Cover of The Politics of Custom
The Politics of Custom Chiefship, Capital, and the State in Contemporary Africa
edited by John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Cloth: 978-0-226-51076-7 | Paper: 978-0-226-51093-4 | Electronic: 978-0-226-51109-2
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

How are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the post–Cold War era—changes in which they are themselves deeply implicated.
 
This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guises—from university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmers–but, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that “traditional” authority enjoys in the late modern world. Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa’s history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making processes of the twenty-first century.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

John L. Comaroff is the Hugh K. Foster Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology and an Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard University. He is also an Affiliated Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. Jean Comaroff is the Alfred North Whitehead Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology and an Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies at Harvard University.

REVIEWS

“These essays surprise at every turn through their insistence that African chiefs do not merely survive today but are also thoroughly modern and global—savvy operators who strike deals with NGOs and capitalist corporations, entrepreneurs who raise money overseas, and rural sovereigns who marshal votes for national elections. Framed by a magisterial introduction by John L. and Jean Comaroff, the book provides a capacious view of a roiling political field in which neoliberal governance is enabling twenty-first-century African chiefs to usurp the role of the state that once brought them into being.”
— Charles Piot, Duke University

“These compelling and wide-ranging studies explore the staying power and apparently counter-intuitive resurgence of chiefship in Africa. Chiefs are multitaskers—and some are even criminals—but thousands of people hold them in high esteem. Through their popular appeal, they can make useful partners to global mining or telecommunications corporations: reciprocally, such partnerships can in turn help boost that popularity. Chiefs have clout because their role draws on sources of sovereignty that go beyond the conventional realm of politics to encompass kinship networks, ritual, business, and the global economy. This book shines new light on the interplay of tradition and modernity, showing that chiefship is neither wholly of the state nor of the customary, but always entangled with both.”
— Deborah James, London School of Economics

“The Politics of Custom is an incisive and original investigation of the stubbornly persistent role played by traditional authorities in modern Africa. Featuring a stellar cast of contributors and a superb synthetic introduction by the editors, this book is a major contribution that will appeal to a broad audience.”
— James Ferguson, Stanford University

"Editors John and Jean Comaroff bring together an array of scholars in anthropology, history, politics, and other fields studying the purported “resurgence” of customary chiefly authority in African states in the contemporary period. . . . Undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology, history, law, and African studies and professionals in these fields will find this a useful read. Highly recommended."
— CHOICE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Note


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0001
[chiefship;politics of custom;customary authority;African politics;political economy]
How are we to explain the so-called "resurgence" of chiefs – or, more accurately, of indigenous sovereigns – in contemporary Africa, figures who were supposed to disappear with modernity, but are a rising, vocal force in many places across the continent today? What are we to make of the increasingly assertive politics of custom, also long said to be losing its aura under the impact of Universal History? What might both of these things have to do with transformations in the state, with the workings of global political economy, with the changing social geography of the planet? These questions have pressed themselves forcibly, alike in Africa and way beyond, on scholars and social activists, on organic intellectuals and media commentators, in policy communities and digital publics. This volume addresses those questions by taking a wide view – it explores chiefship and the customary across Southern, Central, and West Africa – in order to account for this counter-intuitive chapter in the contemporary history of Africa, one that few mainstream social scientists would have anticipated. And by locating it in world-making processes of the early twenty-first century. (pages 1 - 48)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0002
[neo-traditional;structural adjustment;decentralization;World Bank;IMF;indigenous communities]
In chapter two, Geschiere argues that, in contemporary Africa, customary law and chiefly authority are best understood as “neo-traditional.” Neither strictly customary – although their legitimacy lies in claims to the sanction of custom – nor wholly constructed anew in the present, they are a blend of both, a fusion that has emerged in the post-Cold War moment dating back to the late 1980’s. Making the point that the so-called “return” of chiefship has varied greatly across the continent – it has not occurred at all in some countries -- Geschiere relates recent transformations in traditional authority to the effects of structural adjustment policies; policies, imposed by the World Bank and the IMF, that resonated with the neoliberal tendency in a rising global economy to favor decentralization, deregulation, and devolution away from the state to “the local,” thus to empower those who appeared to enjoy legitimate sovereignty over indigenous communities. (pages 49 - 78)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0003
[Ghana;South Africa;state power;economic geography;neoliberalism]
In chapter three, Berry analyzes economic geography as a key factor behind the variable power of chiefs. Warning against too simple an attribution of the return of chiefship to the rise of neoliberalism, the author examines the cases of Ghana and South Africa with a view to accounting for the different means by which traditional rulers in those countries acquired and exercised their authority. While Ghanaian chiefs control most of the country’s land and wield their influence informally, their South African counterparts, who have limited control over land, rely on legislative recognition by the state. Ultimately, Berry concludes, chiefly authority is best understood as either an alternative to or an adjunct of state power, or both, depending on the economic geography in which it is situated. (pages 79 - 109)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0004
[neoliberalization;Kingdom of Custom;Nhlapo Commission;post-apartheid South Africa]
In chapter four, Buthelezi and Skosana suggest that neoliberalization has masked critical continuities in the manner in which African states have dealt with chiefship and customary law, giving indigenous rulers authority over land to a degree that, if anything, exceeds the colonial past. Focusing on South Africa, and in particular the recent Nhlapo Commission of inquiry into traditional leadership, the authors explore the ways in which the government of the post-apartheid state has struggled to accommodate the politics of tradition in a liberal democratic social order, efforts that have lacked a clear vision, and had the unwitting effect of replicating aspects the apartheid past – and of violating some of the key provisions of the constitution for those (predominantly rural) citizens of the country ruled by the Kingdom of Custom. (pages 110 - 133)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0005
[Zimbabwe;ZANU-PF;flexible institutions;local governance;authority;indigenous rulers]
In chapter five, Alexander, who argues that chiefship has not “returned” since it never really went away, focuses on Zimbabwe and its flexible institutions to demonstrate that traditional authority asserts itself not just in struggles over resources, rights, and institution-making, but also in the justification of claims that legitimize those struggles. Indigenous rulers, whose historical fortunes have fluctuated a great deal, have, in recent times, been compelled to make accommodations with other forms of local authority, especially, in this context, ZANU-PF party-based cadres. Alexander observes that many of these indigenous rulers are exploiting the disorder and legal ambiguities surrounding their positions to assert claims over land and other resources. (pages 134 - 161)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0006
[Sierra Leone;Washington Consensus;American chiefs;development;local sovereignty]
In chapter six, Ferme shows how, in Sierra Leone as in Zimbabwe, local rulers ground the present in a reconfigured past. Under British colonialism, these rulers, who were often locked in power struggles with one another, were given the authority to collect taxes and became an integral element in ensuring the institutional stability of the colonial state; over time, some of them also merged into the modernizing elite of the country. In recent decades, under the impact of the Washington Consensus and structural adjustment, chiefship and the customary have asserted themselves once again in many parts of the country, seizing the opportunities wrought by devolution to take up new economic roles. What is more, emergent forms of “customary” authority – like so-called “American chiefs,” who have lived abroad and are now expected to “bring development” to their communities -- have become part of the labile, expanding landscape of local sovereignty. (pages 162 - 182)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0007
[Burkina Faso;Mossi;Naaba;sovereignty;deregulation;decentralization;customary law]
In chapter seven, Beucher looks at the ways in which the sovereignty of the state and the sovereignty of chiefship have played out a complex political counterpoint in contemporary Burkina Faso, where, from 1987 to 2014, the long-ruling Compaore administration was forced to compromise with a traditional aristocracy consisting of Mossi Rulers known as the nabba. The dialectical engagement of these different modes of sovereignty -- each dependent on, but seeking independence from, the other – led, during an era of increasing deregulation and decentralization, to the birth of a neo-tradition in the small West African country. The actions of the naaba demonstrate that customary law, far from being set in stone, is often recommissioned to adapt to changing political circumstances, sometimes with complicated, unanticipated consequences. (pages 183 - 210)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0008
[capital;labor;mining;Marikana massacre;King Leruo Molotlegi (Bafokeng);King Zanozuko Sigcau (amaPondo);extractive industries;indigenous rulers]
In chapter eight, Cook investigates the connections between corporate capital, traditional rulers, and customary law. South Africa’s recent history, she argues, suggests that the politics of custom are now conducted less through relations with the state or its concerns, than through relations with corporate capital. Neoliberalism may not, in itself, account for the resurgence of chiefship here, but the workings of the market have played a large role in legitimizing indigenous sovereigns – some of whom, like King Leruo of the Bafokeng, have played a significant role in enabling global firms to mine resources on their land, others of whom, like the amaPondo king, Sigcau, have facilitated the recruitment of labor. The latter, those who govern populations that supply labor to the extractive industries, Cook shows, have had little alternative but to witness the gross exploitation of their communities – and the concomitant effects of protests like the notorious Marikana massacre of August 2012. Nonetheless, all indigenous rulers are able sustain a measure of their authority through their mediation between the political and the economic lives of their subjects. (pages 211 - 230)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0009
[fetishization;commodification;advertising;Ghana;corporate logos;public relations;consumerism]
In chapter nine, Adrover expands upon the relationship between corporate capital and custom, explored in the previous chapter, to demonstrate that indigenous rulers may themselves be commodified -- and traditional ceremonies appropriated -- to the ends of commerce. Chiefs in Ghana have, in some instances, themselves been made into fetish objects by international firms in order to support their public relations campaigns and advertising initiatives; some of these firms, moreover, have commissioned local traditions and authorities to create and popularize their corporate logos. But this process of commodification, Adrover argues, may be a double-edged sword. Local sovereigns sometimes find themselves impotent, sidelined in the face of growing consumerism. The market may thus surreptitiously undermine and devalue the very customary practices exploited by corporate capital for profit. In the upshot, new politics emerge as leaders struggle to retain their offices and maintain their authority. (pages 231 - 246)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0010
[Obuasi;Ghana;extractive industries;fallen chiefs;Anglo Gold Ashanti;galamseys;eco-destruction;affective sovereignty;artisanal miners]
In chapter ten, Coyle takes yet further the analysis of the contemporary relationship between African chiefs and global capital, showing how extractive corporations – in this case Anglo Gold Ashanti (AGA) -- may engender violent conflict in local communities as they seek to exploit their mineral resources. Focusing on Obuasi, a small town in Ghana where gold is mined by AGA, she gives account of the ways in which local rulers have acquiesced to the demands of the company -- to their own personal profit – by granting it rights to farmlands and sacred waters on which local life, both material and spiritual, depends. In the upshot, these customary authorities have been bitterly blamed for the brute eco-destruction and the extreme poverty that has followed, to the extent that some can only visit their domains under armed guard; their effective sovereignty has passed to others, among them “informal,” artisanal miners, known as galamseys, who have taken on an increasingly active role in local community affairs. (pages 247 - 278)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0011
[Bwami;Banro;artisanal miners;mining of futures;DRC;corporate capital;chiefly authority;jurisdiction;feudalism]
In chapter eleven, Smith explores further the role of artisanal miners in the relationship between corporate capital and chiefly authority, here in the South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Local, but ardently anti-custom, these “organic scientists” (geologues), as they call themselves, have protested against contemporary Bwami (“chiefship”), whose office-holders, they claim, have used their power to ally themselves with the likes of Banro, a foreign mining firm whose exploitative practices have antagonized the surrounding communities. The result of the complicated, evanescent relationship between the mine, customary rulers, the geologues, and other interested parties here makes plain quite how complex and entangled are the connections between capital and custom, and how deep an impact they may have on local households and communities, many of them impoverished, even destroyed, as those connections play themselves out. In the face of rising “neotribal” capitalism, Smith shows, negotiating the labyrinthine ties linking technologies of power, jurisdiction, and suzerainty – against the background of the presumptive “feudalism” of local African sovereignty -- may become matters of life and death. (pages 279 - 304)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press
    https://academic.oup.com/chica...


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226511092.003.0012
[FRELIMO;Mozabican National Resistance;civil war;modernity;spiritual legitimacy;customary law;African modernity;traditional rule]
In the concluding chapter, Obarrio argues that customary law is unlikely to disappear for the foreseeable future. Chiefship, it seems, remains the suppressed underside of modernity for African states, as it was for colonial regimes across the continent in times past. Mozambique is a prime example of the probable perpetuity of traditional rule. Actively suppressed by FRELIMO after independence from Portugal, it seemed to disappear -- although it was a mobilizing force in the civil war between FRELIMO and the Mozambican National Resistance. With the recent volte face by Frelimo, in a “third moment” of Mozambican history, chiefship has reasserted itself very forcefully, the adaptive power of customary authority deriving in essential part on its being a potent source of spiritual legitimacy. (pages 305 - 336)
This chapter is available at:
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Acknowledgments

Contributors

Index

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2018. Page maintained by BiblioVault.