TY - JOUR
T1 - An imaginary line? Decolonisation, bordering and borderscapes on the Ghana–Togo border
AU - Adotey, Edem
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Global South Ltd.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Africa’s inherited colonial borders have been central in debates on decolonisation for reasons that include challenges posed to African mobilities and identities, suggesting that there is a crisis of ideas about the border. This article draws on critical border studies (CBS) to examine the agency and negotiating capabilities of border residents using Leklebi and Wli, on the Ghana–Togo border, as case studies. How are discourses and practices of the border embedded in the contemporary everyday life of the borderland residents? What do their bordering practices reveal about their borderscapes? Are borderscapes being created or negotiated dependent on context? It argues that in these borderlands, borderscapes and bordering are conceived and expressed contextually not only through the lens of the postcolonial territorial border but also through the precolonial migration histories as well as precolonial concepts of political space. It contributes to border studies by highlighting the importance of historical and cultural factors in bordering and borderscapes. An understanding of such complexities may, in a significant way, help us to rethink or reconsider the arbitrariness of borders.
AB - Africa’s inherited colonial borders have been central in debates on decolonisation for reasons that include challenges posed to African mobilities and identities, suggesting that there is a crisis of ideas about the border. This article draws on critical border studies (CBS) to examine the agency and negotiating capabilities of border residents using Leklebi and Wli, on the Ghana–Togo border, as case studies. How are discourses and practices of the border embedded in the contemporary everyday life of the borderland residents? What do their bordering practices reveal about their borderscapes? Are borderscapes being created or negotiated dependent on context? It argues that in these borderlands, borderscapes and bordering are conceived and expressed contextually not only through the lens of the postcolonial territorial border but also through the precolonial migration histories as well as precolonial concepts of political space. It contributes to border studies by highlighting the importance of historical and cultural factors in bordering and borderscapes. An understanding of such complexities may, in a significant way, help us to rethink or reconsider the arbitrariness of borders.
KW - Ghana–Togo border
KW - bordering
KW - borderscape
KW - decolonisation
KW - identity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090988842&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01436597.2020.1813019
DO - 10.1080/01436597.2020.1813019
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090988842
SN - 0143-6597
VL - 42
SP - 1069
EP - 1086
JO - Third World Quarterly
JF - Third World Quarterly
IS - 5
ER -