Beyond Sovereign Reason: Issues and Contestations in Contemporary African Identity

Abstract

Issues of collective identity discourses and integration in Africa often face competing national and primordial identities. We explore multilayered integrative mechanisms that have become constitutive of collective African identity. We examine the nature of this identity taking a modern constructivist view of Africa's encounter with Europe. But we also address basic anthropological concerns, focusing on present and future prospects and seeking to understand how this identity is shaped by international politics or synchronized with local political units.