edited by Emma Hunter Dialogues between Past and Present Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa cambridge centre of african studies series Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa CAMBRIDGE CENTRE OF AFRIcaN STUDIES SERIES Series editors: Derek R. Peterson, Harri Englund, and Christopher Warnes T he University of Cambridge is home to one of the world’s leading cen- ters of African studies. It organizes conferences, runs a weekly seminar series, hosts a specialist library, coordinates advanced graduate studies, and facilitates research by Cambridge- and Africa-based academics. The Cambridge Centre of African Studies Series publishes work that ema- nates from this rich intellectual life. The series fosters dialogue across a broad range of disciplines in African studies and between scholars based in Africa and elsewhere. Derek R. Peterson, ed. Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic Harri Englund, ed. Christianity and Public Culture in Africa Devon Curtis and Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa, eds. Peacebuilding, Power, and Politics in Africa Ruth J. Prince and Rebecca Marsland, eds. Making Public Health in Africa: Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives Emma Hunter, ed. Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa: Dialogues between Past and Present Dialogues between Past and Present Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa Edited by Emma Hunter Ohio University Press • Athens Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701 ohioswallow.com © 2016 by Ohio University Press All rights reserved To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax). Printed in the United States of America Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ƒ ™ 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hunter, Emma, 1980– editor. Title: Citizenship, belonging, and political community in Africa : dialogues between past and present / edited by Emma Hunter. Other titles: Cambridge Centre of African Studies series. Description: Athens : Ohio University Press, 2016. | Series: Cambridge centre of African studies series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016024890| ISBN 9780821422564 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821422571 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821445938 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Citizenship—Africa. | Political rights—Africa. | Political Socialization—Africa. Classification: LCC JQ1879.A2 C58 2016 | DDC 323.6096—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024890 AcknowledgmentsContents ix Introduction EMMA HUNTER 1 Unhelpful Pasts and a Provisional Present JOHN LONOneSDALE 17 PArt I: CItIzens And suBjeCts In AfrICAn HIstOry Rethinking Citizenship and Subjecthood in Southern Africa Khoesan, Labor Relations,twO and the Colonial State in the Cape of Good Hope (c. 1652–1815) NICOLE ULRICH 43 “We Are Oppressed and Our Only Way Is to WritetHree to Higher Authority” The Politics of Claim and Complaint in the Peripheries of Condominium Sudan CHERRY LEONARDI AND CHRIS VAUGHAN 74 Burundi, 1960–67 Loyal Subjects andfO urObedient Citizens AIDAN RUSSELL 101 v Contents PArt II: CItIzensHIP And tHe POstCOlOnIAl stAte “Double Nationalité” and Its Discontents in Ivory Coast, 1963–66 HENRI-MfIICHveEL YÉRÉ 127 The Nubians of Kenya Citizenship in thesI Gapsx and Margins SAMANTHA BALATON-CHRIMES 149 Divided Loyalties and Contested Identities Citizenship ins evenColonial Mauritius RaMOla RaMTOHUL 179 PArt III: CItIzensHIP In COntemPOrAry AfrICA The Ethnic Language of Rights and the NigerianeI PoliticalgHt Community V. ADEFEMI ISUMONAH 211 The State and the “Peoples” Citizenship and the Future ofnI Politicalne Community in Ethiopia SOLOMON M. GOFIE 240 Ethnicity and Contested Citizenship in Africa EGHOSAt Een. OSAGHAE 256 vi Contents Postscript FREDERICK COOPER 282 Contributors 299 Index 303 vii This book is the result of discussions and debates made possible by the Cambridge CentreAcknowledgments of African Studies’ visiting fellows program. For several years, thanks to the generous support of Cambridge University’s Isaac Newton and Smuts Memorial Trusts and the Ford, Leverhulme, and A. G. Leventis Foundations, together with hospitality from Wolf- son College, the center has each year hosted a number of African aca- demics for a six-month term. In October 2011 we welcomed as visiting fellows academics whose research interests lay in different aspects of the theme of citizenship, belonging, and political community in Africa. During the period that the visiting fellows spent in Cambridge, we ex- plored these themes through formal and informal seminars, a workshop in Cambridge in March 2012, and a conference in Nairobi in July 2012. The Centre of African Studies provided a wonderful environment for the discussions that led to this volume. I am particularly grateful to Megan Vaughan for her unfailing support and enthusiasm for this project. Dorian Addison and Eva Rybicki ensured that the seminar se- ries and the workshop in Cambridge ran smoothly and efficiently, and I thank them on behalf of all the presenters and participants. The confer- ence in Nairobi could not have happened without the generous support of Ambreena Manji and everyone at the British Institute in Eastern Africa. I am enormously grateful to Humphrey Mathenge, who ensured that the conference in Nairobi was a fantastic finale to the program. Many people were involved in the visiting fellowship program, as well as the seminars, workshop, and conference, and thanking them all here would be impossible. But particular thanks are due to Lovise Aalen, Akoko Akech, Charles Amone, Warigia Bowman, Joel Cabrita, Geert Castryck, Dominique Connan, Marie-Aude Fouéré, Sarah Jenkins, Patience Kabamba, Edmond Keller, Miles Larmer, Baz Lecocq, Malika Rebai Maamri, Claire Mercer, Misha Mintz-Roth, Godwin Murunga, Abdul Raufu Mustapha, Hassan Mwakimako, Ridwan Osman, Tara Polzer-Ngwato, Andrea Scheibler, and Anders Sjögren. I would also like to thank former colleagues in the Centre of African Studies, par- ticularly Florence Brisset-Foucault, Christopher Clapham, Devon ix Acknowledgments Curtis, Harri Englund, Alastair Fraser, Adam Higazi, John Lonsdale, Sharath Srinivasan, and Liz Watson, whose searching questions and contributions to our discussions helped shape the ideas developed in this volume. The comments from the series editors and the two anonymous re- viewers were enormously helpful in strengthening the volume. It has been a pleasure to work with the series editors—Derek Peterson, Harri Englund, and Chris Warnes—as well as Gillian Berchowitz, the direc- tor of Ohio University Press. Derek Peterson in particular has gone above and beyond the duties of a series editor, and I am very grateful to him for his participation in the Nairobi conference and for his insight- ful comments and suggestions as the volume developed. x Introduction EMMA HUNTER citizenship.1 Since the return of multiparty politics, new dynamics of AfrICA, It Is Often s AId, Is suffer Ing fr Om A CrIsIs Of inclusion and exclusion have led to the denial of rights and privileges to those designated as “strangers.”2 In a continent where movement has always been the norm, designating particular groups as outsiders and seeking to exclude them from political rights on that basis has proved a tempting political tactic.3 At the same time, even those who enjoy the legal status of citizenship and the political rights that flow from it face difficulties in approaching the state as active citizens engaged in ruling themselves.4 At the heart of contemporary debates over citizenship in Africa lie dynamic exchanges between the present and the past, between politi- cal theory and political practice, and between legal categories and lived experience. Yet studies of citizenship in Africa have often tended to foreshorten historical time and to privilege the present at the expense of the past. The very term citizen is often understood as relevant primarily to the postcolonial state, limiting comparative analysis of political status across space and time. As we shall see, this neglect of history poses problems, given that theories of contemporary African politics often rest heavily on readings of the past. More broadly, a tension has emerged between the approach taken by historians and that taken by social scientists. Among the latter, it has become axiomatic that colonial states were characterized by a dichotomy between subjecthood and citizenship, representing a clear difference between the majority of the population and a privileged minority accorded full legal rights. But this focus on legal status and terminology misses the ways in which there have always been different 1 sorts of subjects, with differentEmma sorts Hunt of Erights,r duties, and prerogatives negotiated on the ground as much as defined in colonial law, in ways not captured by the citizen/subject dichotomy. Still more important, the focus on legal status means that we risk losing sight of broader dis- cursive spheres in which political membership is articulated and claims are made. We need to look beyond the normative texts of colonial and postcolonial lawmaking and more closely into the domains of history, narrative, and social practice.5 This is an opportune moment to survey the field and propose new ways forward. It emerges from a visiting fellowship program