African Thresholds: Borders and Places of Passage in Africa, c.1450 to Present

Brill, 2025

The Open Access publication of this book has been made possible by the Swiss National Science Foundation. What is a border, and why does it exist? Reappraising a key idea from Arnold van Gennep’s Les rites de passage, this book argues that a border is a threshold, a limen, made to be crossed. African Thresholds studies places of passage spanning from the riverine networks of Senegambia to border-making in colonial Gold Coast and Côte d’Ivoire; from the desert roads of central southern Africa to river heartlands in colonial Togo; from flows of cowrie shells across the Volta River to insurgent borderities in the Lake Chad. In a time when state borders are increasingly shut, this book aims to show us that a border is made by those who cross it as much as by those who stand by it. Contributors are: Ettore Morelli, Fernando Mouta, Pierluigi Valsecchi, María José Pont Cháfer, Giulia Casentini, and Aimé Raoul Sumo Tayo.

• Editore: Brill
• Collana: Studies in the Social History of the Global South
• Anno: 2025
• Rilegatura: Hardback
• Pagine: 397 p.
• Dimensioni: 235 x 155 mm
• Peso: 788 gr.
• EAN: 9789004726963

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