Peter Geschiere

Globalization and Identity, Dialectics of Flow and Closure

Introduction. (Birgit Meyer and Peter Geshiere). Nationalism and Transnationalism. Cirassian Encounters: The Self as Other and the Production of the Homeland in the North Caucasus. (Seteney Shami). Transnationalism in the Era of Nation--States: China, 1900--1945. (Prasenjit Duara). The French Colonial Policy of Assimilation and the Civility of the Originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A Nineteenth Century Globalization Project. (Mamadou Diouf). Enforcing the Human Rights of Citizens and Non--Citizens in the Era of Maastricht: Some Reflections on the Importance of States. (Jacqueline Bhabha). Commodities and Fantasies. Small Product, Big Issues: Value Contestations and Cultural Identities in Cross--Border Commodity Networks. Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana. (Birgit Meyer). Domesticating Diamonds and Dollars: Identity, Expenditure and Sharing in Southwestern Zaire (1984--1997). (Filip De Boeck). Globalization and the Power of Indeterminate Meaning: Witchcraft and Spirit Cults in Africa and East Asia. (Peter Geschiere). Theoretical Reflections. Time and the Global: Against the Homogeneous, Empty Communities in Contemporary Social Theory. John D. Kelly. Globalization and Virtuality: Analytical Problems Posed by the Contemporary Transformation of African Societies. (Wim van Binsbergen). Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization. (Arjun Appadurai). Epilogue: On Some Reports from a Free Space. (Ulf Hannerz). Notes on Contributors. Index

THE URBAN-RURAL CONNECTION: CHANGING ISSUES OF BELONGING AND IDENTIFICATION

A special characteristic of urbanisation in Africa is the continuing commitment of many urbanites to the village.1 In the 1960s researchers were already emphasising that life in the cities could hardly be understood without reference to the continuing involvement of urban residents with their rural area of origin. Nor is it possible to understand village life without due attention to the role of the sons-and daughters-in the city.2 It is clear, moreover, that such links remain of great importance. In his 1971 piece on south-eastern Nigeria, Gugler characterised the involvement of Igbo resident in the cities with their home village as living in a dual system. In a re-study in the same area, at the end of the 1980s, he found that the involvement had increased rather than decreased (Gugler, 1997). However, it is also clear that, underneath this apparent continuity, important changes and reorientations are taking place. The general disappointment, not only among social scientists but also (and more important) among the population, with models of modernisation and their promises affects the village as well-certainly not weakening its importance, yet profoundly changing its meaning.3 The vision of the state and the city as self-evident intermediaries in a victorious spread of modernisation over the traditional countryside is less and less tenable. Structural adjustment seems to impose a retour a la terre-even if it mostly remains a slogan rather than a reality. The impact of recent political changes is even more confusing. In many parts of the continent democratisation seems to encourage the emergence of a particular form of politics, centred on regional elite associations, as some sort of alternative to multi-partyism. The increasing obsession with autochthony throughout the continent-as elsewhere in the world-triggers a politics of belonging in which the village and the region assume new importance as a crucial source of power at the national level. Thus the articles by Nyamnjoh and Rowlands and by Dickson Eyoh in this issue highlight a trend towards what one might call the villagisation of national politics.4 The other contributions also raise questions as to how the changing meaning of the village and the region affect the continuing urban-rural connection as a pivotal relation in developments in Africa.

Chiefs and colonial rule in Cameroon: inventing chieftaincy, French and British Style

Etant donne la crise actuelle du veritable pouvoir de lEtat dans le Cameroun (comme ailleurs en Afrique), les chefs sont parfois envisages comme une possible alternative dexercice de lautorite. Toutefois la chefferie est un phenomene tres variable, dependant du contexte, meme si son origine remonte seulement a la periode coloniale. Larticle illustre ce point en examinant les fortunes diverses de l a fonction de Chef au sein de deux societes camerounaises, les Maka (qui furent sous administration francaise) et les Bakweri (qui furent sous administration britannique). Dans aucun des deux cas, (mais pour des raisons differentes), la chefferie napparait comme etant linstance alternative, de moyen pouvoir, dont lon aurait besoin.

Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Introduction

The more current the notion of globalization becomes, the more it seems to be beset with vagueness and inconsistencies. The notion as such and the complex reality it attempts to grasp are therefore met with a mixture of uneasiness and fascination by social scientists. This lack of clarity is not exceptional—it seems to be the fate of many fashionable terms and probably also the cause of their popularity—and it is no reason to abandon the notion altogether. Even if globalization amounts to nothing more than a sensitizing notion, rather than an analytical concept, it is important to realize that the ambiguities it calls forth issue urgent challenges, not merely on the level of theory but also with regard to a better understanding of actual global entanglements and the crises to which they give rise.

Domesticating Personal Violence: Witchcraft, Courts, and Confessions in Cameroon

In many parts of Africa, discourses on witchcraft and sorcery seem to follow a mod-ernisation process of their own. There are striking regional variations in the ways in which these discourses are articulated with State formation and the emergence of new modes of accumulation. A common denominator remains, however, the close connection between witchcraft and aggression from within the ‘house’. In many respects, witchcraft is still the dark side of kinship, even in modern settings. It is against this background that this article explores the implications of a new type of witchcraft trial in the Eastern Province of Cameroon. Since 1980 State courts have started to convict ‘witches’ mainly on the basis of the expertise of the witch-doctors. This seems to be accompanied by the emergence of a ‘modern’ type of witch-doctor, more intent on punishing than on healing, who try to recruit their clients in very aggressive ways. In other parts of Cameroon the articulation of local witchcraft beliefs and State authority seems to follow different trajectories.

Autochthony and Citizenship: New Modes in the Struggle over Belonging and Exclusion in Africa

Abstract In many parts of Africa ‘autochthony’ and similar localist slogans have acquired great mobilising force since the onset of democratisation (1990). However, this phenomenon is of a broader scope. Other factors—like the switch to decentralisation and ‘by-passing the state’ in the policies of the development establishment—add up to what could be called ‘a global conjuncture of belonging’ (Tania Murray Li). Indeed, there are surprising parallels between African examples and discourses on immigrants and exclusion that now prevail in many parts of Europe (where even the same terminology is used of autochthons versus allochthons). The challenge is to understand how similar discourses about belonging can acquire such an apparent self-evidence in highly different situations. One answer might be their strong—but misleading—‘naturalising’ tendencies.

THE DOMESTICATION OF MODERNITY: DIFFERENT TRAJECTORIES

The following two articles were originally presented at a four-day seminar on the domestication of modernity in Leiden and The Hague in June 1995.(1) The aim of the seminar was to compare the different trajectories in which African societies try to appropriate modernity: how they deal with the images and dreams of a modem way of life which flood the continent - the spectacular successes of the few and the deep feelings of disappointment of the many. Modernitys enchantment - a phrase coined by Jean and John Comaroff (1992) - applies very well to Africa. Jean-Pierre Warniers remark, in his study of entrepreneurs in west Cameroon (1993), that le gout des Camerounais pour tout ce qui est importe plutot que produit localement est legendaire is true of many if not all African countries. Achille Mbembe (1992) forcefully demonstrates that the popular masses are as intent as the elites on participating in the consumerist rituals of new forms of wealth and power. But it is clear also that this obsession with modernity follows very varied trajectories. Jean-Francois Bayart (1989) emphasises that the marked consumerism of African elites is not to be seen as just an atavistic outcome of la politique du ventre; rather, it is related to specific imaginaires of the link between wealth and power and to varying pressures from below towards redistribution. Africas problems with modernity are related to the powerful and enduring impact of Western discourse on development. Despite all critiques, it still seems difficult to go beyond this unilineal vision, in which the modem as something external is self-evidently opposed to a local tradition. Of course, there have been many counter-voices: the political rhetoric of leaders like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Mobutu, trying to construe - in very different ways - a continuity between African tradition and a modem way of life; and more subtle attempts by philosophers like Houtoundji or Appiah to overcome the deadening opposition between modernity and tradition.(2) But it is clear that the unilineal vision, so powerfully summarised in the notion of development, is able to reinstate itself time and again. The Brazzaville and Kinshasa dandies of La Sape, vividly depicted by Gandoulou (1989), celebrate the same basic vision with their exaggerated affectation of European styles and their obsession with the metropolis. However, there are signs of a reversal in this respect. Evoking tradition or authenticity as a solution no longer seems to be the monopoly of politicians. In some parts of Africa the popular disappointment with the dreams of modernity has become so strong, and the discrepancies between the daily realities and the dream-world evoked by publicity and television have become so glaring, that there are signs of a general turning away from modernity and a search for other role models. In his oral presentation of the article below, Rene Devisch formulated it very cogently: mimesis led to exhaustion. The importance of his contribution is in showing that, despite the harsh living conditions in the quartiers of present-day Kinshasa, there is not just disintegration and increasing violence but also an effort towards reconstruction. But this reconstruction implies a determined turning away from the Western consumerist dreams; instead, people try to re-create the village in the city (villagisation) and resort to the healing powers of spiritual movements. Similarly, in a recent radio programme from Brazzaville, young men insist that La Sape (the dandies mentioned above) is passee - We will never get the chance to go to Europe, so we have to fall back on traditional culture. …

Epilogue: ‘Seeing Like a State’ in Africa – High Modernism, Legibility and Community

The preceding contributions convincingly show that applying central ideas from James Scott’s challenging Seeing Like a State in Africa produces valuable insights. The contributions in this issue focus especially on Scott’s leading idea: the ‘high modernist schemes’ cherished by so many states in various contexts – socialist and capitalist, colonial and postcolonial – fed by a special ‘aesthetics of modernity’, inspiring an obsession with making society ‘legible’ and highly destructive in their zeal to impose uniformity leading to a disastrous neglect of practical ‘mètis’ knowledge that duly takes into consideration local variety.

Afterword: Academics, Pentecostals, and Witches: The Struggle for Clarity and the Power of the Murky

One of the many strong points of this collection is that it vividly shows the kaleidoscopic character of phenomena for which people use terms like witchcraft or sorcery. Almost anything seems to be possible: the stereotype for witches in many parts of Melanesia seem to be that they are ‘backwards and ugly’ (see Introduction, this volume), but in Thomas Strong’s contribution on Eastern Highlands of Papua they are envied because they live in a world that people describe as ‘highly ordered, flashy and modern’; Congolese Pentecostals suspect that witches now work through modern technology (Katrien Pype, this volume); but Bjorn Enge Bertelsen shows that they themselves can also be suspected—as in Mozambique where German Pentecostal

Conclusion: Post-script on Sex, Race and Culture

Just prior to the start of our research programme on ‘The Culturalization of Citizenship’, one of us published a book on issues of autochthony, citizenship and exclusion in Africa and Europe which touched on many of the themes addressed in this volume (Geschiere 2009). The title of that book, Perils of Belonging, expressed considerable distrust towards what the author called ‘a global conjuncture of belonging’—the convergence, roughly since the end of the Cold War, of various global trends combining to fuel a preoccupation with local belonging, and this in a world that was supposedly ‘globalizing’. Looking back at the findings of our programme, some of which are presented in this volume, an obvious question is what has changed in the meantime. To what extent is it still possible to speak of a ‘global conjuncture of belonging’? Have we witnessed the emergence of new issues and preoccupations?