Description
This article explores Africa’s shifting international relations through the study of two important international gateways to the continent: Kotoka International Airport in Accra and Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa. Case studies examining the history and development of both airports find these gates represent a fruitful but neglected vantage point for understanding Africa’s shifting connections to, and impact upon, the wider world. Theoretically, whilst the article affirms the value of using such critical nodal points – or ‘gates’ – to understand the international dimensions of African politics, it also highlights the limits of extant concepts such as ‘gatekeeping’ and the typology of the ‘gatekeeper state’. The article instead advances an alternative approach which it calls 'gatemaking' which can enhance our understanding of Africa’s international relations by showing how gates (such as airports) help to make Africa’s place in the world, rather than simply being sites through which African politics is impacted by its international position (as in the gatekeeper model). Evident to different degrees in both airports, this concept foregrounds Africa as a place which both originates and shapes key dimensions of the international, making contributions to debates in African studies as well as critical approaches to IR.
