Lit Verlag Inventer e mobiliser le local. Inventing and Mobilising the Local

Over the last decade West African villages, rural towns, and urban neighbourhoods have experienced changes resulting from democratisation and decentralisation processes. While much hope was invested in decentralisation policies in the 1990s, today there is a need to look at everyday decentralisation practices. In this volume, authors of different scholarly backgrounds focus on political, economic and cultural aspects of decentralisation. By exploring party politics, water provision, schooling, territorial division and cultural understanding the case-studies highlight core stakes and fundamental contradictions of present-day decentralisation in West Africa.