Autochthony and citizenship: new modes in the struggle over belonging and exclusion in Africa

In many parts of Africa, the 1990s brought a crisis of citizenship. The idea of national citizenship – in the preceding decades of nationbuilding strongly emphasized as the central identity – seemed to lose much of its meaning. This void seemed to be filled by a true ebullition of more fuzzy identities, often highly localist in character. It is in this context that the author presents a few aspects of recent work he conducted in collaboration with several colleagues from Cameroon – Francis Nyamnjoh, Antoine Socpa, Basile Ndjio -, and also with Jean-Franois Bayart (Paris) and Bambi Ceuppens (Brussels), on the upsurge of ‘autochthony’ and an obsession with belonging as an overriding theme in the new style of politics since democratization. Two examples from Cameroon illustrate the argument: the funeral as a final test of belonging, and autochthony/exclusion struggles in southeastern Cameroon as a result of the new forest law of 1994. The argument was first presented as a keynote address at the 2003 annual conference of the Netherlands Association of Africanists (NVAS). Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]