Chiefdoms and kingdoms in Africa: Why they are neither states nor empires

Dr Peter Skalník, Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, Wassenaar.

The assertion that African chiefdoms and kingdoms are neither states nor empires might either sound obvious or controversial. Earlier generations of Africanists, whether African or not, tried to find states and empires in Africa. The idea was to show that during the pre-colonial era Africans were able to develop complex political forms comparable to those in Europe or on other continents. Anthropologists and historians who described chiefdoms and kingdoms in Africa thought almost automatically of these as states if not empires. Now that this period has ended, it is time to look anew at the data and 'deconstruct' the earlier Africanist constructions. The presentation will attempt to do this and come up with suggestions about the more plausible nature of political centralisation in Africa.

Peter Skalník is a political anthropologist and Africanist who did his early field research in northern Ghana from 1978 onwards. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he taught anthropology at RUL (at a part-time basis), then worked at the University of Cape Town. Since 1990 he has been teaching anthropology and African studies in his native Prague (Charles University). At present he is a fellow-in-residence at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in Wassenaar.