Theorising Borders in Africa: What are the Implications for African Integration?

Abstract

While continental and regional integration in Africa is indeed a current  debate, and many plans are in motion to achieve this, there appear to be gaps in current conceptualisation and implementation. By peripherising and subalternising non-state actors, such as informal cross-border traders, such integration fails dismally in terms of inclusive integration. Current  approaches appear to follow statist, Eurocentric understandings (or  misunderstandings) of African borders, which results in the privileging of state at the expense of non-state actors in integration policies and  programmes. Against this background, this paper argues that borders and the informal economy are not an exaggerated phenomenon, but that they are realities with significant importance and impact; bearing consequences for not only the micro spaces where they are manifested, but also for state-led initiatives to establish amalgamated socio-economic spaces for African countries. After all, evidence on the ground clearly shows that the socio-economic realities of informal cross-border actors at African borders and borderlands suggest that de facto processes of regional integration are unfolding at these sites. It should therefore not be difficult to enhance and channel these realities and tailor them towards de jure programmes of continental integration. This should be read as a rethinking of the logic, method, dynamics and extent of continental integration in Africa; an attempt to provide an alternative and all-inclusive continental project capable of achieving truly inclusive integration.