Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa
The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia

Based on rich oral histories, this is an engaging study of citizenship construction and practice in Liberia, Africa's first black republic.

Robtel Neajai Pailey (Author)

9781108836548, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 January 2021

250 pages
15.5 x 23.5 x 2 cm, 0.58 kg

'… the book offers a much-needed critical intervention into a large and well-established body of research that primarily takes as its focus the state-directed transformation to the architectures of citizenship.' Jen Dickinson, The Journal of Development Studies

Drawing on rich oral histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, Robtel Neajai Pailey examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa's first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, she reveals that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too did the nature of citizenship, thus influencing claims for and against dual citizenship. In this engaging contribution to scholarly and policy debates about citizenship as a continuum of inclusion and exclusion, and development as a process of both amelioration and degeneration, Pailey develops a new model for conceptualising citizenship within the context of crisis-affected states. In doing so, she offers a postcolonial critique of the neoliberal framing of diasporas and donors as the panacea to post-war reconstruction.

Introduction
1. Methodological, Theoretical, and Biographical Reflections
2. The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia
3. Dual Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa
4. Give Me Your Land or I'll Shoot!
5. Between Rootedness and Rootlessness
6. The Dichotomy of Diasporic Developmentalism
Conclusion
Appendix I. A Proposed Act to Establish Dual Citizenship for Liberians by Birth and Background
Appendix II. Dual Citizen and Nationality Act of 2019
Appendix III. Proposition #1: To Amend Article 28 of the Constitution to Provide for the Inalienability of the Citizenship of Natural Born Citizens of Liberia (Dual Citizenship).

Subject Areas: Political structure & processes [JPH], Oral history [HBTD], Social & cultural history [HBTB], African history [HBJH]