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

Analysing the interaction between belonging, nation-state and the vote in the Ghana-Togo borderlands, this study interrogates how political community is constructed in the region. Nathalie Raunet contextualises the electoral debate on cross-border voting in Ghana in 2016 using archival research, interviews, oral tradition and newspaper analysis.

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 the region with contemporary power struggles and issues of belonging and citizenship since the turn of the twentieth century.