3 Review(s)

Understanding the civil war in Congo requires an examination of how the Congo's identity has been imagined over time. This text historicizes and contextualizes the constructions of the Congo's identity in order to analyze the political implications of that identity, looking in detail at four historical periods in which the identity of the Congo was contested, with numerous forces attempting to produce and attach meanings to its territory and people. It looks specifically at how what it calls the "imaginings" of the Congo have allowed the current state of affairs there to develop, but also looks at the broader conceptual question of how the concept of identity has developed and become important in international relations scholarship.