When Ethiopia aligned itself with the US in the global war on terror after 2001, top–down security interventions in the Ethiopia–Somalia borderlands led Somali secessionist conflict to spiral out of control. The protracted “state collapse” of neighboring Somalia spawned regional instability throughout the 1990s. In what is today Somali Regional State (SRS), the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) spearheaded Somali-led rebellion against the new Ethiopian federal government. Somali rebels massacred Chinese oil workers in 2007 and attempted to assassinate SRS’s president in Jigjiga in 2008. Why, then, did diaspora Somalis begin returning from stable lives in North America and Europe to invest in Jigjiga before these conflicts had even settled? This chapter addresses this question by tracing how SRS authorities sought to create alliances among the global Somali diaspora. Through an ethnographic analysis of the dramatic change in diaspora–homeland relations that unfolded after 2010, it argues that border securitization in the Horn of Africa is not just a matter of topography – of territorial control, walls and razor wire, and security patrols. It is also a matter of reorganizing a complex topology of transnational relationships.

This chapter offers a pathbreaking urban history of the Ethiopia–Somalia borderlands. Eastern Ethiopia’s cultural distinctions and tense interethnic relations are often described in terms of broad contrasts between Somali nomadic pastoralism and the sedentary agriculture of Ethiopian highland populations. A close reading of historical accounts tells a different story. Beginning with a discussion of present-day ethnic competition and cooperation in the marketplace, I trace Jigjiga’s social relations back in time, showing how towns including Jigjiga have been crucial sites of interethnic encounters, identity formation, and cultural change. Shifting the focus away from Ethiopia’s tense history of ethno-territorial politics, I suggest that in the city, everyday interactions between identity groups are significantly shaped by expectations about transactability: who is trustworthy, who is not, and who is a legitimate target for cheating or for collaboration. This argument places urban encounters at the center of understanding the salience of ethnic and clan identities in eastern Ethiopia. I argue, furthermore, that urban encounters in Jigjiga play an important role in how distinct identity groups relate to geopolitical borders outside the city and have done so throughout Jigjiga’s history.

In August 2018, ʿAbdi Moḥamoud ʿUmar, president of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State, was ousted and arrested by federal security forces. ʿAbdi had led an unprecedented decade-long push to securitize the Ethiopia-Somaliland border, to “Ethiopianize” Somalis, and to entice Somali migrants living abroad to return to Ethiopia and collaborate with the regional government. Yet a significant number of those who collaborated with and benefited from the regime also celebrated its downfall. This concluding chapter describes these more recent events as an entry-point to reflecting on the broader implications of the book’s argument that city-making and border-making are deeply intertwined in today’s world. It addresses three specific possible counterarguments, which serve to highlight the themes of the book and link them to broader debates in economic anthropology, border studies, migration studies, and urban studies.

In the Ethiopia–Somalia borderlands, kontarabaan (contraband) trade is not just a source of livelihood. Over decades of efforts to avoid Ethiopian taxation, it has become an integral part of Ethiopian-Somali identity. This chapter locates today’s cross-border trade practices in the broader context of a century-long effort by Ethiopia and foreign colonial powers to impose effective authority and taxation on the Horn of Africa’s borderlands. Following small-scale traders and other travelers across several borders and checkpoints, it ethnographically explores what Jigjigan Somalis call “the cultural economy” (dhaqan-dhaqaalaha). Examining interactions between border-crossers and border-enforcers, it argues that Ethiopian-Somalis’ egalitarian ethos, long associated with pastoralist culture, has taken specific form in the Jigjiga area through practices of evading taxation and border regulation imposed by non-Somali authorities. The lines between governor and governed, tax-collector and tax-evader, border-enforcer and border-crosser have historically been entangled with ethnic distinctions between Somalis and so-called Habesha ethnic groups from central Ethiopia. Because of this, the advent of Somali-led border security since 2010 has prompted not only new challenges for cross-border traders’ livelihoods but also new debates about what it means to be Somali in the Ethiopian borderlands.

In January 2018, I find myself racing frantically around Jigjiga with a local smuggler and a diaspora Somali known as a raucous opportunist. The two men work collaboratively to release a truck impounded at one of Ethiopia’s border checkpoints. Analyzing this situation, this chapter shows how the problems of moving goods across Ethiopia’s borders facilitate mutual interests and coordinated activities in the city. The situation ultimately scales up to involve a coalition of people from many of Jigjiga’s important social categories: diaspora (qurba-joogs) and locals (wadani), Somalis and non-Somalis, kin and nonkin, wealthy businesspeople and marginalized workers. Delving into situational analysis, this chapter introduces Jigjiga’s dynamic social fabric as it illustrates how people use urban space as a platform for managing cross-border connections and circulations. It focuses specifically on how border-related business collaborations converge in Jigjiga’s chat dens, where men create and evade social connections as they chew the mild narcotic stimulant known as chat or khat. Analyzing these locations and how they function as frontiers of relationship management, the chapter illustrates how elements of Somalis’ nonhegemonic or “egalitarian” cultural ethos converge to reinforce, rather than challenge, government hierarchies, border securitization, and urban inequalities.