CHIEFSHIP, PTY unLTD.: Reflections on Sovereign Un/Accountability, Past and Present

A number of 'customary' African kings and chiefs - historically accountable to the will of their subjects - have sought to turn their offices into lucrative sources of accumulation; indeed, into a form of monopoly capital founded on the assertion of a political sovereignty unaccountable to any other. What historical conditions have laid the ground for this transformation? How widespread is it? What, in the 'new' economies, technologies, ideologies and politics of the global order, has given the Kingdom of Custom its material, affective and political heft in this, the twenty-first century? In addressing these questions with particular focus on South Africa, this essay explores the relationship between 'local' structural conditions and those exogenous to the country in order to explain ongoing transformations in traditional authority - and their impact on the political and cultural economy of the nation at large.