Description
Dr Juweria Ali
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University fo Westminster
Abstract:
The literature on African statehood has been unable to account for the dynamic modes of statehood found in the Horn of Africa due to emphasis on Weberian conceptions of the state. This has led to the inability of the literature to consider African statehood and sense of national expression beyond the limiting category of the nation-state (Mastshanda, 2020, p.28). The rejection of post-independence self-determination claims was institutionalized through the insertion of key provisions on the principles of territorial integrity and non-interference in the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Charter (1963). Between the competing nationalisms underlying the ‘Greater Somalia’ and ‘Greater Ethiopia’ political projects, and the prevailing norms and consensus on African Unity and self-determination which shaped the post-independence political scene in Africa, this paper examines the way Somalis in Ethiopia have articulated their conflictual relationship with processes of boundary-making in the Horn of Africa - a region of 'state formation and decay' (Clapham, 2017). It does so by tracing the evolution of these discourses through the lens of the Somali political verse, a crucial yet under-examined body of knowledge where local sovereignties are (re)produced in the context of linguistic and cultural suppression which has constituted a cornerstone of Ethiopian state-building. The Somali political verse has served as an important form of knowledge keeping, a method of mass political communication during key historical and political junctures, and a means of ‘everyday resistance’ (Scott, 1985). This approach deciphers the continuities and ruptures in how Somalis in Ethiopia conceptualize borders, how regional political shifts and (re)alignements in Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa continue to shape these attitudes, and crucially, the implications for theorisations on African statehood in the context of International Studies.
