Abstract

The transformation of statehood is a frequently debated topic in studies dealing with globalization. This is particularly true with regard to the African continent; here, the “building” of the nation-state has been confronted, more than anywhere else, with a number of challenges. At times and in certain areas, state structures even collapsed, and thus transformed contemporary Africa into the symbol of state failure. In particular, the peripheries and borderlands of many post-colonial states in Africa contribute to the emergence of local stateless forms of power, which seem to suggest the end of the globalized statehood utopia.

Drawing and fieldwork and observations in the Algerian-Malian borderland, it is asked whether these new forms of political organization represent only a reaction to uncertainty caused by the weakness or even the absence of state structures; or whether these orders will be able to substitute the State in the long run.

It is assumed that the very existence of non-state political orders may also indicate a particular vitality of stateless forms of social and political power by their own right on the local level. It is further argued that the globalization of the state model is confronted with persisting local representations of order and rule indicating that stateless societies can actually resist the overwhelming power of the “Leviathan”. There remain, however, some open questions to be studied, namely which kind of representation of order local actors refer to, and which of these representations is enforced on the ground, and by which group of actors. Can the longevity of local political models lead to the transformation of the state as the only and unique model of organised power? Or do they foreshadow a specific form of interlacement between non-state actors and the state that will lead to heterarchical political settings in Africa and elsewhere?

Biographic Note

Georg Klute is professor of African Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany since 2003. His main research interests are in Economic Anthropology, the Anthropology of Work, Political Anthropology, the Anthropology of Violence, Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflicts, the State in Africa, the emergence of non-state forms of power, Nomadism / Nomads and the State, African Anthropology. He is doing research in the Southern Sahara (Algeria, Mali, Niger) and in West-Africa (Guinea-Bissau). His recent book publications are as follows:

(1)       Klute, Georg 2009 (with Katharina Inhetveen) (eds.) 2009, Begegnungen und Auseinandersetzungen. Festschrift für Trutz von Trotha, Köln: Koeppe-Verlag.

(2)  Klute, Georg (with Alice Bellagamba) (eds.) 2008, Beside the State. Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa, Köln: Koeppe-Verlag.

(3)       Klute, Georg (with Birgit Embaló, Anne-Kristin Borszik A. Idrissa Embaló) (eds.) 2008, Experiências Locais de Gestão de Conflitos – Local Experiences of Conflict Management, Bissau: INEP.

(4)       Klute, Georg (with Hans Hahn) (eds.) 2007, Cultures of Migration. African Perspectives, Münster – Hamburg – Berlin – Wien - London: Lit Verlag.