2 Autochthony As Capital in A Global Age

http://tcs.sagepub.
com/
Theory, Culture & Society
http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/28/1/34
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0263276410380939
2011 28: 34 Theory Culture Society
Mathieu Hilgers
Autochthony as Capital in a Global Age
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Theory, Culture and Society

can be found at: Theory, Culture & Society Additional services and information for
http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:
http://tcs.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions:
http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/28/1/34.refs.html Citations:
What is This?
- Jan 31, 2011 Version of Record >>

by Pepe Portillo on July 14, 2014 tcs.sagepub.com Downloaded from by Pepe Portillo on July 14, 2014 tcs.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Autochthony as Capital
in a Global Age
Mathieu Hilgers
Abstract
For a little over a decade we have been witnessing a profusion of discourses
on autochthony that is, an original belonging to a group or territory in
many parts of the world. A global approach to this question first requires a
look at the principle of autochthony and its genealogy. Starting from African
examples, places of prolific expression of the phenomenon, this article shows
how autochthony plays the role of capital that can be invested, valued and
profited from. The structure of this capital carries within itself the seeds of
conflict. The article analyses how the stabilization of its value requires the
execution of specific strategies. Among these strategies, I will focus in
greater depth on voting. The relationship between capital, autochthony
and elections will thus bring us back to debates that animate political science:
in new municipalities, autochthony as capital is at the heart of candidate
selection, suffrage, political participation and citizenship.
Key words
autochthony j citizenship j city j demo/ethnocracy j globalization
j social capital j social theory
F
OR A little over a decade we have been witnessing a profusion of dis-
courses on autochthony, that is, an original belonging to a group or
territory, in West Africa and in other parts of the world (Lentz,
2003a: 113).
1
Urbanization and decentralization, as well as the multiplication
of land and political conicts, have provoked an increasing use of arguments
that aim to discriminate against a part of the population in its access to
resources. Whether in the domain of property claims, settlement history or
burial places, whether in the election of candidates or in the right to vote
and run for oce, the question of autochthony has been playing a growing
role in the public space (Bayart et al., 2001; Chauveau, 2000; Geschiere
and Ceuppens, 2005; Geschiere and Jackson, 2006; Hagberg, 1998;
Geschiere and Nyamnjoh, 2000).
j
Theory, Culture & Society 2011 (SAGE, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore),
Vol. 28(1): 34^54
DOI: 10.1177/0263276410380939
by Pepe Portillo on July 14, 2014 tcs.sagepub.com Downloaded from
As Peter Geschiere (2009) has shown, the current increase in rhetorics
of autochthony are less a reaction to globalization than an eect of it. The
policies of administrative deconcentration and urban development encour-
aged by international institutions have systematically led to a resurgence in
the opposition between autochthon and allochthon. A comparison between
Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali (see for example Faye et al., 2006) would
probably show that the current importance assumed by the idea of auto-
chthony in these countries is linked to the progress of decentralization, the
creation of municipalities and the establishment of newly elected authorities.
These processes open a new arena where the debate over autochthony could
be invested. However, even if such transformations are partly related to
international policies and their implementation, it is too simple to reduce
them to these. In secondary cities and towns, the question of autochthony
is always deeply embedded in the specic history of an urban area. It ass-
sumes multiple forms that make comparison dicult. This embeddedness
in history, and the notion that autochthony is today linked to decentraliza-
tion, certainly imply common traits, but the articulation of these traits fol-
lows distinct trajectories that depend on context, as Antoine Socpa (2003)
illustrates in the case of Cameroon. In light of the rise in these rhetorics, a
comparative perspective proves both necessary and legitimate.
This article studies the production of rhetorics of autochthony in
urban milieus, specically in secondary West African cities, places of pro-
lic expression of the phenomenon within the subregion. A global approach
to this question rst requires a look at the genealogy of the idea of auto-
chthony, in order to illuminate some of the constants and local conceptions
that underlie it. This genealogy will show that even if discourses on auto-
chthony are malleable and unstable, contrary to the claims of certain
anthropologists they are nevertheless not void of content (Ceuppens and
Geschiere, 2005: 387; Lentz, 2003a: 115). Rather, it is perhaps the plasticity
of this content that gives autochthony its legitimacy and allows it to play
the role of an actual form of capital that can be invested, valued and proted
from. The second part of this article will analyze how this capital is consti-
tuted. We will see how the structure of the capital of autochthony carries
within itself the seeds of conict and how the stabilization of its value
requires the execution of specic strategies. Among these strategies, I will
focus in greater depth on voting. The relationship between capital, auto-
chthony and elections will thus bring us back to debates that animate politi-
cal science: in new municipalities, autochthony as capital is at the heart of
candidate selection, surage, political participation and citizenship.
2
The Principle of Autochthony and its Genealogy
The Principle of Autochthony
The distinction between conqueror and autochthon is common to many
African societies. Well before the colonial era it had already formed a
means of categorization at the base of a hierarchy determining the
Hilgers ^ Autochthony as Capital in a Global Age 35
distribution of rights, especially land rights, and access to resources. This
distinction nds its highest level of generalization in discrimination between
rstcomers and latecomers. Numerous studies have highlighted the role
that this principle of dierentiation has played in the social organization of
an urban area over the course of its inhabitation and densication
(Kopytoff, 1987). Firstcomers designated the spaces that newcomers could
occupy, and were responsible for certain ceremonies that assured a harmoni-
ous coexistence among people, natural forces and invisible forces. In socie-
ties whose wealth consisted essentially in the number of persons, the
distinction between rstcomers and latecomers did not aim to exclude the
latter but to dene the scope of integration while maintaining respect for a
certain social organization. It was common for new arrivals to see the elds
designated to them become closer to the village and to valued lands as
time passed and more new arrivals came ( Jacob, 2007).
In order to get a passing individual or group to stay and to integrate
them into itself, the collectivity could give them cultural resources or
responsibilities such as managing its main earth-shrine (Hilgers, 2007a).
Often, even if the rituals preserved a material trace of the order of anterior-
ity, the new keepers of resources ended up being considered the true autoch-
thons (Hilgers, 2007b). This shift in symbolic primacy from one group to
the other indicates that the order of migrations recognized by the collectiv-
ity depends on the power relations between the entities that compose it
(Hilgers, 2007a; Lentz, 2003a). The work of Michel Izard has described
this mobility of identity well. Whereas the hierarchy of conquerors, the
people of power, is based on ancestry, that is, on greater or lesser genealog-
ical proximity to a kingdoms mythical founder, the hierarchy of rstcomers,
the people of the land, is based on a principle of autochthony (Izard, 1985,
2003). Over time, through a genealogical mechanism, the people of power
gradually drift away from their foundational core and pass from the universe
of power to that of the land; in other words, they become autochthonized.
Following Carola Lentz, we could also describe the distinction between
hosts and strangers as a second kind of relationship that distinguishes
groups according to a principle of autochthony. The category of the
stranger has been, and remains today, dened in opposition to the two
principles of belonging: the ritual collectivity, formed around an earth-
shrine, and the kinship group (Lentz, 2003a: 119). The distinctions between
such pairs as conquerors and autochthons, rstcomers and latecomers,
hosts and strangers, illustrate the variety of uses of the principle of auto-
chthony and highlight its nuances according to the groups placed in relation
and the relation between these groups. A whole village is autochthonous
compared to a stranger, but within this village certain lineages have a
greater degree of autochthony than others.
During the colonial period, the distinction between autochthon and
allochthon sharpened. In both British and French territories, this rigidica-
tion sometimes limited the mobility of identity. Over the course of coloniza-
tion, autochthony became a mode of categorization that enabled the
36 Theory, Culture & Society 28(1)
identication and administration of populations (Ceuppens and Geschiere,
2005: 387^90). Through the xing of territorial borders, administrative
identication, and population counts, the distinction between rstcomers
and latecomers was solidied and the dynamic of settlement changed.
The combination of land-ownership, autochthony and political sovereignty
aected social organization and power relations. In certain cases, auto-
chthony was redened to t new administrative districts; in others,
it included the ethnic variables co-produced by the administration and
local populations. Often these notions intertwine, for example when the rec-
ognition or non-recognition of certain rights and privileges linked to auto-
chthony reinforces processes of ethnic identication (Chauveau and Dozon,
1987: 278^80). Even so, while ethnicity refers to a set of more or less well-
dened criteria ^ characteristics, history, nomenclature ^ autochthony is
often limited to a principle of hierarchical ordering that is subject to
variation.
InWest Africa, the development of capitalism during colonization often
provoked movements of population and work that caused competition for
manual labor, which helped consolidate the autochthonâllochthon opposi-
tion. Ivory Coast presents an extreme case of this, demonstrating over several
decades (until the 1999 policy of ivoirite) the eects of liberal immigration
policies created under colonialism and maintained for almost 40 years by
Houphouet Boigny.
3
As the country sank into an economic quagmire, for-
eign laborers paid for their foreignness by suering increasing exclusion.
This sharpening of the distinction between rstcomers and newcomers that
has taken place since the colonial period has had many consequences.
It will continue to sustain for the foreseeable future an increasingly hermetic
system of opposition. On the one hand, it is true that identity changes have
never disappeared entirely, for ethnicity changes in particular can still be
observed today in places like northern Ghana or southern Burkina Faso
(Hagberg, 2003), but the principle of autochthony that was previously capable
of signifying the gradual integration of an individual, lineage or group into
a collectivity now designates those who are foreign to it.
The evolution of the ritual economy in Koudougou, the third city of
Burkina Faso where I carried out long-term eldwork, is particularly rele-
vant to this situation. Certain rites whose purpose was to integrate outsiders
disappeared during the colonial period but have recently resurfaced, notably
in the wake of political tensions, municipal land-ownership reform and con-
icts over local history. These cultural resources, whose past goal was to inte-
grate and autochthonize passing strangers, today designate those who are
excluded from the collectivity, or, more precisely, those who do not possess
the degree of autochthony associated with these resources. Here, the mere
act of claiming to have a right to these cultural resources confers status.
Competing neighborhoods cannot agree on how to determine the legitimate
possessor of such resources, but their constant struggle systematically
brings their status and their dierences with other city neighborhoods back
into the public space (Hilgers, 2007b).
In their genealogy of the notion of autochthony, Ceuppens and
Geschiere (2005, reprinted in Geschiere, 2009) highlight a paradox: colonial
authorities looked for groups to identify as autochthonous in order to facili-
tate the administration of the colonies, but they considered these groups as
inferior. In other words, the notion of autochthony connotes here the
stigma associated with the term native ^ primitive, archaic and backward.
For these authors, such condescension can also be found in the discourse
of local populations, and therefore all the more so in anthropological texts.
This understanding contrasts with the way in which the autochthon^for-
eigner opposition took on meaning in the postcolonial period. In fact, auto-
chthony today connotes prestige rather than stigma.
To demonstrate their argument Ceuppens and Geschiere cite the case
of Upper Volta, where in certain places the chieftaincy, functioning as a liai-
son between the administration and the local population, was able to use
colonial ideology in order to mark its dierence and strengthen its authority
in hopes of exercising power in as yet unconquered territories. However,
contrary to these authors argument, local populations never considered the
autochthons, the Tengbiise (literally sons of the earth), as a bunch of pre-
social groups only humanized thanks to contact with the power (naam) of
the Mossi, the main ethnic group of the area.
4
At best, certain autochtho-
nous groups claimed a privileged relationship with the Mossi, thereby aspir-
ing to be recognized as descending from other autochthonous lineages in
the same area (Laurent, 2003: 36). At worst, in the history of migrations
certain groups believed themselves rst ^ and therefore autochthonous ^
because they did not recognize the populations present before them as
human and ended up expelling or exterminating them.
This genealogical nuance is less anecdotal than it seems. It illumi-
nates, in fact, the foundation of the principle of autochthony. This principle
can hardly be reduced to its strictly demographic aspect: being autochtho-
nous is not just, and in some cases is not at all, being rst in the order of
migrations. If the principle of autochthony always refers, at least formally,
to this order, it is because it assumes that the rst people to arrive in an
untamed space were the ones who made it humanly viable by combating,
domesticating or allying with the visible and invisible natural forces that
reigned there. Beneath the demographic issue, the principle of autochthony
thus includes a sociological dimension: the contribution of a group to the
prosperity of a collectivity that resides in a given space. The rst group to
arrive in a space is, according to the principle, the rst to civilize it.
Thus, even though the arguments that groups make are of a demo-
graphic nature, the use of autochthony to back a groups legitimacy hides
motives that are in fact more closely related to the history of a collectivitys
development than to the order of migrations. As we shall see, confrontation
between two groups who both claim to be autochthonous can reveal a
clash between distinct, opposed worlds which each group can say it
founded. When a new form of social and political organization is imposed
on the collectivity, the group bringing it can, in the same move, claim
autochthonous status. When one group takes primacy, the history of this
group becomes that of the collectivity. Power, as Izard wrote, is the potential
producer of an autochthony from which it imaginarily deduces itself
(1992: 135). The passage of cultural resources from one group to another,
as mentioned earlier, can accompany this movement, redene a collectivity
and constitute a turning point in the process of autochthonization of con-
quering populations. Over time, and as the dynamic of social change that
fashions the history of a place shifts, it is not uncommon to see groups and
legitimacies become entangled.
The Plurality of AutochthonÂllocthon Relations
I will give two examples to examine these entanglements. Each one illustrates
how history can lead to a multiplication of legitimacies and of groups aspiring
to autochthonous status.The rst example shows that the question of national
citizenship has gradually been incorporated into the denition of autochthony
and that changes in borders can generate changes in the groups who claim
autochthony. The city of Hamile, today located in northern Ghana, founded
in the nineteenth century by the Sisala and whose earth-shrine territory was
crossed by the new international border between the French and British colo-
nies (Lentz, 2003a: 127), illustrates this phenomenon perfectly.
Carola Lentz describes a triple principle of autochthony that has devel-
oped there. In this zone, the territory of the earth-shrine was rearranged in
order to make discourses on autochthony accommodate the national identities
rst of Gold Coast and Upper Volta, then Ghana and Burkina Faso. In some
cases, autochthons are identied from the history of an areas settlement,
based on transborder ethnic specicities that include professional and reli-
gious dierences: the Dagara and the Sisala are dierent from the Mossi and
the Wala who arrived later. In other cases, the Ghanaians of Hamile simply
distinguish themselves from foreigners, that is, from any non-Ghanaian
immigrant whose involvement in local aairs they would like to limit.
Finally, it is possible for national identity to combine with ethnic iden-
tity and migrations to dene autochthony (Lentz, 2003a, 2003b). In the
same line of thinking, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
Jackson mentions four scales at which the autochthon/allochthon distinction
functions as an in/out qualier: the local, provincial, national and regional
(2006: 100). This functional polymorphism (Chauveau and Dozon, 1987:
286) shows the extent to which the status of autochthony is determined by
border mobility and interests. Even so, as the second possibility shows, in
spite of this uidity certain conditions remain necessary in order to claim
autochthony.
The second example concerns Burkina Fasos third largest city,
Koudougou, where today three neighborhoods still vie for the status of auto-
chthony (Hilgers, 2007a, 2007b). Controversies surrounding the history of
the areas settlement have sometimes generated violence. These have often
been related to a plan for land tenure reform that covers the citys whole
territory and is managed by its authorities.
5
Historical research has estab-
lished that among the three competing neighborhoods, one was in fact the
rst to be created in the order of migrations. Meanwhile the second one,
thanks to a sacrice by its earth-priest, helped to prevent a massacre of
local people by French colonizers. The last was home to Maurice Yameogo,
rst president of the independent Upper Volta, who gave his city the benets
of an important investment policy. In other words, the rst group founded
the collectivity, the second enabled its reproduction and the third its devel-
opment. The principle according to which power is the potential producer
of an autochthony from which it imaginarily deduces itself (Izard, 1992:
135) sheds light on this plurality of claims. The groups which have held sym-
bolic primacy and have contributed to the greatness of the urban collectivity
each desire to be considered autochthonous. Through their historic contribu-
tions, they are the sole legitimate participants in the conicts surrounding
settlement history.
These two examples clearly show that the social eectiveness of auto-
chthony depends on the hierarchy that it establishes within a given space of
relationships. To exist, such a hierarchy supposes the existence of a collectiv-
ity whose development was made possible by the contributions of dierent
groups. Each time, the status of autochthony is dened and attributed in
accordance with the position that these groups occupy in a common space.
Thus, contrary to appearances, other than in the domain of legislation auto-
chthony is not structured on a principle of binary opposition that holds
force of law in every circumstance. Rather, there are dierent, overlapping
levels that mean that a group is not simply autochthonous or non-autochtho-
nous, but more or less autochthonous depending on the power relations
and particular interests at work in a common space. This is why several
groups in a single place often claim autochthonous status and believe their
claims to be legitimate. These groups are dened by an identity that they
conceive simultaneously as a functional tool for acquiring rights and as an
advantage with high symbolic value.
As we have seen, the social transformations of the last two decades
have intensied rhetorics of autochthony. New territorial divisions, the crea-
tion of municipalities, and the redistribution of powers and administrative
structures in most countries of the subregion throughout the 1990s have
had many consequences. Municipal elections are now organized and some-
times generate a recalibration of local powers. Land policy is constantly a
focus of the strategies of newly elected ocials. Necessary to promote decen-
tralized entities as well as to fund and develop municipalities according to
a rational plan that satises donors and investors, land policy is also a strate-
gic means of capturing and accumulating nancial, social and symbolic
resources. In medium-sized cities the process of decentralization has, as
such, been quite often accompanied by land management reform and by
the reformulation of the cadastre. For local populations, these developments
often inspire the hope of passing the threshold of modernity that is associ-
ated with urban development. They have provided the opportunity to
expand electoral bases and to satisfy the clientelistic obligations of the
new elite.
With the spread of decentralization, the relaxation of authoritarian
regimes, and the transition of some of these toward semi-authoritarianism
or even democratization and multiparty rule, claims to autochthony have
intensied. In a context of demographic growth, where the urban world con-
stitutes a point of entry into a modernity imagined as a higher level of civi-
lization, people desire the social prestige attached to group status ^ a
prestige that enables individuals recognized as autochthonous to see them-
selves as participating fully in a social history, as having a position that
must be taken seriously on social issues or spatial transformations of their
city.
6
In addition to strategies for pursuing interests, the idea of civilization
also contributes to this symbolic dimension. Autochthony and attachment
to the land of ones ancestors are not merely means for maximizing patri-
mony. They are essential elements in the fabric of local identities and play
a crucial role in the structuring of social relations.
In secondary cities it is thus at the very moment when we see an
apparent liberalization of the vote, the development of a land market and
new political alliances, that discourses privileging autochthonous heritage
gain greater importance. Each of these three factors directly linked to the
process of decentralization ^ municipal elections, transformation of local
powers, land-ownership reform ^ reects in its own way the local histories
of population and urban development. Electoral campaigns and eorts to
organize the vote rely on groups whose density and membership, as well as
symbolic, social and economic capital, have inuence in the area. Voting
can sometimes trigger a reconguration of power relations, for example,
when a group that held a majority in number but a minority in political
clout rises to power. Land-ownership reform and the formation of new
cadastres are embedded in histories of land claims and often require negoti-
ations over property rights. Since history is transmitted orally in these con-
texts, multiple and contradictory interests foster the eruption or the
radicalization of conicts over the status of autochthony. In a performative
way, these conicts also serve to reinforce autochthonys importance.
But the principle of autochthonys rising importance does not mean
that it is easy to determine who is autochthonous and who isnt. As we
have seen in the city of Hamile, the denition of the status of autochthony
depends directly on the conguration of local issues. Far from being obso-
lete, at a moment when cities are increasingly crowded the principle of
autochthony and the privileging of local rootedness have become a central
element in the organization of collective life in medium-sized towns, and
even an additional advantage for accessing a higher degree of urbanized
life.
7
In eect, the ability to point to ones autochthonous roots is to assure
oneself greater access to a citys resources, such as the ability to obtain a
land title. These plural economic, symbolic and social stakes make auto-
chthony similar to a form of capital that can be invested in and proted
from.
Autochthony as Capital
Any attempt to perceive and analyze autochthony as capital requires that we
rigorously establish the source of this capital as well as identify its resources
and possessors (Portes, 1998).
The Source of Capital
The social eectiveness of the principle of autochthony depends on the hier-
archy it establishes within a given space of relationships. In order to exist,
such a hierarchy supposes the existence of a collectivity whose development
was made possible by the contribution of dierent groups. The degree of
autochthony is dened and attributed according to the position that each
group occupies in the common space, and reects, at least implicitly, the
contribution of each one to the success of the collectivity. Groups are there-
fore not merely autochthonous or not, they are more or less autochthonous
depending on power relations and the issues at stake in the space from
which the autocthonâllochthon distinction is determined.
The structure of the capital of autochthony corresponds to the princi-
ples that determine its value: belonging to a collectivity, contribution to the
history of the collectivitys development and position in the history of its set-
tlement. Depending on the situation and their ability, agents and groups
will tend to emphasize the most protable aspects of this capital. But this
structure contains within itself the seeds of conict. In fact, the principles
that make it possible to attribute degrees of autochthony to certain groups
can end up contradicting each other. If the groups do not share a common
representation of what constitutes a contribution to the development of the
collectivity, or if those that have contributed to it most were not the rst to
arrive in the area, tensions can arise and the populations history can
become a source of dispute.
The Resources of Capital
In secondary cities, modernization and land transformations generate forms
of stratication and competition for access to socially valued resources.
Competition arises over land, markets, work (Bates, 1974) and political com-
petitions. Autochthony can facilitate access to these. Being autochthonous
gives one access to a relatively durable network of relations as well as a cer-
tain legitimacy. The density of this network and the importance of this legit-
imacy depend on an agent or groups degree of autochthony as well as their
other sources of capital. Here, again, the social eectiveness of autochthony
is largely dependent on context.
When municipal territory is divided into lots in the name of land
tenure reform, for example, autochthony becomes the mediator of many
social and symbolic transactions. It fashions relations of power and of mean-
ing that, one way or another, aect all the residents of an urban area. The
ability to negotiate with the municipality is directly dependent on rootedness
in the city. In the case of a dispute where social, economic and educational
capital are equal on both sides, it is always the degree of autochthony that
makes the dierence. Even if not always done explicitly, an evaluation of
the degree of autochthony distinguishes parties requesting land parcels and
forms the basis of how they are treated. When there is a conict, auto-
chthony is evaluated by comparing the agents present and, generally, the
order of anteriority in the city receives priority. This order is all the more
important since, often, many members of the commission in charge of
lot creation belong to the citys extended families. As far as they can,
they defend the interests of those whom they consider autochthonous.
Prudence thus becomes necessary when opposing an autochthon. This is
illustrated by the misfortune of an unscrupulous man in a secondary city
of Burkina Faso:
Some years ago, after having made the usual sacrices and obtained the con-
sent of customary authorities ^ neither of which is necessary from a legal
standpoint ^ a man built his house on a site designated by the landowners.
Soon after nishing construction, however, he fell ill and died. His brother
took over the parcel and moved in. After the rst municipal elections, the
local authorities decided to execute a plan to divide city land into lots. On
the day when the commission in charge of attributions came by, the new res-
ident listed himself as living on his brothers land and had his wife listed
as living on the parcel of his absent neighbor. As the parcels had been
built up with sheet iron houses and connected to water, electricity and tele-
phone lines, without hesitation the commission attributed both parcels to
the married couple. When their neighbor, DY, found out that his parcel
had been given to someone else, he called the members of the commission,
worried and angry. He explained what had happened and they decided to
cancel the attribution. However, the crafty husband had been quick and
had already paid taxes on both parcels. So when he learned that the local
government wanted to take away his new parcel, he, being familiar with
judicial procedures, led an appeal. Because of the order of attributions,
the courts judgment was rendered in his favor. DY also appealed, but the
court of Ouagadougou conrmed the verdict. The scammers wife thus
remained owner of their neighbors parcel. The judgment required DY to
get out within eight days. But, being a native of the area, he informed the
earth-priest of the next neighborhood over, to whom he was related, of the
situation. The earth-priest immediately promised his support, declaring
that the parcel belonged to their extended family and even that some of his
own children had been raised within those walls. In order to give his argu-
ments greater weight, the earth-priest sent an emissary to request to the
help of the customary chief of the neighborhood where DY lived. In the
face of warnings from city ocials, customary authorities and even civil ser-
vants at the Ministry of Justice, the ill-intentioned man made a request to
the Court for its order ^ that DY vacate the premises ^ to be executed as
quickly as possible. Inuential members of DYs autochthonous family
warned the prosecutor of the risks linked to the application of the decision.
A few days later, ignoring threats and intimidation, the police destroyed
DYs house. The mayors rst deputy, a close friend of the earth-priest and
an inuential member of the family, recounted to me the events that he then
witnessed alongside the citys mayor. By developing strategies that obliged
everyone to prove his or her autochthonous legitimacy, the earth-priest
obtained the support of all the customary authorities (see Hilgers, 2009:
ch. 4). Their representatives went to warn the High Commissioner of the
dangers the unscrupulous man was bringing on himself. Meanwhile, with
the tacit consent of certain municipal elected ocials, the customary author-
ities proceeded to carry out a symbolic death sentence of the outsider now
considered harmful. The extended familys demonstration of force and insis-
tent reminder of the mans allochthony, or outsider status, culminated in
the destruction of his home. The man led another complaint before the
Court and the earth-priest was arrested for obstructing the execution of a
decision of justice. Following the announcement of this arrest, the extended
family mobilized a part of the city and threatened to liberate the prisoner
by force. In order to avoid unrest, the judicial authorities transferred him
to Ouagadougou before freeing him a few days later. After these events,
hated by the whole neighborhood and homeless in spite of the legal judg-
ment in his favor, the humiliated and helpless scammer ended up being
forced to leave town.
In this case, autochthony seems to be a product derived from social
capital. It has the eect of amplifying the resources that an agent disposes
of. The recognition of an autochthonous identity confers status and access
to networks. The eect of this identity is all the greater since the individual
is also able to put his other forms of capital to use. Much scholarly work
on land issues has shown that the commissions charged with assuring
equal treatment of the population in urban development projects very often
place immigrants at a disadvantage (Hilgers, 2008). The creation of a social
identity based on autochthony becomes a resource that allows discrimina-
tion against competitors in their access to resources. This being said, it is
not enough to display ones rootedness in a place for all doors suddenly
to open, as circumstances can cancel out the eect of belonging and can
work to the advantage of whoever possesses greater capital (be it social, eco-
nomic or symbolic), even if that person or group is not recognized as
autochthonous.
The Possessors of Capital
Because of its relational nature, the principle of autochthony does not x an
identity onto a group or individual in any denitive way. Rather, it reects
the relations between groups themselves. Such relations are mobile, and
scholars have highlighted the instability of the discourse that celebrates sta-
bility (Ceuppens and Geschiere, 2005: 402). The parameters that inuence
these uctuations are, above all, contextual. The rst among them is the
level (national, municipal, familial, etc.) at which a relationship can be con-
sidered as one of autochthonyâllochthony. In some cases, the inhabitants
of a city see themselves and are seen by others as autochthonous by contrast
to all migrants. In others, autochthony reinforces ethnic distinctions, or
dierentiates the neighborhoods of a city, as well as families within them,
and individuals within those. However, even outside of the legislative
arena, and in spite of these contextual variations and heterogeneous situa-
tions, the principles that regulate the evaluation of the degree of auto-
chthony always remain the same. It is always a question of the order of
migrations, of contributions to the greatness of the collectivity, of the
groups considered in the autochthonâllochthon relationship, and of the
relations between these groups.
The distinction between autochthon and allochthon participates in the
creation of a mode of identication that allows people to distinguish, cate-
gorize and evaluate each resident of an urban area. It thus consolidates
social relations and shared representations throughout town. When the
question of autochthony has the force of law, as in Ivory Coast or
Cameroon, legal evaluation is subject to unied and necessarily dichoto-
mous criteria. Either a person is autochthonous, or is not. By contrast, in
other countries the absence of legislation makes identity designations vari-
able, leading to certain people being neither totally autochthonous nor
totally allochthonous. When autochthony is not a legal notion, the group
associated with it is not always founded on fully explicit rules or formalized
institutions.
This absence of formalization can generate conict and a given indi-
viduals degree of autochthony can become subject to debate. As Monique
Bertrand has showed for towns in Mali (1994), the demarcation between
autochthon and allochthon depends on a variable geometry. The transition
of natives into a demographic minority because of migrants, or the desire
of non-resident natives to invest in the city can change the contours of this
distinction. In Burkina Faso, certain residents originally from Ivory Coast
belong to families considered as autochthonous in Ivory Coast, but upon
returning home, unless they contribute signicantly to the development of
their family, they hold a weak position in the family hierarchy and are not
really considered as autochthonous, although they can perhaps become so
(again) (Hilgers, 2009).
The principle of autochthony rests on a mode of relation which presup-
poses a variation in degrees of autochthony. The value of an agent or
groups seniority, that is, their degree of autochthony in an urban area, can
increase, for example, if their actions directly serve the common good and
the citys development, such as a man who opens an Internet cafe, leads an
NGO or is a useful foreigner. Services rendered to the collectivity can auto-
chthonize the person who oers them. This plasticitiy of autochthony
makes it like a form of capital that must be invested in order to become
fully protable. It is not rare to see individuals attempt to reinforce
and emphasize their local rootedness. In Cameroon, Geschiere describes
the case of an ambitious man who went so far as to exhume his fathers
body in order to rebury it in the village where he wanted to assure
his own belonging. In Ghana, Michelle Gilbert (1988) has described
the reverse case of several locales disputing the body of a deceased
millionaire. Many towns in West Africa have benefactors who have become
autochthonized through the generous policies with which they favored an
urban area.
Beyond the economic dimension, the power of autochthony perhaps
also consists in the fact that it is a form of capital whose investment
can be limited at a symbolic level. This capital is thus often used to form
federations, since even the poorest can invest in it and since the prots
from this investment can, in turn, have an economic eect, for example
by facilitating access to valued resources. In this way, certain needy fami-
lies claim autochthonous status, federate groups and obtain recognition
for their contribution to the development of an urban area. Because of
this contribution, they demand special treatment in land-related operations.
In Hamile, for example, following the demands of certain families,
an autochthonous neighborhood was created. The land there has been
marked in the cadastre but the parcels are not taxable. The responsibility
of distributing lots falls solely to the families traditionally charged with
such decisions (Lentz, 2003a: 131). The prots of autochthonous capital
thus take on the appearance of advantages naturally associated with this
status.
However, the heterogeneity of groups, the diversity of functions and
positions united behind the banner of autochthony necessarily induces
fear in every member of the community of no longer possessing it
(Ge ly, 2006: 82). This fear leads people to put on display those aspects
of their identity that prove their belonging to the collectivity. This fact
is essential for understanding the conicts over local history that agi-
tate many urban areas. In a certain way, such conicts result from peo-
ples fear of exclusion, as though those who did not participate in the
struggle could never have belonged to the collectivity in the rst place.
The struggle itself reminds rivals of their shared belonging. Everybody
cannot claim autochthony. By vying for the status of rstcomers, rival
groups actually strengthen the distinction between them, and people who
are not legitimate participants struggle to be recognized as autochthonous.
Moreover, the permanence of this conict puts this dierence back into the
public space.
The social eectiveness of autochthony as capital does not work inde-
pendently, but always in tandem with an agents other forms of capital.
As we have seen in the case of municipal land-ownership reform, auto-
chthony can increase the value of other kinds of capital (economic, social
and symbolic) and make a nal dierence between competitors. But, since
there are varying degrees of autochthony, challenges to its authenticity or
modications to the principles that give it its importance aect its value. In
this world of uctuations, dierent strategies are used to stabilize auto-
chthonys capital or make it bear fruit. Claims of rstcomer status, the
transformation of rights linked to that status, historical conicts,
8
and the
election of politicians who support the autochthony of a particular group
stand out as examples of such strategies.
Stabilization of Capital through the Vote
The issues of voting and the choice of candidates are essential facets of the
intensication of rhetorics around autochthony. Many authors have shown
how the introduction of multiparty rule has motivated the production of dis-
courses that emphasize original belonging to a territory. In some countries,
the constitution has been modied to allow only candidates recognized as
autochthonous to run for oce.
Since the 1990s, numerous African countries have been engaging in a
process of decentralization and many municipalities have been created.
Elections, municipal power and administrative devolution create new
stakes. This is particularly clear with regard to land tenure issues. It is
common for the rst municipal council to be elected in a small urban
center to begin a new land tenure reform to regularize all parcels of land
in the city (Hilgers, 2008). In order to be a legal owner of a plot, it is neces-
sary to pay taxes and to follow an administrative procedure. Because of cor-
ruption, bad management and a shortage of land, many people never
actually obtain a plot of land legally, even if they have paid part of the tax
and followed the procedure. During these operations discourses related to
autochthony are often mobilized to obtain a piece of land, to justify a request
and to try to take precedence over other applicants.
Because of decentralization, land management and local elections are
often linked. In towns where land tenure reform is under way, families who
use settlement history to argue that their group founded the city and to
make themselves be seen today as real autochthons are often landowners.
Given their local rootedness and political clout, they believe that they have
rights over the city. Thanks to decentralization, their unity, along with the
practice of collective voting, gives them an unexpected level of political inu-
ence, which otherwise might have been eroded by demographic growth.
The example of Burkina Faso is revealing. In 2006, for the rst time
in their history, all citizens in Burkina Faso had the opportunity to vote for
their local political representatives. Autochthony and the extent of custom-
ary rights have not been precisely dened in current law there. Because of
this legal void, it often happens that several groups claim the status of land-
owners. Certain families have occupied their pieces of land for generations
without any legal title and, from a customary point of view, their right to
live there is revocable. In order to avoid losing what has been granted to
them, and because the formal landowners often want to recover their land
under the legal reform, these families often claim to be rstcomers; such
claims reignite quarrels over settlement history.
In Koudougou, landowners have developed collective strategies to pro-
tect themselves from this kind of problem and to take advantage of their
new political weight, resulting from decentralization. These alliances form
an electoral base that can be mobilized, arousing envy among rivals.
They are often the only voices really organized in such a way as to be heard
by the administration. According to the strategy of these families, collective
voting can serve to exert pressure on future elected ocials. But rally-
ing the group to a political movement must be negotiated: a family
trades its political support for the assurance that its land demands
will be satised. Such bargaining power is made possible thanks to
landowning families well-established networks, which are well-connected
to municipal power and conrm the legitimacy of their autochthonous
status.
We can say that the negotiated nature of this political order does not
result from an intended principle or a supposed concern for democratic orga-
nization, [but that it] is rather the unintentional consequence of a structural
property (Chauveau, 2000: 117); but in this case, the negotiated nature is
not the exclusive result of multiple rules and norms whose accumulations
and overlaps suspend the hegemony of the state or other actors. Rather, we
can ask whether these negotiations, even if they do not have explicitly demo-
cratic aims, represent a learning process, and thus whether bargaining over
votes contributes, if only involuntarily and in certain contexts, to the emer-
gence of a democratic process. It is no longer a question of eating up the
vote (bouer le vote), to use Richard Bane gass (1998) expression, in the
sense that a family would prot from all of a candidates policy proposals,
but rather of choosing a candidate based on his or her approach to managing
land-ownership reform in a specic area. In some cases, in a private meet-
ing, the candidate then promises to defend landowners view of city land
issues. But, in general, this whole process is managed less by promises and
ocial declarations of the candidate concerning his future policy than by
unspoken understandings and anticipations of the constituency based on
the candidates prole.
Together, decentralization and land-ownership reform have decisively
helped to strengthen the inuence of landowning families who claim auto-
chthony. Because they enjoy a status linked to anteriority in settlement his-
tory and because they form an appreciable electoral mass, these families
have been able to benet from their sway over local political power. In this
way, autochthony acts as a form of social capital in certain circumstances
that encourages participation in local management and debates. We can
therefore easily understand why a candidates origin is crucial. But, although
the question of autochthony is an important aspect of candidate selection,
it is far from being the only criterion for evaluation.
In a study conducted in Burkina Faso jointly with Jean-Pierre
Jacob, we argued that candidates are equally appreciated depending on
their competence, their morality (based on practices in their home commu-
nities) and their perceived ability to access nancial resources (Hilgers
and Jacob, 2008). Here again, we see that the capital of autochthony is
never sucient by itself. Not all residents are welcome to run for oce.
Candidates who never come to the city or who only come to take care of
their interests or those who have a reputation for immorality will be
rejected. By contrast, others who are not really from a city but who have
invested in it can become autochthonized there.
Conclusion
The crisis that Africa is suering has manifested itself in a lack of con-
dence in state institutions, the destruction of mechanisms of solidarity, indi-
vidualization, the resurgence of witchcraft, nepotism, generalized
corruption, the privatization of public holdings, abuses of power, violence,
opportunist uses of institutions, rapid spatial transformations, rising costs
of living, competition in the job market . . . These changes create a context
of anxiety and precarity. As Dunn elegantly puts it, autochthony discourse
is an attractive response to the ontological uncertainty (2009: 114) that
shapes the postcolonial context. Nevertheless, the permanent danger is of
being accused of being a false autochthon. Dunn arms that, because of
their instability, autochthony discourses provide just an illusion of ontologi-
cal certainty. This inherent paradox of autochthony discourses, which is rem-
iniscent of Sartres reections on the structure of discrimination, should
lead us to analyze the ways in which people stabilize a social representation
of autochthony (such as the vote) that gives them an advantage.
In this desecuritized modernity (Laurent, 2003), the possession of
capital associated with autochthony ^ even when its value and legitimacy
are sources of conict ^ can help securitize the conditions of life.
Autochthony enriches a symbolic capital that can legitimate certain actors
and the quality of their actions (Bouju, 2000: 147). It can facilitate access
to resources and expand social capital. At a moment when in cities, today
more than in the past, communal bonds alone are no longer sucient to
provide the social resources necessary for the securitization of urbanity
(Bouju, 2000: 148), it constitutes an eective mode of association that is
accessible even to the neediest residents. The manipulation of belonging
and the act of investing in this capital are ways, among others, of securitiz-
ing the conditions of life. Merely belonging to a group that can claim ante-
riority gives one the right to a position of privilege. But the motivations for
these claims cannot be reduced to strictly economic interests. In addition
to access to resources and the strategic imperatives such access implies,
autochthony also reects a groups identity, its role in a collectivitys develop-
ment, and, as Ge ly (2004: 4) notes about social prestige, the ability to see
oneself as participating fully in a social history, as holding a position and a
legitimacy that must be taken seriously when dealing with social issues.
Often, when serious competition for power arises, we see a return of
rhetorics of familial and communal belonging ^ a phenomenon that has
been well described, at least since the work of R. Bates (1974) in African
studies: in modern urban contexts, competition for access to positions of
dominance, as well as work, land and consumer goods, reinforces the tradi-
tional mechanisms of alliance and the networks and structures of belonging,
including in reinvented forms. It is in this sense that we must understand
the proliferation of rhetorics of autochthony in secondary cities. Depending
on the circumstances, autochthony can be negotiated, can present itself as
open or closed, can generate relations that are equal or hierarchical,
exclusive or inclusive, and can be associated with a whole series of rights
(Gausset, 2008). This malleability illustrates the extent to which practices,
opportunities and modes of recognition are at the heart of the discourse
rather than xed identities. At the same time as the acquisition of autoch-
thonous status ows from processes and practices when shortages of
resources are great and competition is strong, discourses on autochthony
are becoming increasingly binary, xenophobic and imprinted with a desire
for purity, hence the instablility of autochthonous status can be the source
of many conicts. Beyond Africa, in the indigenous groups claims in
Europe, in South America or in the United Nations, the principle of auto-
chtony, as it has been analysed here, is regularly mobilized and appears as
a capital which helps the struggle for recognition, to produce an identity
and to be inserted into an increasingly globalized world.
Notes
This work was supported by the National Funds for Scientic Research (Belgium).
1. Quotations from French sources in this article have been translated by
Jonathon Repinecz or by the author. I thank Jon for having polished my English
(and translated some parts of the paper). I would also like to thank Peter
Geschiere and Michele Leclercq Olive for their generous comments on a previous
version of this paper.
2. This recalls discussions on the relationship between social capital and political
participation: for a retrospective overview of the debate, see Shuller et al. (2000);
for its implications in the case of Africa see Bayart (1997) and, more recently,
Bratton et al. (2005: 251).
3. On identity issues related to work and migration, and more specically on the
relationship between ethnicity, the state, plantation economy and autochthony in
Ivory Coast, see the work of Chauveau and Dozon (1985, 1987, 1988) and
Chauveau (2000).
4. Grue nais has already shownthis: We have every reasonto believe that the autoch-
thon/conqueror alliance is the very moment of the foundational act that allows power
to be established, but not that such an alliance would constitute the passage from a
formof pre-socialorganizationtoa social organization(1983:127).
5. This reform is based on a policy of dividing municipal land into lots to be
attributed or sold, even when the land is already occupied. Put into place in
1995, it changed the previous status of municipal land in Burkina Faso, which
since Thomas Sankaras Marxist reform of 1984 had belonged to the state.
Because of numerous complications, requests for lot attribution or purchase
coming from individuals who could claim autochthonous status often received
preference, thereby generating conict over this status among dierent ethnic
groups and neighborhoods. See Hilgers (2007a, 2007b, 2008a).
6. IdrawhereonGe lys(2004) workontheissueofsocialprestige. Letmealsonotethat
Chauveau and Dozon had already observed about Ivory Coast that: the ideology of
autochthony, far from being simply a reactive attitude toward . . . allochthons, is
based on . . . renewal of tradition and becomes simultaneously political by giving the
right topeople . . . tohave a say innational destiny (1987: 288).
7. Certain authors note that autochthony, far from pursuing a return to the local,
rather concerns the question of access to the global (Ceuppens and Geschiere,
2005: 387; Mbembe, 2001; Simone, 2001).
8. Such historical conicts have an eect on the modes of production of oral his-
tory. In Koudougou, at this particular moment when everyone is claiming a
monopoly on the legitimate production of history, the dierent contenders ^
rather than using a variety of justications to support their positions, for example
by emphasizing how they have contributed to the citys development ^ are produc-
ing narratives within a framework that assumes the real rstcomers to be
simply, and factually, the rst group to have arrived. Given the intensity of the dis-
pute, the sole ecient argument, that becomes the legitimate paradigm of argu-
mentation, is to arm the anteriority of ones group. The dierences between
these competing historical narratives consist in the omission or addition of certain
facts that are important for establishing the history of migrations. This factual his-
tory naturalizes truth, removes any intentionality or sociological tone from it,
and imposes it as divested of conicts of interest (Veyne, 1983). The disputes
that arise are not disagreements of interpretation over the denition of notions
of occupation, foundation or anteriority. The very possibility of being a credible
candidate on the market of autochthonous recognition presupposes having contrib-
uted to the collectivitys prosperity, though this contribution, which encourages
one groups claim to autochthonous status, cannot be expressly formulated as an
argument in the discussion. In Koudougou, the only valid public argument is
position in the history of settlement.
References
Bane gas, R. (1998) Marchandisation du vote et consolidation de mocratique au
Be nin, Politique Africaine 69: 75^88.
Bates, R. (1974) Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa,
Comparative Political Studies 6(4): 457^84.
Bayart, J.-F. (1997) Le Capital social de lEtat Malfaiteur, ou les ruses de lintel-
ligence politique, pp. 55^75 in J.-F. Bayart, S. Ellis and B. Hiboux (eds) La
Criminalisation de lEtat en Afrique. Brussels: Complexe.
Bayart, J.-F., P. Geschiere and F. Nyamnjoh (2001) Autochtonie et citoyennete en
Afrique de lOuest, Critique Internationale 10: 177^94.
Bertrand, M. (1994) La Question foncie' re dans les villes du Mali: marches et
patrimoines. Paris: Karthala.
Bouju, J. (2000) Cliente lisme, corruption et gouvernance locale a' Mopti (Mali),
Autrepart 14: 143^63.
Bratton, M., R. Mattes and E. Gyimah Boadi (2005) Public Opinion, Democracy
and Market Reform in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ceuppens, B. and P. Geschiere (2005) Autochthony: Local or Global? New Modes
in Struggle over Citizenship and Belonging in Africa and Europe, Annual
Review of Anthropology 34: 385^407.
Chauveau, J.-P. (2000) Question foncie' re et construction nationale en Co te
dIvoire. Les enjeux silencieux dun coup dE
tat, Politique Africaine 78: 94^125.

Chauveau, J.-P. and J.-P. Dozon (1985) Colonisation, e conomie de plantation et soci-
e te civile en Co te-dIvoire, Cahiers de lOrstom serie Science Humaine 21(1): 63^80.
Chauveau, J.-P. and J.-P. Dozon (1987) Au coeur des ethnies. . . le tat, pp. 221^96
in E. Terray (ed.) LE
tat contemporain en Afrique. Paris: LHarmattan.

Chauveau, J.-P. and J.-P. Dozon (1988) Ethnies et e tat en Co te-dIvoire, Revue
franc aise de science politique 38(5): 732^47.
Dunn, K. (2009) Sons of the Soil and Contemporary State Making:
Autochthony, Uncertainty and Political Violence in Africa, Third World
Qaurterly 30(1): 113^27.
Faye, C., Y. Kone and C. Quiminal (eds) (2006) Decentralisations et pouvoirs en
Afrique. En contrepoint, mode'les territoriaux francc ais. Paris: E
ditions IRD.
Gausset, Q. (2008) Boundary Crossing and Ethnic Passing: The Negotiation of
Fulbe Identities in Northern Cameroon, paper presented at the 10th Biennial
EASA Conference: Experiencing Diversity and Mutuality: Indigenous,
Autochthonous and National Identities? Strategic Representations, Political
Struggles and Epistemological Issues, Ljubl jana.
Ge ly, R. (2004) Identites, conances sociales et monde commun. Louvain-la-Neuve:
Les Carnets du centre de philosophie du droit no. 112.
Ge ly, R. (2006) Identites et monde commun: psychologie sociale, philosophie,
societe. Brussels: Peter Lang.
Geschiere, P. (2005) Funerals and Belonging: Dierent Patterns in South
Cameroon, African Studies Review 48(2): 45^64.
Geschiere, P. (2009) The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and
Exclusion in Europe and Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Geschiere, P. and S. Jackson (2006) Autochthony and the Crisis of Citizenship:
Democratization, Decentralization, and the Politics of Belonging, African
Studies Review 49(2): 1^7.
Geschiere, P. and F. Nyamnjoh (2000) Capitalism and Autochthony: The Seesaw
of Mobility and Belonging, Public Culture 12(2): 432^53.
Gilbert, M. (1988) The Sudden Death of a Millionaire: Conversion and Consensus
in a Ghanaian Kingdom, Africa 58: 291^313.
Grue nais, M.-E. (1983) Autorite et territoire: histoire dun apanage mossi,
Doctoral thesis, University of Paris X.
Hagberg, S. (1998) Between Peace and Justice: Dispute Settlement between
Karaboro Agriculturalists and Fulbe Agro-pastoralists in Burkina Faso. Uppsala:
Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Hagberg, S. (2003) Amoro et Guimbe : histoire et religion dans la construction de
lidentite tiefo, pp. 237^57 in R. Kuba, C. Lentz and C. Somda (eds) Histoire du
peuplement et relations interethniques au Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala.
Hilgers, M. (2007a) Les Conits autour de lhistoire de Koudougou (Burkina
Faso), Cahiers dEtudes Africaines 186: 313^44.
Hilgers, M. (2007b) La Dynamique de la croyance: enjeux contemporains dune
ancienne ce re monie (moaga), LHomme 182: 131^62.
Hilgers, M. (2008) Politiques urbaines, contestation et de centralisation.
Lotissement et repre sentations sociales au Burkina Faso, Autrepart 47: 209^26.
Hilgers, M. (2009) Une ethnographie a' lechelle de la ville. Paris: Karthala.
Hilgers, M. and J.-P. Jacob (2008) Anthropologie de la candidature e lectorale au
Burkina Faso, Afrique Contemporaine 228: 171^90.
Izard, M. (1985) Gens du pouvoir, gens de la terre: les institutions politiques
de lancien royaume duYatenga (Bassin de la Volta blanche). Cambridge/Paris:
Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des sciences de lhomme.
Izard, M. (1992) LOdyssee du pouvoir: un royaume africain: etat, societe, destin
individuel. Paris: EHESS.
Izard, M. (2003) Moogo: lemergence dun espace etatique ouest-africain au XVIe
sie' cle. Paris: Karthala.
Jacob, J.-P. (2007) Terres privees, terres communes: gouvernement de la nature et
des hommes en pays Winye, Burkina Faso. Paris: IRD.
Jackson, S. (2006) Son of Which Soil? The Language and Politics of Autochthony
in Eastern DR Congo, African Studies Review 49(2): 95^123.
Kopyto, I. (1987) The Internal Frontier: The Making of African Political
Culture, pp. 3^84 in I. Kopyto (ed.) The African Frontier: The Reproduction of
Traditional African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Laurent, P.-J. (2003) Les Pentecotistes du Burkina Faso: mariage, pouvoir et guer-
ison. Paris: IRD/Karthala.
Lentz, C. (2003a) Premiers arrive s et nouveaux venus: discours sur lautochtonie
dans la savane ouest-africaine, pp. 113^34 in R. Kuba, C. Lentz and
C. Nurukyor Somda (eds) Histoire du peuplement et relations interethniques au
Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala.
Lentz, C. (2003b) This is Ghanaian Territory: Land Conicts on a West African
Border, American Ethnologist 30(2): 273^89.
Mbembe, A. (2001) Ways of Seeing: Beyond the New Nativism, African Studies
Review 44(2): 1^14.
Portes, A. (1998) Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern
Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology 24: 1^24.
Shuller, T., S. Baron and J. Field (2000) Social Capital: A Review and Critique,
pp. 1^39 in T. Shuller, S. Baron and J. Field (eds) Social Capital. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Simone, A. (2001) On the Worlding of African Cities, African Studies Review
44(2): 15^41.
Socpa, A. (2003) Democratisation et autochtonie au Cameroun. Mnster: LIT
Verlag.
Veyne, P. (1983) Les Grecs ont-ils cru a' leurs mythes? Paris: Seuil.
Mathieu Hilgers is Associate Professor at Universite Libre de Bruxelles
(Belgium), Laboratoire danthropologie des mondes contemporains. His
research interests and publications include social sciences and philosophy.
His work seeks to design an anthropology of secondary cities which
focuses on the eects of neoliberalism on popular perceptions of politics,
on identity and on belonging, with eldwork carried out mainly in Africa
but also in Europe. He has published a book on urban anthropology
(Karthala, 2009), numerous articles in international journals, and edited
journal issues and books, notably on Bourdieus theory, such as Social
Field Theory: Concept and Applications (forthcoming, edited with
E. Mangez). [email: mhilgers@ulb.ac.be]

2 Autochthony As Capital in A Global Age

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Descrizione originale:

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

2 Autochthony As Capital in A Global Age

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

http://tcs.sagepub.

Theory, Culture and Society

http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:

- Jan 31, 2011 Version of Record >>

tat, Politique Africaine 78: 94^125.

tat contemporain en Afrique. Paris: LHarmattan.

Potrebbero piacerti anche