TY - JOUR

T1 - The past and space

T2 - on arguments in African land control

AU - Lund, Christian

N1 - Special issue: Land Politics in Africa: Constituting Authority over Territory, Property and Persons

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - The contemporary construction of the past is crucial for the successful vindication of political rights in Africa. Often, however, more than a single past proves potentially valid as a claim to land and office. When arguments of the past, furthermore, intertwine with competing projections of legitimate forms of land control, complex combinations of claims emerge. The ubiquity of ‘the past’ in African politics and the increasing competition over space suggest that the naturalness with which some refer to the past and others conceive of space should be under constant scrutiny. Based on work in northern Ghana, the article argues that the contemporary construction of the past, as either tradition or history, and the competing projections of land control, as either property or political territory, interdigitate in complex ways. This affords certain rhetorical or discursive combinations that competing social elite groups instrumentalize. Each group sees its interests best served by a particular reading of the past and a particular conception of space.

AB - The contemporary construction of the past is crucial for the successful vindication of political rights in Africa. Often, however, more than a single past proves potentially valid as a claim to land and office. When arguments of the past, furthermore, intertwine with competing projections of legitimate forms of land control, complex combinations of claims emerge. The ubiquity of ‘the past’ in African politics and the increasing competition over space suggest that the naturalness with which some refer to the past and others conceive of space should be under constant scrutiny. Based on work in northern Ghana, the article argues that the contemporary construction of the past, as either tradition or history, and the competing projections of land control, as either property or political territory, interdigitate in complex ways. This affords certain rhetorical or discursive combinations that competing social elite groups instrumentalize. Each group sees its interests best served by a particular reading of the past and a particular conception of space.

U2 - 10.1017/S0001972012000691

DO - 10.1017/S0001972012000691

M3 - Journal article

VL - 83

SP - 14

EP - 35

JO - Africa

JF - Africa

SN - 0001-9720

IS - 01

ER -