Paper short abstract:

The development of oil industry is bringing new fuel to old conflicts in the Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire borderland. Africans played crucial roles in the establishment of the colonial boundary. The process shaped new identities and produced a corpus of historical narratives of enduring influence

Paper long abstract:

The recent discovery of offshore oilfields in Western Ghana prompted Côte d'Ivoire to secure its own rights of access to such a resource by negotiating a detailed demarcation of the maritime boundary with Ghana. A request to be among the parties in the process came from established interests based in the borderland region, like the royal stool of Sanwi, which never gave up its claims for some autonomy from Abidjan (secessionist crises broke out repeatedly since 1959). Ongoing developments are bringing new fuel to old borderland issues and conflicts. Ghana-Côte d'Ivoire boundary is not just the simple result of European colonial enterprise. It was established in late 19th century as an Anglo-British frontier. However, when considered in a long term historical perspective, the creation of the colonial boundary is also a follow up of two centuries of competition for hegemony between two local power centers: Sanwi and Nzema. This type of African agency interacted with vested European interests and strategies, contributing to a large extent to consolidate a new balance, whose most visible seal was the border which was finally agreed upon. In the process fundamental territorial, political and ethnic identities were re-interpreted and re-defined, setting the background for the 20th century landscape of the region. The corpus of narratives created by the demarcation of the border came to constitute a fundamental text for a new status quo, and the palimpsest for all formulations about local history and the redrawing of internal boundaries, including the interpretation of ongoing developments linked to the birth of oil industry.