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.

This chapter introduces the research, justifies the methodological choices and outlines the structure of the book.

The difference in the relative bargaining power of musicians and their corporate partners not only has consequences for the negotiation and formation phase of the contract, but also for its performance, consisting of the exploitation of protected content and the ensuing remuneration. Unfair situations may arise in both respects. This chapter analyses to what extent the legal framework intervenes – and should intervene. First, it reviews exploitation obligations, both in terms of the existence and scope of a duty to exploit and the possible limitations to the content of exploitation activities. Subsequently, the requirement of ‘fair’ remuneration, the available tools for ex post contract adjustment and legislative measures seeking to enhance transparency in the music value chain are scrutinised. The chapter then moves on the performance stage of contracts in secondary relationships, before making a case for a harmonised residual remuneration right for digital exploitation, and concluding.

This chapter crosses the bridge from music industry practice to the analysis of the legal regimes deemed most relevant in securing a fair(er) balance in music contracts in the streaming age. Particular focus lies with the effect of the law on contracts entered into between musicians and record companies and/or music publishers as to individually managed exclusive rights. First, the chapter analyses the role of the legal framework in achieving this book’s policy objective of moving towards a fair(er) balance in the streaming age, fleshing out both the substantive and procedural dimensions of what may be perceived as ‘fair’ in this particular context. It then goes on to provide a typology of the relevant legal regimes, categorising these limitations to parties’ freedom of contract in terms of substantive, geographical and temporal scope and analysing the interplay between them. Finally, the chapter sets out to establish the appropriate level(s) and method(s) of further potential policy initiatives aimed at contributing to the elusive fair balance that this book advocates.