Pan-African Frontiers And Identities: The Remaking Of Africa In World Politics

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This project will for the first time bring together contemporary policy discourse around pan-Africanism with a broader analysis of it as an ideology with a long-standing and multi-faceted tradition and history. The idea of pan-Africanism first emerged among Africans in the diaspora, especially in America and the Caribbean Islands. Originally a cultural and intellectual movement that challenged racial definitions and the segregation of people of African descent in the diaspora, it was eventually adopted by African nationalists like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in the 1950s as a philosophy for anti-colonial struggle. It later evolved into a drive for political independence in the new states created by colonial rule. Since the 1980s, pan-Africanism has become topical in new ways in Africa, utilised for policy purposes in the Africa Union's regional integration and international relations strategy. It has been used to frame collective responses to huge policy-challenges, from conflict to development, as well as forming the basis for exploring African and diaspora values and identities. Its re-mobilisation as a policy tool and resource of identification is leveraged to alter structures and practices of governance, reconfiguring relationships between the AU and its member states, the continent and its diaspora, and Africa within the international system.However, pan-African projects have often delivered poor results in fostering regional peace, development and global solidarity. Despite its repeated failures, the policy consensus is that technical solutions to the problem of how the concept should be operationalised would yield better outcomes. There are therefore increasing efforts to establish institutional reforms, to improve policy and to bring practice more in line with the pan-African dreams. Millions of dollars are spent on such reform programmes. Although there is a growing critical body of research on why pan-African initiatives fail, we still cannot answer with any confidence the questions: why, even though the aspirations of pan-Africanism are increasingly hard to fulfil, and despite the failure of the idea to deliver on its lofty promises, does it continue to attract such high expectations in popular politics and policymaking; why is it taken for granted and what alternative ways of thinking about pan-Africanism should there be?The project explores these questions by drawing on studies of specific security and development policy in three regional institutions: the AU, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD); across six African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia and South Africa), and in diaspora identities in Afro-diaspora communities in the UK. We will employ a pioneering multi-level research approach that combines an exploration of top-down institutional and policy processes with the bottom-up identity narratives of African citizens in different parts of the continent and members of the Afro-diaspora in the UK. We will collect empirical data using interviews, focus groups and 'focused ethnography' and apply cross-site comparative analysis to develop a novel located and pluralist understanding of pan-Africanism. Drawing upon new empirical research and the rich body of existing literature on pan-Africanism, we will systematically bring together the diverse intellectual engagement of the concept with its contemporary application in policy.The project seeks to bridge gaps between theory, policy and practice and maximise impact by engaging with policymakers and practitioners and working closely with 4 African and 2 UK organisations. The research will be disseminated through academic publications and conferences, policy papers and a series of knowledge exchange and stakeholder engagement workshops across Africa and in the UK.