1National-day celebrations are moments for staging and reproducing nations. Whereas other social affiliations and differences such as ethnic or regional belonging, age or religious orientation are often more relevant in everyday life, national-day celebrations place national belonging at the forefront, and stage it as a superordinate category of belonging. At the same time, they also stage and reproduce the state that organises the huge festivities, thereby proving its organisational powers and legitimising itself. In turn, this allows the ruling government to present itself as the legitimate representative of both the nation and the state. National-day celebrations are thus essential moments for both nation-building and state-making.

2‘The Making of the Nation/State: Organising National Day Celebrations in Burkina Faso’ explores the close ties between nation-building and state-making in the context of national-day celebrations, examining the practices and means by which nations and states are reproduced and co-produced during the festivities. The combined study of these two phenomena is what makes this thesis innovative, as it brings together two fields of study that are most often looked at separately. The thesis is also unique for its focus on the organisation of national-day celebrations. Based on intensive fieldwork in Burkina Faso between 2013 and 2017, it closely examines the work of the national-day organising committee, which is composed of actors from multiple state institutions such as the army, the state protocol department and various ministries. This focus on the organisers and their various backgrounds, rationalities, capacities and premises not only enriches our understanding of how national-day celebrations – and thus images of the nation/state – are produced, but also offers a nuanced image of ‘the state at work’ (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan, 2014).

3In terms of the practices and means that reproduce the nation and state, the thesis discusses how the festivities are staged as a means of evoking an image of the nation and state as robust entities, especially in times of crisis; the spatial organisation of the festivities, for example through the choice of venue and the spatial arrangement of the site used for the ceremonies, which literally construct the nation, the state and the national/state territory; the practice of using changing mottos for the Burkinabè national-day celebrations, which discursively reproduces the nation and the state; performances such as the national-day parade, which produces a militarised image of the nation/state and presents it as a corporate, disciplined and forward-moving entity; and the backstage bureaucratic processes, such as preparatory meetings, which create sites of encounter for the various state actors involved in organising the event and encourage the forging of the state by bringing the state closer together, while the military stages itself as a particularly competent state organisation. In short, the distinct practices and means reinforce one another and produce images of the nation and state as linked, superordinate categories of belonging. The state produces the nation, which in turn serves the state as an essential basis for its legitimisation.

4The thesis offers new insights developed in the Global South into theories on nation-building and state-making, and challenges a number of still widespread clichés that portray African nations and states as weak or ‘failed’ states that function on the basis of clientelist and neo-patrimonial logics and are marked by ineffective bureaucracies and a low level of national sentiment. By challenging these clichés, the thesis portrays an image of the Burkinabè state that is noteworthy for the state actors’ strong commitment to the nation and the state and their successful and effective work, in which the military obviously plays a particularly important role. It thus enriches not only studies on the nation, the state, bureaucracies, organisations, the military and human differences in Africa and beyond, but also the anthropological literature on Burkina Faso, not least through the particular lens through which it views Burkina Faso’s recent political history.