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

This book analyses how political belonging is constructed and how it interacts with the nation-state in the Ghana-Togo borderlands, especially when the community lies across borders, or at another level than the nation-state (at a local, regional, transnational level). Based on archival research, interviews, oral tradition and newspaper analysis, the book uncovers a pattern based on legitimating narratives of indigeneity at each scale. This pattern contextualises the electoral debate on cross-border voting in Ghana in 2016, a practice that existed before independence, and was instrumentalised by Ghanaian and Togolese heads of state in the 1990s at a time of tense diplomatic relations. This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to provide a holistic understanding of political culture by connecting the history of the border region with contemporary power struggles in political science and issues of belonging and citizenship in anthropology since the turn of the twentieth century.