The Making of the Land Heritage of Religious Missions: A Legacy Between Land Sanctuarization, Ecclesiastical Governmentality, and Territorial (Re)Configurations in Central Africa

The making of a land patrimony for the benefit of religious missions is profoundly linked to territorial construction in the colonies but is rarely examined from the angle of ecclesiastical governmentality over the ceded lands. This analysis highlights three complementary processes for understanding the role of religious mission land heritage in territorial reconfigurations. First, this article examines the process of “land sanctuarization”, which materializes territorial anchoring through the crystallization of land rights granted to religious missions over customary lands previously presumed to be “vacant”. Next, it explores the formation of an “ecclesiastical dominium”, manifested in the dismantling of state missions and their free transfer, explicit or tacit, to religious missions under concession or agreement regimes. This reveals the exercise of state power over the land heritage of religious missions, positioning them as structuring axes and administrative intermediaries for public services, thus giving rise to an ecclesiastical governmentality that drives territorial production and reconfiguration. Finally, postcolonial dynamics reveal the resurgence of new spatial polarities shaped by the complexity of evolving religious actors along the center–periphery axis of a recomposing territorialization. This study underscores the importance of a transversal approach to better govern the land legacies of religious missions, fostering a pluralistic reterritorialization of postcolonial societies in central Africa.