ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to explore the recent upsurge in various regions of Africa of the notion of ‘autochthony’ (literally ‘from the soil itself’) as a virulent political slogan that seems to imply, perhaps almost inevitably, a call for excluding strangers (‘allogènes’ or ‘allochthons’). For the African continent, this intensification in the politics of belonging seems to be directly related to democratization and decentralization, the two main trends dominating the post-Cold War moment. However, it is important to place this in a wider, comparative perspective. Indeed the African cases fit in with a much broader, even global, concern with belonging that seems to be the flipside of intensified processes of globalization, a process seen also in wealthier parts of the world. The contrast with the parallel notion of ‘indigenous’ – also undergoing a recent renaissance, but following a strikingly different trajectory – can help to outline certain ambiguities in this volatile quest for belonging and for limiting the ranks of those who can claim to be ‘real’ citizens.1
