Very recommendable! Some scratches on the myths of the Scramble for Africa and colonial greed capriciously carving up the continent!
What is perhaps also a testament to the quality of these borders to this day ist that they have not been redrawn very often or in very significant ways since most African countries became independent.
"... Despite Europeans’ limited knowledge of Africa when most current international borders on the continent were established at the Berlin Conference in 1884-85, evidence suggests they nevertheless made some effort to sketch them out sensibly. This was not out of compassion for the people of Africa or out of some sense of foresight that doing otherwise would escalate tensions. Naturally, it was out of practical self-interest.
In order to maximize their territorial acquisition and access to resources, powers such as Great Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium, all sent delegates to secure treaties from indigenous peoples or their supposed representatives. They also examined local conditions such as rivers and terrain, as well as historical state frontiers, the researchers wrote. This means that Africans, or at least their leaders, were more involved in influencing the border formation process than most people think. ..."
From the abstract:
"We revise the conventional wisdom that Africa’s international borders were drawn arbitrarily. Europeans knew very little about most of Africa in the mid-1880s, but their self-interested goals of amassing territory prompted intensive examination of on-the-ground conditions as they formed borders. Europeans negotiated with African rulers to secure treaties and to learn about historical state frontiers, which enabled Africans to influence the border-formation process. Major water bodies, which shaped precolonial civilizations and trade, also served as focal points. We find support for these new theoretical implications using two original datasets. Quantitatively, we analyze border-location correlates using grid cells and an original spatial dataset on precolonial states. Qualitatively, we compiled information from treaties and diplomatic histories to code causal process observations for every bilateral border. Historical political frontiers directly affected 62% of all bilateral borders. Water bodies, often major ones, comprised the primary border feature much more frequently than straight lines."
Endogenous Colonial Borders: Precolonial States and Geography in the Partition of Africa (open access)
The evolution of the political map of Africa, largely shaped by Europeans colonizers. Credit: American Political Science Review
Map of precolonial states and boundaries. The map visualizes the African precolonial states with 1960 boundaries superimposed.
No comments:
Post a Comment