Paper short abstract:

This paper examines official travels and state visits by African and French political leaders in French West Africa (1945-65) as a prism in order to explore how changing borders were staged and produced performative acts of ceremonial politics.

Paper long abstract:

The political and symbolic meaning of borders in French West Africa changed deeply in the two decades after the Second World War until early independence. While the Union française (1946) encouraged the federal system of Afrique occidentale française (AOF), the Loi Cadre (1956), the Communauté française (1958) and independence (1960) favored the strengthening of national borders in West Africa. Leopold Sedar Senghor contested this as a process of "balkanization". A few former AOF-member states tried to create new federations, such as the Mali-federation. This paper asks how these changing political borders in West Africa were imbued with new symbolic meaning and how political leaders aimed at communicating this to broader audiences. The paper examines travels and state visits of African and French political leaders as a prism for examining how borders in the French colonial Empire were celebrated and contested during this period and how new concepts of African nationalism and Pan-Africanism emerged. The paper explores these state visits less as a diplomatic endeavor, but rather as a stage on which political leaders claimed and contested borders through ceremonial politics. The paper analyses which places were selected for staging the diplomatic protocol of state visits (sometimes even along borders) and through which signs, symbols and performative acts borders were produced and celebrated in performative acts during state visits. The paper is based on archival documents and newspapers cuttings. It is part of a broader project on travelling politicians and the representation of power in mid-20th century French West Africa.