Smugglers, Speculators, and the City in the Ethiopia-Somalia Borderlands

Exploring the work of Ethiopian-Somali smugglers and investors, this study examines links between cities and borders in rapid urbanization.

Daniel K. Thompson (Author)

9781009556262, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 March 2025

259 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.513 kg

'In this analytically elaborate and empirically rich monograph, Daniel K. Thompson connects the urban fabric of Ethiopia's Somali Region with territorial borders and sites of diaspora life abroad. The book beautifully weaves together the cultural economy of borderland economies, planetary urbanization, and political identity, and, in this sense, it offers a key reading for geographers, anthropologists, and historians interested in the reconstitution of the political from the global margins.' Timothy Raeymaekers, Università di Bologna

For a century, the Ethiopian city Jigjiga was known as a dusty hub of cross-border smuggling and a hotbed of rebellion on Ethiopia's eastern frontier. After 2010, it transformed into a post-conflict boomtown, becoming one of Africa's fastest-growing cities and attracting Somali return-migrants from across the globe. This study examines Jigjiga's astonishing transformation through the eyes of its cross-border traders, urban businesspeople, and officials. Daniel K. Thompson follows traders and return-migrants across borders to where their lives collide in the city. Analysing their strategies of mobility and exchange, this study reveals how Ethiopia's federal politics, Euro-American concerns about terrorism, and local business aspirations have intertwined to reshape links between border-making and city-making in the Horn of Africa. To understand this distinctive brand of urbanism, Thompson follows globalized connections and reveals how urbanites in Africa and beyond participate in the “urban borderwork” of constructing, as well as contesting, today's border management regimes.

Introduction
1. Urban borderwork
2. Smuggling and judgment
3. Borderland urbanization
4. Connective borders
5. Contraband urbanity
6. Transactional frontiers
Conclusion
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]