« Revisiting the African Frontier »

Kopytoff’s frontier can be likened to a “process of pacification”, according to the words of Benedikt Korf.2 But it can also be a catalyst of conflicts. The violent dimension of the frontier is to be found in pre- and post-colonial African societies and has been a useful way in analysing the African “peripheries ” and “borderlands”. The notion of frontier raises however some questions when applied to conflicts: are the African conflicts occurring between a metropoles and frontiersmen only? Violence is also to be found within the frontiers, within these new political entities it potentially creates or modifies. Therefore, the frontier as described by Kopytoff offers a brilliant illustration of the multiplicity of “centres ” and their “peripheries ” on a same territory. Thus, by questioning the relevance of the boundary, Kopytoff’s frontier and “quasi-frontiers ” (Kopytoff 1987: 27-28) implicitly force to reconsider the relevance of the notions of “centre ” and “periphery”. Quite paradoxically, we believe that his frontier will be useful in order to deconstruct the centre-periphery approach. Through this critical bias, the frontier shall become an analytical tool offering an alternative approach based on Coulon’s notions of “central political sector ” and “peripheral political sector ” (Coulon 1972).3 The frontier will be complementary to this, by taking into accoun