State borders are more than barriers. They structure social, economic and political spaces, and as such provide opportunities as well as obstacles for the communities straddling them. This book deals with the conduits and opportunities of state borders in the Horn of Africa, and investigates the various strategies borderland peoples use to exploit them. Using a micro level perspective, these case studies from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, highlight the agency of borderlanders, and acknowledge the permeability yet effectiveness of borders. Borders offer opportunities for individuals and communities, and in the Horn of Africa borderland peoples use them as economic, political, identity and status resources. Dereje Feyissa is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany; Markus Virgil Hoehne is a PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Contents Preface by Günther Schlee – Preface by the Editors – State borders & borderlands as resources: An analytical framework by Dereje Feyissa & Markus Virgil Hoehne – More state than the state? The Anywaa’s call for the rigidification of the Ethio- Sudanese border by Dereje Feyissa – Making use of the kin beyond the international border: Inter-ethnic relations along the Ethio-Kenyan border by Fekadu Adugna – The Tigrinnya-speakers across the borders: Discourses of unity & separation in ethnohistorical context by Wolbert G.C. Smidt – Trans-border political alliance in the Horn of Africa: The case of the Afar-Issa Conflict by Yasin Mohammed Yasin – People & politics along & across the Somaliland-Puntland Border by Markus Virgil Hoehne – The Ethiopian-British Somaliland boundary by Cedric Barnes – The opportunistic economies of the Kenya-Somali borderland in historical perspective by Lee Cassanelli – Magendo & survivalism: Babukusu-Bagisu relations & economic ingenuity on the Kenya- Uganda Border 1962-1980 by Peter Wafula Wekesa – Can boundaries not border on one another? The Zigula (Somali Bantu) between Somalia & Tanzania by Francesca Declich – Conclusion: Putting back the bigger picture by Christopher Clapham Cover photograph: Pastoralist on the move (near the border between Somalia/ Somaliland and Ethiopia), April 2004 (© Markus V. Hoehne) EASTERN AFRICA SERIES EASTERN AFRICA SERIES Borders & Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa FEYISSA & HOEHNE Borders & Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa An imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF www.jamescurrey.com and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester, New York 14620, USA www.boydellandbrewer.com Edited by DEREJE FEYISSA & MARKUS VIRGIL HOEHNE Editors EAS_Hoehne_cmyk_20mmPPCv4:EAS_Lewis_Papbk8727.qxd 27.01.2010 15:01 Page 1