Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and Citizenship in Africa

Who belongs to the nation? How is citizenship defined? And why have such identities become so politically explosive in recent years? This book explores the instrumental manipulation of citizenship and narrowing definitions of national-belonging which refract recent political struggles in Zimbabwe, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Somalia, Tanzania, and South Africa. Conflicts which have arisen over the resources of the post-colonial state are increasingly legitimated through recourse to claims of nationhood and citizenship. The contributors address the historical roots of national and ethnic identities, the material and symbolic resources which are contested within states, and the relative importance of elite manipulation and subaltern agency.

Sara Rich Dorman, DPhil (2002) in Politics, University of Oxford, is lecturer in African Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research has focussed on state-society relations in Zimbabwe and Eritrea. She is the Co-Editor of African Affairs.
Daniel P. Hammett is a Ph.D. candidate in African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His work focusses upon issues of race, identity and public services in South Africa.
Paul C. Nugent, Ph.D. (1992) in Political Science, SOAS, London, is Professor of Comparative African History at the University of Edinburgh. His main research focus is upon West Africa, with publications including African Since Independence: A Comparative History.