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From OAU to AU: Territoriality in African Regional Politics https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.124925 Dube, Rumbidzai Branch, adam This thesis is about the distinct relationship that exists in Africa between the national and the continental scales of spatial politics. It argues that continental territoriality in Africa is asserted, practiced, and imagined by the African Union(AU) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in ways that simultaneously constitute and support national territoriality. That is, national territoriality has been co-existent and co-constituted with continental territoriality since decolonisation, with the formation of independent nation-states on the continent. The thesis argues that, to make sense of how and why this co-constitution of national territoriality and continental territoriality occurs – and thus why spatial politics and territoriality in Africa are distinct from other regions – we need to understand practices and imaginaries among continental institutions as responding to two specific contexts, one external to the continent and one internal. The external context constitutes exploitation and domination by colonial and imperial powers that have asserted, and continue to assert, their own territorial or non-territorial forms of authority over Africa. Thus, the construction of African territoriality as simultaneously continental and national is in part a response to these forms of spatial politics and the lack of freedom, autonomy, and justice they comprise. The internal context is marked by differentiation and a variety of forms of authority, sociality, and community that do not fit into the modern bounded territoriality of the nation-state and that may even be non-territorial. Continental institutions respond to, try to accommodate, and do justice to, or counteract some of these forms of political authority and community that do not conform to nation-state boundaries. This approach provides a novel perspective on the relation between the continental and the national, and on territoriality in Africa, going beyond the dominant narratives. This framework can be used to re-think regionalism in other settings as well, whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organisation of American States (OAS), or others. University of Cambridge 2024-12-23 Thesis Doctoral Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) eng https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/395401 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/259ce7da-6c96-416a-8fc1-19c655d53165/download 4b59918b69daba643f39bbac857f09a9 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/c5320168-7c30-4d54-823b-7e9132d0048b/download 87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved African Regionalism African Union PanAfricanism Sovereignty Territoriality