1st Edition
Perspectives on the State Borders in Globalized Africa
Assessing the different kinds of borders between African nations, the contributors present a borderland and trans-region approach to understanding the challenges and opportunities facing the peoples of the African continent.
Africa faces rampant violence, terrorism, deterioration of water-energy-food provision, influxes of refugees and immigrants, and religious hatred under the trends of globalization. Solutions for these issues require new perspectives that are not attempted by conventional state-building approaches. Statehood is limited in many places on the African continent because many states are combined by loose political ties. African states’ borders tend to be regarded as porous and fragile. However, as the contributors to this volume argue, those porous borders can contribute to cultural and socio-economic network construction beyond states and the creation of active borderlands by increasing people’s mobility, contact, and trade.
A must read for scholars of African studies that will also be of great value to academics and students with a broader interest in nationhood, globalization, and borders.
Introduction 1. New Perspectives on the African State Borders Sasaoka 2. From Contested Borders to Cross-border Cooperation in the Lake Chad Basin: Stakes and Challenges Sumo 3. A Porous Border and Economic Activity in the Kampala Kinshasa Market, West Nile, Northwestern Uganda Yamazaki 4. Cross-Border Refugee Crisis and Local Governments in the West Nile Region, Uganda Kamei 5. Mobility as a Culture in rural Africa Sekiya 6. Micro-Regionalism in Southern Africa Sasaoka 7. Transnational Violent Actors in the Borderlands of the Sahel and Challenges for Stabilization: Any role for Japan? Uesu 8. Insecurity in the Horn of Africa and IGAD Takezawa 9. The Hardening of African Borders in the Era of Growing Security Threats and the Global War on Terror Sumo 10. Porous Boundaries and Anisotropic Mobility: Migration and Cross-Border Trade between Nigeria and Japan Matsumoto 11. Decentralization and Conflict Prevention in East Africa Sasaoka Conclusion
Biography
Yuichi Sasaoka is a professor in the Graduate School of Governance Studies at Meiji University, Japan.
Aimé Raoul Sumo Tayo is a senior researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies and Innovations, Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Sayoko Uesu is a research associate at National Graduate Institute for Policy Research (GRIPS), Japan.
