Böcker av Ulf Engel

This volume offers paths for African Studies researchers to understand and explain the various dimensions of African dynamics in a growingly multipolar world.

Space has been reintroduced as an analytical category to the humanities and social sciences in the early 1990s. African Studies is one of the fields of knowledge production where the so-called spatial turn has proved to be extremely fruitful. The continent provides ample evidence for complex processes of deterritorialisation (migration, globalisation, sub-nationalisms) and reterritorialisation (new regionalisms, processes of bordering, etc.). These dialectical processes are driven by a variety of actors: political elites, multinational companies, warlords, donor governments, local traders, international NGOs, etc. As a result substantial parts of Africa witness the emergence of new regimes of territoriality: re-ordered states, transnational and sub-national entities, new localities and transborder formations. This volume brings together contributions from anthropology, history, geography and political science.

Governance has become an important concept in the politics of African development. It is therefore a crucial concept for social science analyses focusing on Africa. This book disentangles analytical aspects of governance from political and normative connotations.