Borders and Belonging: Rethinking African States Beyond Colonial Lines

By: Nicholas Kimble

Edited By: Stephan Shiwei Wang

Introduction

The modern nation-state, as defined by Western political theory, is characterized by centralized control, fixed borders, and a bureaucratic system that governs its population. This model is typically traced to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which linked a bounded territory with legitimate political authority.¹ However, the Peace of Westphalia was a context-specific diplomatic settlement to end the Thirty Years’ War, not a universally applicable model. Rather, it reflected the dynamics of European religious wars, the breakdown of feudal systems, and the rise of capitalism.² Therefore, while influential, the Westphalian state is a product of historical circumstances and should not be assumed as the only or universal form of political organization.

European colonial rule and imperial expansion exported the Westphalian state model worldwide. Colonial powers sidelined Indigenous African governance by ignoring Africa’s historical, social, and cultural contexts.³ The imposition of European systems created a divided state, where urban populations became “citizens,” while rural populations were relegated to being “subjects”.⁴ This division redefined both governance and community ties, not just administrative structures.⁵

Prior to colonization, many African societies developed political organizations that differed from the Westphalian model. For example, the Hadzabe of Tanzania did not have central bureaucracies or defined borders. Their political authority relied on negotiation and consensus, rather than force, and legitimacy was rooted in mutual reciprocity, freedom of movement, and collective responsibility—not state-enforced control.⁶

The Khoisan communities of Southern Africa showed egalitarian governance. Leadership was non-hereditary and based on competence. Authority was usually temporary and exercised through persuasion. Decisions were often made through consensus, rather than coercion. This participatory organization demonstrates that legitimate, accountable authority exists outside fixed boundaries. It challenges the Westphalian view that ties sovereignty to permanence and territorial control.

Westphalian assumptions are also challenged by the Tuareg of the Sahara. Their political system relied on mobility, spanning wide areas beyond borders. The Tuareg were a nomadic people, and their governance was based on confederations of clans. Social life was organized across movable zones, while political power remained layered and dispersed. Strict borders made little sense in a culture shaped by trade, negotiation, and the mobility of the desert. By comparing Tuareg caravan routes to fixed borders, one can see the tension between nomadic governance and border-based states. Mapping a trade route, such as the one from Timbuktu across the Sahara, reveals how Tuareg fluidity influenced political ideas. The colonial partition divided Tuareg areas among entities that became Mali, Niger, and Algeria, imposing a rigid territorial model on a previously transnational and decentralized society.⁷

These African histories reveal that alternative models to the Westphalian state exist and function effectively. Centralized authority and territorial fixation are not the only sources of legitimacy. Indigenous African systems emphasize reciprocal relationships, negotiation, and plural identities. Colonialism marginalized these systems, replacing them with rigid imported structures that often became exclusive and fragile. This replacement is central to understanding the negative legacy of colonialism: the imposed state model was not universally ideal, but a context-specific imposition with lasting consequences for political development.

Rethinking political authority means critically recovering Indigenous insights, not romanticizing them. Colonial state structures still prevent inclusive belonging and widen the gap between subjects and citizens. Many postcolonial states fail for this reason. A new vision can transcend Westphalian limits, aiming for more inclusive and pluralistic orders. By engaging with traditions of the Hadzabe, Khoisan, and Tuareg, states can better acknowledge differences, negotiate belonging, and ground authority in lived realities.

This article argues that Indigenous African governance traditions, which emphasize consensus and communal legitimacy, offer alternative models to the Westphalian state. Analyzing how these traditions redefine sovereignty and challenge received notions of legitimacy can help envision new forms of African statehood based on local historical contexts rather than European paradigms.

Disrupted Political Rationalities: Mobility, Reciprocity, and the Colonial State

Boundaries are more than arbitrary lines in daily life; they shape societies by facilitating social disintegration, controlling access to resources, and perpetuating colonial legacies. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, in Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa, argues that colonialism persists beyond independence, as its borders and institutions continue to influence Africans’ lived experiences. He refers to this ongoing influence as the “coloniality of power.” These borders fragment social orders, reorder resource access, and impose a Eurocentric model of sovereignty that delegitimizes Indigenous governance.⁸

For centuries, the Tuareg lived as traders and pastoralists across the Sahara, maintaining flexible, clan-based political structures.⁹ Their governance depended on adapting to the desert’s rhythms, contrasting with the fixed, territorial model preferred by European powers. Colonial partition divided Tuareg territory among Algeria, Libya, Niger, and Mali, recasting their autonomy as “rebellion” and their traditional movement as “illegal crossings”.¹⁰ The Tuareg were thus excluded as political actors: their governance system challenged the Eurocentric idea that sovereignty requires rigid territorial boundaries. Consequently, colonial authorities pathologized them as nomads, insurgents, or security threats, emphasizing the irreconcilable difference between mobile and fixed political orders.¹¹

Similarly, the Hadzabe of Tanzania show epistemic disruption. They share stewardship of land and ecological cycles. Their rotating foraging practices form governance without a central authority.¹² Oral traditions form law and knowledge. Authority comes from mutual consent and reciprocity. Both colonial and postcolonial states refer to these practices as “primitive.” Land enclosures for tourism, game reserves, and agriculture have weakened their way of life, turning them into “squatters” on ancestral land. The state ignores its ecological knowledge and governance, and only recognizes written law and bureaucracy as legitimate forms of politics.

The Khoisan of Southern Africa offer another example. Their governance was characterized by persuasion, conversation, and situational leadership, drawing on pastoral and hunter-gatherer cycles. Colonial conquest led to their brutal eviction and placement under racial hierarchies, treating them as less-than-human. The erasure of their knowledge and forced eviction were justified by labeling their traditions as primitive. The state continues to use colonial frameworks, so Khoisan claims to recognition remain marginalized. Modern state machinery struggles to understand its oral traditions and migratory practices.

These cases together show that colonial difference and epistemicide disrupted and undermined Indigenous African governance. Colonial powers often called African customs inferior or outdated, creating hierarchies that favored European forms of governance. Epistemicide suppressed and destroyed Indigenous knowledge, replacing it with Eurocentric views of territory, sovereignty, and the rule of law. The Tuareg, Hadzabe, and Khoisan were not only uprooted from their homelands; their political rationalities were removed from what was considered possible.

These historical patterns affect the present. The postcolonial state’s entrapment comes from the coloniality of power shaping its epistemic base, not just poor institutions or borders. Political legitimacy is still often measured by the Westphalian model, keeping Indigenous systems hidden or illegal. Epistemic justice is necessary for decolonizing African states, extending beyond institutional reforms. This means provincializing Europe, embracing African political knowledge, and building statecraft on African governance traditions, rather than perpetuating epistemicide.

To move past the Westphalian model, two practical paths stand out for epistemic justice. First, legal pluralism recognizes Indigenous laws alongside state laws. This approach legitimizes Indigenous systems and builds a more inclusive government where traditional and modern practices can coexist.

Second, cross-border mobility corridors could allow Indigenous groups to move freely across colonial borders, respecting their traditional lands and routes. Formal agreements on mobility and shared resources would restore Indigenous autonomy and political rights for the Tuareg, Hadzabe, and Khoisan.

The goal is to fully engage with the political systems of the Tuareg, Hadzabe, and Khoisan as living critiques of the postcolonial present. Their governance, mobility, reciprocity, oral law, and ecological stewardship offer real resources for reimagining postcolonial statehood beyond colonial power.

The Tuareg: Mobility, Governance, and Resistance

Indigenous African political organization paths were forced into a strict Westphalian framework by colonialism and postcolonial governance.¹³ Mobile populations were marginalized. Subsistence economies weakened, and kinship networks were upended by arbitrary borders, land titling, and sedentarization policies.¹⁴ This is never more evident than in the case of the Tuareg. Historically, the Tuareg centered their lives around pastoral economies, clan-based federations, and trans-Saharan mobility.¹⁵ In September 2025, UNESCO reported that they have long represented a type of social organization and governance that is adaptable, decentralized, and sensitive to the Sahara’s natural cycles. Their political power is wielded through clan councils and mediated by elder negotiation, not centralized coercion.¹⁶ Their society is organized around a hierarchical but mutually agreeable system of confederations. In the past, dominance over livestock, the caravan trade, and the capacity to organize labor across large areas were the sources of wealth and prestige. Seasonal cycles of grazing, water availability, and trade routes connected the desert’s interior to oasis towns and urban centers throughout North and West Africa. This regulated Tuareg mobility, which was neither haphazard nor random. From salt caravans in the central Sahara to interactions with Mediterranean and sub-Saharan markets, their mobility also enabled intricate social and economic networks. These networks supported both inter-clan alliances and extensive regional trade. In this setting, governance was highly relational. Authority was exercised through maintaining social responsibilities within and between clans, coordinating movement, and negotiating the use of shared resources.

European colonization changed Tuareg politics, economics, and views of space.¹⁷ French, Italian, and British colonial powers introduced ideas of land, power, and sovereignty, which differed from those of the Tuareg. The Tuareg saw space as relational and flexible. In contrast, colonial powers established hierarchies, delineated formal zones, and defined borders to control and extract resources. For example, the French established protectorates in Mali, Niger, and Algeria when they moved into West Africa and the central Sahara in the 1880s and 1890s. To map the desert, draw borders, and classify populations, colonial governments immobilized and divided nomads, imposing a framework that ignored the ecological logic behind Tuareg mobility. Seasonal migrations, once vital for survival and pasture, have now become crimes against arbitrary colonial borders.

Colonial rule used both indirect rule and force. Local Tuareg leaders had to enforce laws serving colonial interests. This created a mixed government in which leaders seemed in charge, but they answered to colonial powers focused on control. Traditional councils had to deliver colonial orders, which broke old ways of resolving conflict. Trade and movement were restricted by new taxes and rules.¹⁸ This weakened economic independence and limited old trade connections. French mines, outposts, and farms replaced grazing land.

These structural tensions remained unresolved during the decolonization era. Instead, colonial borders and administrative logics were passed down unchanged after independence. The new postcolonial states of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya, and Burkina Faso built on previous systems. They replicated the coercive mechanisms of colonial rule and adopted the Westphalian model of territorial sovereignty as the foundation of their legitimacy.

The concept of a nation-state as an ‘imagined community,’ as theorized by Benedict Anderson, did not resonate with the Tuareg.¹⁹ Their confederational identity was deeply tied to mobility and clan-based governance. In contrast to the new national identities of Mali or Niger, which were rooted in fixed territories and centralized authority, the Tuareg drew legitimacy from historical patterns of transboundary movement and relational governance. This dissonance manifested in two major ways. First, the division of clan territories and migration routes by new national borders made the Tuareg movement difficult, both logistically and legally.²⁰ Second, postcolonial governments viewed Tuareg mobility as a challenge to state authority and largely disregarded Tuareg political rationality. As a result, key tenets of Tuareg pastoralism conflicted with policies of sedentarization, registration, and taxation. The state’s promotion of urbanization and formal property rights further weakened the flexibility needed for survival in the Sahara.

Throughout the postcolonial era, these forces caused cycles of resistance. In the 1960s, newly independent governments sought control over northern regions inhabited by nomads.²¹ As a result, the first major Tuareg insurgencies emerged in Mali and Niger. These uprisings were driven by tangible grievances, including restrictions on cross-border travel, confiscated pastures, exclusion from government, and loss of power structures—not by ideology. To voice their demands, insurgents called for self-determination, respect for traditional governance, and preservation of pastoral livelihoods. However, most postcolonial states responded with military repression rather than political dialogue. This reflected the persistence of what Mahmood Mamdani calls the “bifurcated state”: some groups were still treated as subjects, not equal citizens.²²

In later decades, ecological pressures, population growth, and ongoing marginalization fueled more Tuareg rebellions—especially in Mali and Niger in the 1990s. As competition for water increased and grazing lands became less viable, desertification and drought further worsened resentment and unrest. According to some estimates, the Sahara Desert expands southward 48 kilometers each year, making environmental concerns a matter of urgent survival.²³ Despite state-imposed fragmentation, Tuareg insurgencies stayed coordinated and often crossed borders, showing the resilience of their trans-Saharan social networks. As a result, rebel groups demanded equitable resource sharing, cultural recognition, and regional autonomy—demands made more urgent by these conditions. As tensions escalated, international players, including France and regional bodies, became involved. This illustrates how Tuareg struggles are interconnected with broader regional and global dynamics.

Long-standing tensions led to the 2012 insurgency in northern Mali. After serving with Libyan forces during Gaddafi’s downfall, Tuareg fighters returned to Mali, seeking autonomy and bringing new military skills. As a result, the self-declared state of Azawad triggered the uprising. This conflict revealed a clash between Tuareg governance and the postcolonial state’s strict borders—a stance rejected by Malian and international actors. The uprising was not just an attempt at secession; instead, it asserted Indigenous governance and autonomy within a system defined by rigid borders and centralized authority.

During conflict, it becomes clear that Tuareg resistance is based on defending a political order seen as both historical and moral. This is not a rejection of modernity. In a harsh ecological setting, mobility, pastoralism, and clan-based federation are not flaws. Instead, they are advanced ways to manage resources, ensure social cohesion, and negotiate power. Westphalian sovereignty, inherited from colonial rule, disrupts these customs and criminalizes organizations that differ from state logic. A deep disjunction is seen in cycles of rebellion, negotiation, and suppression. Tuareg governance is based on relational authority, temporal flexibility, and collective competence. The state, in contrast, seeks territorial absolutism and bureaucratic rationality.

These historical changes show how political, ecological, and epistemic forces interact. Dividing Tuareg society across boundaries poses a threat to their governance, extending beyond mere inconvenience. In Tuareg society, localized knowledge of terrain, climate, and trade networks is key to authority. For example, star navigation helps the Tuareg cross the desert. Pasture forecasting determines the best grazing periods. These show their deep environmental knowledge. When borders split these networks, the logic of decision-making and dispute resolution suffers. Postcolonial states, by forcing sedentarization or focusing economic activity in towns, erode competence-based authority. Tuareg uprisings are thus a defense of political rationalities, rhythms, and knowledge systems that the state rejects, as well as of material resources.

In conclusion, the Tuareg’s historical trajectory from precolonial trans-Saharan mobility to colonial partition and indirect rule to postcolonial marginalization and insurgency illustrates the ongoing conflict between the Westphalian state and Indigenous governance. The criminalization of mobility, the imposition of coercive authority, and the division of territories all demonstrate how colonial-era state structures are unable to adapt to different forms of political modernity. Whether through armed insurrection or political compromise, Tuareg resistance underscores the tenacity of these political structures and the ongoing struggle for acceptance in environments that remain largely insensitive to the ethical, social, and environmental logics of nomadic existence. Their history underscores a broader point: African political modernity is not a singular, territorialized, and coercive construct but a plural and historically grounded phenomenon, capable of sustaining sophisticated governance across temporal, ecological, and relational dimensions.

The Hadzabe: Mobility, Governance, and Postcolonial Disruption

The Hadzabe of Tanzania, one of Africa’s last hunter-gatherer communities, have long adapted their social and political structures to seasonal and ecological cycles in the central Rift Valley.²⁴ The postcolonial era brought major changes. Tanzania’s first President Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa villagization in the 1970s upended this balance.²⁵ Ujamaa, central to Nyerere’s African socialism, forced centralized planning and communal living in nucleated villages. The government compelled traditional societies into cooperative village units, grouping clinics, schools, and farm cooperatives to promote unity and self-reliance. Villagization consolidated dispersed communities near key facilities and infrastructure. These efforts aimed at modernization but treated semi-nomadic and nomadic groups as obstacles instead of recognizing their unique lifestyles. Forcing the Hadzabe into villages directly damaged their social, economic, and political structures. Their way of life depends on ecological sensitivity and seasonal mobility.

This disruption was immediately visible in the Hadzabe’s relationship with their environment. Ujamaa forced settlement caused immediate ecological harm. The Hadzabe rely on rotational foraging, moving in small groups as resources become available. Their movements depend on a deep understanding of ecological knowledge. Villagization confined them to permanent villages, disrupting adaptive movements and depleting local resources. It led to overharvesting and restricted access to hunting territories. State settlements, established for administrative convenience, further harmed the ecosystem and overlooked Hadzabe expertise.

In addition to ecological changes, forced settlements profoundly altered the Hadzabe’s political and social life. Hadzabe leaders set examples, negotiate, and persuade. Authority depends on relationships and context, and group decisions require consensus. Leadership relies on skill and trust, not on formal status. Permanent villages disrupted these systems. First, they combined bands from different ancestries or territories, hurting resource sharing, conflict resolution, and kinship ties. Second, traditional leaders clashed with state-appointed officials as hierarchy entered an egalitarian society. Third, new daily routines disrupted communal hunts, seasonal rituals, and mobility, which had maintained social unity.

Villagization weakened Hadzabe economies, their flexible, mobile subsistence strategies depend on wide access to resources. Permanent villages limited survival options and hurt trade with neighbors.²⁶ State food aid and agriculture programs replaced traditional food gathering, but were often mismatched with the Hadzabe’s needs. As a result, economic marginalization increased social and political decline.

Alongside political and economic upheaval, cultural continuity and knowledge dissemination were also significantly impacted by the disruption of mobility. In the Hadzabe culture, moral teachings, social conventions, and ecological knowledge are passed orally from one generation to the next. Ritual activities, group hunts, and seasonal migrations often serve as primary means of transmission. Villagization broke these patterns, excluding younger generations from elders’ advice and reducing experiential learning that supports competence-based authority. Consequently, the community’s social cohesion and practical survival techniques were put at risk. When the state sought to incorporate the Hadzabe into sedentary, bureaucratically legible forms of life, this move threatened to erase or undervalue tracking, foraging, and environmental assessment skills—abilities essential for identity and subsistence.

It is impossible to overstate the moral significance of this disruption. Nyerere’s policies, presented as “modernization” and social advancement, were predicated on the idea that centralized planning and agricultural collectivization were always advantageous. However, forced settlement posed an existential threat to the Hadzabe because it weakened the fundamental values that underpinned social cohesiveness, authority, and ecological stewardship. In this way, villagization was a moral imposition that diminished Indigenous knowledge, governance, and ways of life rather than an administrative intervention. Instead of viewing populations as political agents with histories, rationalities, and rights, it reflected a Westphalian logic of territorial control and bureaucratic legibility.

In the face of these challenges, the Hadzabe responded in different ways. Some Hadzabe bands resisted by returning to traditional foraging grounds or negotiating with local authorities to preserve patterns of movement and group decision-making. Despite these efforts, state pressure, including forced settlement, policing, and land reallocation, made full autonomy impossible. The Hadzabe’s treatment shows how postcolonial Africa repeats colonial logic, managing marginalized groups under policies designed to fit Western bureaucratic norms. The state did not recognize them as citizens with rights, but rather as subjects to be controlled.

These processes of marginalization were intensified by environmental challenges as well. State policies increased Hadzabe’s vulnerability. Environmental factors, such as rainfall and animal movement, vary widely in the Rift Valley. Hadzabe mobility evolved to handle this variability and protect against overuse. Villagization limited movement, reduced resilience to drought and scarcity, and threatened the long-term survival of their socio-ecological system. The state intervention affected political, social, economic, and environmental domains.

Villagization had a profound impact on material life. It also caused cultural and epistemic harm by labeling Hadzabe governance as ‘backward’ or ‘pre-modern.’ The state assumed that clear territories, centralized rule, and settled farming were always superior. This rejected the relational land management, ecological literacy, and skill-based authority that sustained the Hadzabe for centuries. The state made Indigenous governance invisible by insisting on state property, leadership, and resource management, creating epistemic erasure.

Nevertheless, evidence suggests that the Hadzabe have proven to be resilient and adaptable despite these setbacks. In navigating space both inside and outside of state-imposed settlements, they have, where feasible, maintained essential elements of mobility, hunting, and social organization.²⁷ By incorporating Indigenous ecological knowledge into broader governance frameworks, contemporary conservation initiatives, such as the Northern Rangelands Initiative, offer a partial model of coexistence. Reclaiming space for participatory governance has also been a goal of legal activism and advocacy around Indigenous rights, which emphasizes that the Hadzabe’s power and decision-making cannot be boiled down to rigid, codified frameworks. These initiatives highlight the possibility of pluralistic governance models that acknowledge Indigenous systems as logical, ethically sound, and environmentally conscious manifestations of political modernity.

The conflict between centralized, Westphalian ideas of the state and Indigenous forms of governance based on mobility, ecological competence, and egalitarian authority is best illustrated by the historical trajectory of the Hadzabe under Ujamaa villagization. Forced relocation weakened social cohesiveness, upended subsistence economies, and jeopardized the generational transfer of power and knowledge. It exemplifies the larger trend noted by academics like Mahmood Mamdani and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni: despite its claims to expand sovereignty and citizenship, the postcolonial state in Africa frequently perpetuates colonial logics of control that marginalize Indigenous populations, rendering their governance incomprehensible. Recognition of Indigenous political rationalities is not just a matter of cultural preservation; it is also a matter of justice, sustainability, and the growth of African political modernity, as the Hadzabe’s experience demonstrates.

The Khoisan: Governance, Mobility, and Marginalization

The social, political, and economic structures of the Khoisan people of Southern Africa, which include the pastoral Khoikhoi and the hunter-gatherer San, have long been tailored to the region’s semi-arid and arid environments. Instead of relying on coercive authority, their decentralized and relational governance structures prioritized ecological competence, kinship networks, and consensus-based decision-making. No one person or office had overall control; instead, authority was situational and contingent, with elders or experienced hunters serving as decision-makers in specific situations. Instead of being permanently owned by one person, land was viewed as a shared resource whose use was determined by social norms, ecological knowledge, and seasonal patterns. They maintained reciprocal relationships with nearby bands while moving seasonally in search of game, water, and grazing, making mobility essential to their social organization and subsistence. Through the development of adaptable, robust systems of ecological stewardship and social cohesiveness, these practices enabled Khoisan communities to flourish for centuries in a variety of Southern African environments.

Colonial forces disrupted these systems. Dutch settlers in the Cape Colony acquired land for agricultural purposes in the seventeenth century, establishing permanent farms and introducing European property regimes. The Khoikhoi, once cattle herders, were evicted and forced to work as domestic laborers. The San, dependent on hunting and foraging, were enslaved, pushed to marginal lands, or hunted for sport. Colonial laws declared Khoisan land use and governance illegal, making them politically invisible and exploiting their labor for settler economies.²⁸ Property boundaries and the criminalization of hunting and migration further disrupted Khoisan governance.

The shift in colonial authority continued in the nineteenth century as the British gained more control over Southern Africa, bringing additional changes. European ideas of territorial sovereignty and bureaucratic power were solidified by the establishment of colonial courts, the formalization of taxation, and the conduct of cadastral surveys.²⁹ The legal and administrative framework of the colonial state made Khoisan governance, which had been relational and based on consensus, incomprehensible. Khoisan populations were increasingly categorized by colonial authorities based on racial hierarchies, portraying them as culturally “primitive,” politically marginal, and socially inferior. The consolidation of settler power and the justification of resource and land expropriation were made possible by this racially charged governance, which was not an accident. The colonial states imposed a Westphalian logic, in which legitimacy was inseparable from territory, codified law, and coercive enforcement, thereby depriving the Khoisan of their authority and criminalizing their social norms and practices.

Building upon these colonial processes, the twentieth century saw an acceleration with the introduction of apartheid. The state’s systematic policies of racial classification, forced relocation, and cultural erasure further marginalized Khoisan communities, who were already dispossessed under colonial rule.³⁰ By establishing “white,” “black,” “colored,” and “Asian” areas, the Group Areas Act and associated laws formalized racial segregation and frequently evicted Khoisan communities from their ancestral lands and placed them in underdeveloped, marginal areas. The Khoisan identity itself was reduced to a category that could be controlled, eradicated, or assimilated into more general racial classifications, which masked historical continuity and political processes. Authorities who had previously arbitrated conflicts and regulated land use were no longer recognized by apartheid law, delegitimizing traditional decision-making processes. As families and kin networks were divided among settlements, and mobility, which was essential to pastoral and hunter-gatherer lifestyles, was restricted, social cohesiveness was weakened.³¹ These policies worsened economic exclusion. Khoisan, once self-sufficient, became dependent on state aid and wage work. Their ecological knowledge was ignored. Living in fixed settlements undercut social and environmental resilience, disrupting resource sharing and trade. Exclusion from government deepened their marginalization.

Even after apartheid ended in 1994, the Khoisan people still face political marginalization and land dispossession.³² Land restitution programs are mostly symbolic, limited, and based on Western ideas of individual, permanent ownership. These conflict with Khoisan views of land as relational, communal, and seasonally managed. Individual freehold gives one person control over fixed land, while seasonal custodianship means shared responsibility and adaptation to changing conditions. Restitution grants legal ownership but does not restore the broader ecological, social, and political systems that once governed the land. Post-apartheid state structures, based on Westphalian ideas of fixed territory, central bureaucracy, and codified authority, continue to leave Khoisan communities economically marginalized, socially vulnerable, and politically excluded. These issues add to their historic deprivation.

Marginalization is not just material, but also about knowledge. State bureaucracies dismiss Khoisan historical knowledge about seasons, alliances, and resources. Laws and administration erase their flexible decision-making. According to Mamdani, the country sees Khoisan not as citizens but as subjects. It undervalues their knowledge and sees only state power as legitimate.

Nonetheless, faced with these challenges, Khoisan communities have repeatedly resisted and adapted to them. Despite colonial and apartheid pressures, they have preserved their oral traditions, cultural practices, and kin-based decision-making. Contemporary legal activism aims to reinterpret Khoisan claims and question Western property regimes. Strategies for Indigenous governance include acknowledging seasonal land use, using Indigenous knowledge in environmental and conservation efforts, and pursuing clan-based restitution. These actions show that Khoisan political reasoning is logical and flexible, working within modern legal systems and historical legacies.

The broader significance of the Khoisan experience lies in its highlighting of the ethical and epistemic challenges posed by the Westphalian state in Africa. The Tuareg and Hadzabe, like the Khoisan, show that legitimate governance need not be hierarchical, coercive, or territorially absolute. Historical examples of political modernity reveal authority based on relational stewardship, ecological expertise, and consensus. Khoisan marginalization follows a pattern, beginning with colonial conquest, continuing through apartheid, and persisting via post-apartheid bureaucracy. The Westphalian state, imposed during colonialism and sustained afterward, makes Indigenous political logics incoherent, even when these rationalities are logical, ethical, and adapted to the environment.

Khoisan history shows years of marginalization and erasure. Colonial and apartheid rule destroyed decentralized Khoisan governance. Land restitution and recognition today still rely on the same Western ideas of property and authority. The Khoisan, Tuareg, and Hadzabe demonstrate why Africa should reconsider its approach to statehood. Governance can be plural, relational, and adaptable—not just territorial and coercive. Recognizing Indigenous systems is a moral duty and a step toward a more sustainable, pluralistic Africa.

Colonial Legacies and Decentralized Despotism

The decentralized despotism theory, as put forth by Mahmood Mamdani in Citizen and Subject, is central to understanding the ongoing marginalization of Indigenous communities. Indirect rule subjected communities to authoritarian local chiefs in rural areas under the pretense of respecting “custom.” Colonial rule divided power: in the cities, a thin layer of “citizenship” was extended. For mobile and decentralized populations like the Tuareg, Hadzabe, and Khoisan, this meant exclusion from both meaningful political recognition and citizenship with rights. Instead of being treated as citizens with equal claims to the state, they were governed as “subjects” through coercion and paternalism. These divided structures were passed down and reproduced by postcolonial governments. Rather than dismantling the colonial system, these governments replicated the structure of the colonial state. As a result, Indigenous systems of government were marginalized or co-opted as tools for control. First-hand accounts from Tuareg leaders underscore that these practices are not merely historical but continue to have a profound impact on their communities today. Specifically, they describe restrictions on access to resources and political representation. In parallel, Hadzabe elders express concerns about ongoing marginalization, which they see as a continuation of past injustices and an obstacle to maintaining their cultural heritage. Additionally, Khoisan community activists have voiced their struggles against governmental policies that disregard their traditional governance systems, emphasizing the persistence of colonial legacies in their treatment. Thus, the dislocation of hunter-gatherers, the marginalization of dispossessed groups, and the rebellions of pastoralists are not isolated historical events. Instead, they are all manifestations of the profound colonial continuities ingrained in postcolonial statehood.

Ali Mazrui’s analysis of Africa in international relations focuses on external drivers of internal divisions. Mazrui identifies the “triple heritage” of Islam, Indigenous customs, and Western colonial legacies as shaping Africa. The Westphalian state’s imposition disrupted indigenous systems and forced African nations into a global order where outside recognition and territorial control defined sovereignty. This external legitimacy relegated Africa to a subservient role within a Eurocentric order. Groups like the Tuareg, who are split among several countries, illustrate how borders often prioritize international recognition over community needs. Similarly, the Hadzabe and Khoisan are marginalized both at home and globally, as modernity is often associated with bureaucracy and territorial sovereignty, rendering their governance ineffective. Mazrui claims postcolonial states must mirror colonial structures to be seen as “modern.” This pressure, Mazrui says, strengthens Mamdani’s idea of decentralized despotism, allowing little space for Indigenous government forms.

Rethinking Sovereignty: Temporal and Competence-Based Approaches

These conflicts are conceptual in nature rather than just administrative. It is impossible to attribute Africa’s governance crisis in the postcolonial era to inadequate management or shoddy institutions. A conflict of epistemologies is at the heart of it. Sovereignty, territorial fixity, and coercive authority are universal indicators of political legitimacy, according to the Westphalian tradition. Indigenous governance traditions have lost their political legitimacy as a result of this model’s naturalization, being labeled “non-state,” “tribal,” or “pre-modern.” This epistemic violence is fundamental rather than incidental because it prevents other forms of power and belonging from being recognized.

To broaden the conceptual perspective; for instance, Jean-Jacques Rousseau embodies the prevailing Western tradition by viewing the state as a single social contract, a unified entity whose authority is based on its exclusive use of force in connection with the body politic.³³ His ideas are part of a broader early modern trajectory that includes the works of Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin, who laid the foundational concepts of indivisible sovereignty.³⁴ Here, authority is demonstrated by the ability to impose compliance, power is vertical, and sovereignty is indivisible. The Westphalian obsession with borders and centralized coercion is strongly reflected in this model.

However, Ibn Khaldun presents a radically different framework. In his writings from the 14th century, Khaldun studied the cyclical rise and fall of dynasties and asabiyyah social cohesion rather than the permanence of institutions in order to examine state formation.³⁵ Time and temporality were prioritized over static structures in his analysis. In this way, political communities are dynamic formations that are influenced by historical context, ecology, and solidarity rather than being static entities. Khaldun tracked process and temporality, whereas Rousseau looked for essence and structure. When Khaldun’s observations are applied to Africa, we can see that indigenous governance systems such as the cyclical practices of the Khoisan, the seasonal rhythms of the Hadzabe, or the migratory pastoralism of the Tuareg are not “incomplete states,” but rather historically coherent political orders based on temporal cycles rather than territorial fixity.

The concept of power can be reconsidered through a temporal lens. Force, or the state’s capacity to impose order through violence, is the primary definition of power in the Westphalian imagination. As Khaldun’s observations and African Indigenous traditions demonstrate, power is competence—the ability of communities and leaders to uphold reciprocity, maintain social order, and adapt to environmental changes over time. According to the Hadzabe, legitimacy comes from elders’ ability to lead group decisions in accordance with seasonal abundance and scarcity rather than from coercive enforcement. Moreover, seasonal festivities and rituals serve as symbols that reinforce a shared sense of community, helping to create an imagined polity bound by mutual respect and understanding. The ability of clan leaders to forge alliances, establish trade routes, and facilitate migration routes that support livelihoods across vast, shifting terrains is the source of their authority among the Tuareg. For instance, the Tuareg utilize traditional tales and cultural myths during their meetings to reinforce their collective identity, extending beyond mere practicality. The Khoisan view governance as the ability to resolve disputes amicably through narrative, ritual, and persuasion as opposed to dominance, further exemplifying how non-coercive practices contribute to a cohesive social identity. Through these lenses, Indigenous practices demonstrate that cohesion and identity are sustained not by force, but by shared rituals and mutual commitments.

This perspective on competence highlights underappreciated aspects of governance that extend beyond coercion. As sources of legitimacy, it emphasizes ecological awareness, relational authority, and maintaining social cohesiveness. Additionally, it undermines the notion that a state must be established through territorial monopoly and coercion. Indigenous African systems are not pre-modern anomalies, but rather valid political traditions with lasting value, if sovereignty is rethought as the ability to promote collective life across changing temporalities, rather than as strict territorial control.

In this way, the disputes between Westphalian statehood and African Indigenous governance are about conceptual incommensurability rather than just administrative effectiveness. They address a more profound issue: should legitimacy be understood through Khaldun’s temporal lens—which sees it as emerging gradually through demonstrated competence, adaptability, and the cultivation of social cohesion—or through Rousseau’s structural lens, which grounds legitimacy in the state’s monopoly over violence and its clearly defined territorial boundaries? Opening this question allows for multiple and context-specific paths of political modernity by challenging the universality of Westphalian sovereignty.

Silenced Governance: Indigenous Authority and the Subaltern

In 1648, as war-weary diplomats negotiated the Peace of Westphalia in Münster and Osnabrück, they established a new political order based on centralized, territorially defined, and sovereign states—a response to religious conflict, feudal decline, and rising mercantile capitalism. This model was later presented as universal; however, a closer examination of the Treaty of Westphalia reveals that other social and political organizations were suppressed and delegitimized, particularly through colonial expansion. As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak observes in Can the Subaltern Speak, dominant discourses silence non-Western ways of knowing. Therefore, equating statehood solely with Westphalian sovereignty actively silences indigenous African governance systems, not because they lack political presence, but because their systems do not fit the dominant narrative.

The experiences of the Khoisan, Hadzabe, and Tuareg demonstrate how silencing operates. For example, the Tuareg organize life around pastoral nomadism, seasonal mobility, and clan alliances—forming a complex political system tied to ecology and time. Yet, bureaucratic systems label them as ‘non-sedentarized populations,’ missing these political complexities. Through the Westphalian lens, Tuareg mobility is miscast as ‘rebellion’ or ‘illegality.’ According to Spivak, their subaltern status arises not from irrationality, but from dominant frameworks that refuse to recognize their political logic. Their actions are discounted as insurgency, erasing their legitimate forms of governance.

The Hadzabe in Tanzania also encounter conflict with the state, which imposes governance structures at odds with Hadzabe traditions. The Hadzabe base their decision-making on foraging cycles, ecological knowledge, and leadership through competence and reciprocity. State-led conservation and villagization label them as ‘primitive’ or ‘stateless,’ disregarding their nuanced systems. As with the Tuareg, it is not a matter of lacking voice; rather, Hadzabe governance is made unintelligible to the state, supporting Spivak’s view that the subaltern’s speech is overshadowed by dominant frameworks.

The Khoisan of Southern Africa further reveal the process of silencing. Their governance relies on situational leadership and migratory cycles, prioritizing communication over dominance, thereby constituting a political modernity rooted in adaptability. Apartheid governments, however, erased Khoisan identity through imposed racial categories, and colonial conquest dispossessed them. Today, state mechanisms continue to reframe Khoisan governance as ‘cultural heritage,’ rather than political modernity, thereby sidelining their own authority structures. This reveals how dominant institutions persistently speak on behalf of the Khoisan, rather than acknowledging their political voice.

Indigenous African governance traditions are not deficiencies, but legitimate political forms within modernity. They hinge on collective decision-making, relational land use, and mobility. Authority is grounded in negotiation, ecological awareness, and demonstrated competence. Unlike the state’s focus on force and territory, these traditions make politics a dynamic, negotiated process. Yet, prevailing state frameworks interpret modernity in ways that render these systems invisible.

Together, these examples highlight that the silencing of the Khoisan, Hadzabe, and Tuareg is structural, not incidental. This silencing stems from a global political order that sidelines alternative histories, presenting European models as universal. The subaltern can and do speak, but translation by dominant frameworks distorts or erases their words. Decolonizing political thought thus requires not only including Indigenous governance, but rethinking the foundations of political modernity. Recognizing subaltern perspectives on their own terms reveals that modernity is plural, contested, and fundamentally shaped by the histories that dominant models attempted to suppress.

Decolonizing Modernity: Epistemic Justice and African Governance

The government of Niger’s appropriation of Tuareg lands for uranium extraction shows the tension between national resource policies and the rights of pastoralist communities.³⁶ This raises ethical and political questions about sovereignty, equity, and development. In Tanzania, conservationist and developmentalist logics redraw Indigenous landscapes without consent.³⁷ The Hadzabe people are excluded from wildlife corridors and conservation zones. In South Africa, legal frameworks based on individual, permanent title limit Khoisan land claims and erase oral governance and collective stewardship traditions.³⁸

However, it is misleading to portray Africa as stuck in endless conflict between ‘imposed modernity’ and ‘authentic tradition.’ The problem is with the limitations of African modernity’s potential, not its impossibility. The Khoisan, Hadzabe, and Tuareg are not static. They are not precolonial relics. Oral law, relational land use, competence-based authority, mobility, and their governance are all forms of African modernity. These groups remain flexible and creative. Their historical reactions to moral, social, and ecological issues deserve attention. When these people are labeled ‘pre-modern,’ this confuses European history with universal destiny. It repeats an epistemic provincialism of Europe.

Policymakers do not simply enact exclusionary policies through conservation zoning in Tanzania and uranium extraction in Niger. Rather, they pursue projects of epistemic domination. These policies foster a form of government in which the state alone claims legitimacy by commodifying resources and exercising territorial coercion. In contrast, Tuareg mobility, Hadzabe ecological knowledge, and Khoisan stewardship challenge Eurocentric definitions of law and property. Consequently, officials and experts often categorize these Indigenous practices as illogical or ineffective. This dynamic is not purely an institutional conflict but represents a deliberate foreclosure of alternative epistemologies.

To address these conflicts, one must move beyond the simple dichotomy of tradition and modernity. Africa’s adoption of the Westphalian state model represents a distinct historical trajectory, rather than an inevitable endpoint. Recognizing Indigenous governance as innovative and relevant encourages a rethinking of what modernity means. This requires challenging assumptions that view Khoisan stewardship as passive heritage, Hadzabe subsistence as backward, and Tuareg mobility as mere resistance. Instead, modern legitimacy can be rooted in ecological awareness, local competence, and reciprocity, rather than exclusion and state coercion.

The moral stakes and demand for epistemic justice are closely linked. Likewise, Africa is part of modernity’s ongoing reinvention, not outside it. Furthermore, the Tuareg, Hadzabe, and Khoisan show that modernity is plural. Their struggles critique the Westphalian state’s efforts to close off ways of knowing. These are not signs of backwardness; rather, recognizing their political rationalities broadens our ideas about authority, justice, and governance today.

Toward Plural Sovereignties: Lessons from Indigenous Governance

An alternative framework arises where sovereignty and governance are not tied to fixed territories. For mobile societies like the Tuareg, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms collective rights to self-determination, ancestral homelands, and culturally specific governance.³⁹ This challenges the Westphalian view that sovereignty requires territorial fixity. Governance based on ecological competence is imperative, as indigenous practices such as rotational grazing and clan-based stewardship are integrated into state conservation law, thereby improving livestock health and reducing conflicts. Similarly, Khoisan legal activism emphasizes clan-based and collective rights, as opposed to individual titles. These cases demonstrate that the state can function not as a territorial monopoly but as a guardian of multiple, coexisting sovereignties.

Still, the problem goes beyond conservation and land. It addresses the issue of political community and authority. The recognition of governance structures, cultural continuity, and decision-making authority is essential to the survival of Indigenous African peoples. This need goes beyond having physical access to their ancestral lands. Land serves as a gateway, but governance is the cornerstone. The Hadzabe derive their legitimacy from councils based on consensus. The Tuareg rely on nomadic confederacies and clan federations. The Khoisan uphold ritual authority and mediation centered on kinship. Understanding these forms of government means understanding that sovereignty is relational, temporal, and plural rather than singular or monolithic.

A more comprehensive understanding of this is by Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou’s critique of the Westphalian system. He argued that the Westphalian model is a historically particular settlement. It has been strengthened by postcolonial governance and globalized through colonial conquest. It is not a universal form of statehood. Its main argument is that, in an era of transnational insurgencies and global governance regimes, legitimate political authority must be tied to a bounded territory. Coercive monopolies are becoming less effective. According to this perspective, the struggles of the Tuareg, Hadzabe, and Khoisan are representative of the larger crisis of Westphalian sovereignty. These are not isolated “ethnic issues” on the outskirts of modernity. Their emphasis on relational land use, mobility, and ecological stewardship foreshadows political innovations that the modern world needs. In response to the “crisis of Westphalian sovereignty,” African states could pilot reforms aligned with this evolving landscape. One potential reform is to establish multilevel governance forums that include Indigenous decision-making practices. This approach would enhance participatory governance and decision-making. Additionally, revising current land laws to recognize and protect clan-based, collective land rights could foster more inclusive and equitable land management. Legal frameworks that support ecological stewardship and mobility, drawing from Indigenous ecological knowledge, could further underpin these reforms. Such approaches would help African states navigate the complexities of modern political authority.

In this way, recognizing Indigenous governance helps African states address past injustices and expand their political vision. It makes the state a site for shared rule and discussion, instead of simply a tool for control inherited from Europe. This change prompts us to view authority as evolving, rather than a return to the past. Indigenous African peoples demonstrate how power can be shared and tied to social and ecological life, rather than just territory.

Conclusion: Rethinking African Statehood Through Indigenous Governance

Contemporary African politics is shaped by persistent tension. Indigenous autonomy is often subordinated to militarized borders, extractive economies, and administrative uniformity in postcolonial states. However, governance frameworks that center on mobility, stewardship, and local knowledge offer pathways toward moral congruence. Rethinking institutions to respect multiple sovereignties is critical for the future of African statehood. This is also about honoring the moral duties owed to the continent’s original custodians. Indigenous systems of government are not remnants of the past. In fact, they show that political modernity need not rely solely on Western institutional models, fixed territory, or coercion. Only a radical reevaluation of statehood can secure both the legitimacy of African states and the survival of the continent’s indigenous populations. To accept Indigenous political systems as legitimate, historically based, and morally sound, postcolonial governments must move beyond administrative inclusion and coercion. Africa demonstrates, through centuries of knowledge, mobility, and stewardship, a model for ethical and successful governance by recognizing non-Western statehood and provincializing the concept of Westphalia. The continent’s future depends on reshaping the state to reflect Africa’s diverse histories, ecologies, and moral imperatives. It should not force Indigenous societies to conform to a foreign model. As we imagine this transformed statehood, we must consider how policymakers can actively build a future that honors and integrates Indigenous sovereignty and wisdom.

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Author Bio

The author is an MPA student and Researcher at Cornell University, as well as a U.S. Diplomatic Fellow, specializing in translating complex global challenges into actionable strategies for governments, international institutions, and development partners.His experience includes contributing to peacebuilding initiatives in South Sudan and leading research on political engagement and economic development across East Africa. A policy memo he authored received distinction from Stanford University. He has published more than 15 articles on African geopolitics and is a frequent expert contributor and speaker on African affairs. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.