Worse Than “Bushmen” and Transhumance? Transitology and the Resilient Cannibalization of African Heritages

Although Eurocentric scholars theorize the world in terms of Western evolutionary progress rather than de-evolutionary retrogression, this paper takes a different perspective. Forced to transition away from their tangible and intangible heritages, from their families and marriages, cultures, societies, polities, and economies in ways that legitimized imperial claims to res nullius (unowned resources) and terra nullius (empty land), some indigenous people wittingly and unwittingly increasingly devolved their heritages to the colonialists that benefited from the African transitions. The point here is that unlike “Bushmen” and those that practiced transhumance, contemporary Africans are forced to transition, to change and to transform away from owning and controlling their tangible and intangible resources, including land, culture, laws, religions, polities, economies, livestock, families, marriages, and so on. Whereas “Bushmen” and transhumance migrated and transitioned while retaining ownership and control over their land, forests, livestock, and so on, contemporary Africans are forced to transition in ways that divorce them from their families, marriages, cultures, religions, polities, and from ownership of their material resources. Because Eurocentric forms of transition put African institutions and resources on the chopping boards, we argue that this kind of transition is cannibalistic. Made to believe that transition is easier to accomplish without the supposed burden of repossessing ownership and control over one’s resources, Africans are witnessed as disinherited and wandering around the world arguably in ways that even precolonial “Bushmen” and transhumance pastoralists would not envy. There is no justice in “transitional justice” that transitions indigenous people from their heritages.