Crossing the Line in Africa

This book explores a collective understanding
of the perception and treatment of borders in Africa. The notion of
boundary is universal as boundaries are also an important part of human
social organization. Through the ages, boundaries have remained the
‘container’ by which national space is delineated and ‘contained’. For
as long as there has been human society based on territoriality and
space, there have been boundaries. With their dual character of
exclusivism and inclusivism, states have proven to adopt a more
structural approach to the respect of the former in consciousness of the
esteem of international law governing sovereignty and territorial
integrity. However, frontier peoples and their realities have often
opted for the latter situation, imposing a more functionalist perception
of these imaginary lines and prompting a border opinion shift to a more
blurring form of representation and meaning in most African
communities.

This collective multidisciplinary effort of
understanding how tangible and intangible borders have influenced
Africa’s attitude and existence for ages is worthy in its own rights.
The difference between what borders are and what they are not to a
people is the mere product of their own estimations and practices, a
disposition that leads the contributors to this book to study borders
beyond states or nations and how borders are crossed or transferred from
one point to the other for the convenience of their histories and
being.