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

本项目将首次汇集围绕泛非主义的当代政策话语，并将其作为一种具有长期和多方面传统和历史的意识形态进行更广泛的分析。泛非主义的概念首先出现在散居的非洲人中，特别是在美洲和加勒比群岛。它最初是一场文化和智力运动，挑战种族定义和对流散在外的非洲人后裔的隔离，最终在20世纪50年代被加纳的夸梅·恩克鲁玛（Kwame Nkrumah）等非洲民族主义者采纳为反殖民斗争的哲学。后来，它演变成在殖民统治下建立的新国家争取政治独立的动力。自20世纪80年代以来，泛非主义在非洲以新的方式成为热门话题，在非洲联盟的区域一体化和国际关系战略中被用于政策目的。它已被用来制定集体应对从冲突到发展等巨大政策挑战的框架，并为探索非洲和散居侨民的价值观和身份认同奠定了基础。非洲作为一种政策工具和识别资源的重新动员被用来改变治理结构和实践，重新配置非盟与其成员国、非洲大陆及其侨民以及非洲在国际体系中的关系。然而，泛非项目在促进区域和平、发展和全球团结方面往往收效甚微。尽管屡屡失败，但政策共识是，解决如何实施这一概念问题的技术解决方案将产生更好的结果。因此，正在加紧努力进行体制改革，改进政策，并使实践更符合泛非梦想。在这些改革方案上花费了数百万美元。尽管关于泛非倡议失败原因的批判性研究越来越多，但我们仍然无法自信地回答以下问题：为什么尽管泛非主义的愿望越来越难以实现，尽管这一理念未能兑现其崇高的承诺，但它在大众政治和决策中仍能继续吸引如此高的期望？为什么泛非主义被认为是理所当然的？对于泛非主义应该有什么其他的思考方式？该项目通过对三个区域机构的具体安全和发展政策的研究来探讨这些问题：非盟、西非国家经济共同体和非洲发展新伙伴关系（NEPAD）；横跨六个非洲国家（埃塞俄比亚、加纳、马里、尼日利亚、索马里和南非），以及英国非洲侨民社区的侨民身份。我们将采用一种开创性的多层次研究方法，将自上而下的制度和政策过程的探索与非洲大陆不同地区的非洲公民和英国非洲侨民的自下而上的身份叙述相结合。我们将使用访谈、焦点小组和“焦点人种学”收集经验数据，并应用跨站点比较分析来发展对泛非主义的新颖定位和多元理解。利用新的实证研究和丰富的泛非洲主义现有文献，我们将系统地将这一概念的各种知识参与与其在政策中的当代应用结合起来。该项目旨在弥合理论、政策和实践之间的差距，通过与政策制定者和实践者的接触，并与4个非洲组织和2个英国组织密切合作，最大限度地发挥影响。这项研究将通过学术出版物和会议、政策文件以及整个非洲和英国的一系列知识交流和利益相关者参与讲习班来传播。

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.