Introduction

This issue takes up questions of activism, postcoloniality and creation of new states. Focusing on how European colonialism continues to affect the African continent, this issue turns to the Western African nation-state of Cameroon. A consequence of German colonization, Cameroon was divided into two sections in the wake of the First World War. The largest Eastern landmass was controlled by the French, while England claimed the West. Even after decolonization, a portion of the Eastern area known as Southern Cameroons continued to use the English language and British common law.

In the 1990s, political representatives of this area—the Southern Cameroons National Council—emerged to claim independence from Cameroon. In the subsequent two decades, the political consequences of this goal came to be known by a simple term: Ambazonia, the new name for the proposed country. Declaring secession in October of 2017, Ambazonians created a government in exile, one contested by the United Nations, the African Union, and Cameroon itself. Along with Ambazonian activists, these essays explore how decolonial futures can only emerge through the independence of the people themselves.

This April, we are pleased to be publishing this special issue on Ambazonia. Guest edited by Dr. Harry Asa’na Akoh, this collection of essays draws on a diverse group of interdisciplinary theorists who draw on human rights law, women’s studies, international relations, political economy, and constitutional law. From different perspectives, these scholars theorize an important and contested political event: the birth of Ambazonia.

Issue 23.2 concludes with five book reviews, including one review roundtable: Adam Dahl reviews Heike Schotten’s Queer Terror: Life, Death, and Desire in the Settler Colony, Heike Schotten reviews Lisa Slater’s Anxieties of Belonging in Settler Colonialism: Australia, Race, and Place, and Lisa Slater reviews Adam Dahl’s Empire of the People: Settler Colonialism and the Foundations of Modern Democratic Thought. Ekin Erkan reviews Colin Koopman’s How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person. And Chase Hobbs-Morgan reviews Jairus Victor Grove’s Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World.