Cristina and Ibrahim A. Elbadawi (2008), Political violence and underdevelopment, in: Journal of African Economies, 17, supplement 2, ii50-ii96

Bokamba, E. G. (1995), The politics of language planning in Africa: Critical choices for the 21st century, in: Pütz, M. (ed.), Discrimination Through Language in Africa?, Mouton de Gruyter, 11-28

Chipkin, Ivor (2007), Do South Africans exist? Nationalism, democracy and the identity of the people, Johannesburg: Wits University Press

Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff (2000), Privatizing the millennium – New protestant ethics and the spirits of capitalism in Africa, and elsewhere, in: Afrika Spectrum, 35, 3, 293-312

Crush, Jonathan (2001), The dark side of democracy: Migration, xenophobia and Human Rights in South Africa, in: International Migration, 38, 6, 103-133

Dorman, Sara, Daniel Hammett, and Paul Nugent (eds.) (2007), Making Nations, Creating Strangers. States and Citizenship in Africa, African Social Studies Series, Leiden: Brill

Finnegan, Ruth (2007), The Oral and Beyond: doing things with words in Africa, Oxford: James Currey; Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press; Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal Press

Heitmeyer, Wilhelm (1991), Xenophobia: Modernization’s Curse, in: European Affairs, 5, 51-57

Kersting, Norbert (2007), Sport and National Identity: A Comparison of the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cups, in: Politikon – South African Journal of Political Studies, 34, 3, 277-293

Kohnert, Dirk (2008), Entfremdung und Ausgrenzung: Afrikas neuer Nationalismus in Zeiten der Globalisierung (Alienation and exclusion: Africa’s new nationalism in times of globalization, in German), in: Sociologus, 58, 2, 197-222

Kohnert, Dirk (2007), Crisis Region Western Africa - The cradle of African migration to Europe, in: Gebrewold, Belachew (ed.), Africa and Fortress Europe - Threats and opportunities, Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 37-55

Mamdani, Mahmood (2002), When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton University Press

Mangu, André Mbata B. (ed.) (2006), Nationalisme, panafricanisme et reconstruction Africaine, Dakar: Codesria. Marx, C. (2002), Ubu and Ubuntu: on the dialectics of apartheid and nation building, in: Politikon – South African Journal of Political Studies, 29, 1, 49-69

Mazrui, Ali A. and Alamin M. Mazrui (1998), The Power of Babel: Language and Governance in the African Experience, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Mbembe, Achille (2008), Afrique du Sud – la vitrine se brise, in: Le Messager, Douala, online, May 29, 2008

Mbembe, Achille (2006), South Africa’s second coming: the Nongquawuse syndrome. online: <http:// www.openDemocracy.net>

Meredith, Martin (2005), The state of Africa: A history of fifty years of independence. London: Free Press

Morus, Christina Marie (2000), Language and power in genocidal regimes: An analysis of the rhetorical function of language in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Rwanda and Hitler’s Germany. M.A. thesis - Eastern Michigan University

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2009), Africa for Africans or Africa for ‘Natives’ Only! ‘New Nationalism’ and Nativism in Zimbabwe and South Africa, in: Africa Spectrum, 44, 1, in print

Nyamnjoh, Francis B. (2007), From bounded to flexible citizenship - Lessons from Africa, in: Citizenship Studies, 11, 1, 73-82

Nyamnjoh, Francis (2006), Insiders and outsiders: citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary Southern Africa, London: Zed Books

Ranger, Terence (2004), Nationalist historiography, patriotic history and the history of the nation: the struggle over the past in Zimbabwe, in: Journal of Southern African Studies, 30, 2, 215-234

SAMP see Southern African Migration Project Sassen, Saskia (2006), Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton: Princeton University Press

Sassen, Saskia (2000), Spatialities and temporalities of the Global: Elements for a theorization, in: Public Culture, 12, 1, 215-232

Simpson, Andrew (ed.) (2008), Language and national identity in Africa, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press

Smith, Tom W. and Seokho Kim (2006), National Pride in Comparative Perspective: 1995/96 and 2003/04, in: International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 18, 127-136

Southern African Migration Project (2008), The perfect storm: The realities of xenophobia in contemporary South Africa, Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project, Migration Policy Series, No. 50, series editor: Jonathan Crush

Tonkin, Elizabeth (1992), Narrating Our Pasts. Oral tradition, with particular focus on the Jlao Kru of Liberia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Young, Crawford (2007), Nation, ethnicity, and citizenship: dilemmas of democracy and civil order in Africa, in: Dorman, Sara, Daniel Hammett, and Paul Nugent (eds.) (2007), Making Nations, Creating Strangers. States and Citizenship in Africa, African Social Studies Series, Leiden: Brill

Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe (2003), Rethinking Africa’s Globalization, Vol.1: The Intellectual Challenges, Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press