Political Belonging in the Ghana-Togo Borderlands: Citizenship and the Vote at the Margins of the State (African Studies)

In the wake of the 2016 national elections in Ghana, the issue of cross-border voting triggered a nation-wide debate.But who exactly constitutes the electorate? Who is a national, who is a foreigner, and how are these distinctions identified in the Ghana-Togo borderlands?This study analyses how political belonging is constructed and how it interacts with the nation-state in the region, especially where communities lie across borders, or at another level than the nation-state.Based on archival research, interviews, oral tradition and newspaper analysis, Nathalie Raunet discusses a pattern based on legitimating narratives of indigeneity at local, regional and transnational scales.In doing so, this study offers a new interpretation of the relationship between the Ewe-speaking people (located across the south of the Ghana-Togo border), the Ghanaian and Togolese Republics, and their colonial predecessor states.Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Nathalie Raunet connects the history of t