Smugglers, speculators, and the city in the Ethiopia-Somalia borderlands / Daniel K. Thompson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thompson, Daniel K., author.

Series:

African studies series.

African studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City and town life--Ethiopia--Jijiga.

City and town life.

Smugglers--Ethiopia--Jijiga--Social conditions.

Smugglers.

Return migrants--Ethiopia--Jijiga--Social conditions.

Return migrants.

Jijiga (Ethiopia)--Economic conditions.

Jijiga (Ethiopia).

Jijiga (Ethiopia)--Social conditions.

Ethiopia--Boundaries.

Ethiopia.

Somalia--Boundaries.

Somalia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 237 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Introduction. Connective borders and divided cities

Urban borderwork : unexpected coalitions in a chat den

Smuggling and judgment : (un)making livelihoods in the cross-border cultural economy

Borderland urbanization : exchanges and identities on the urban frontier

Connective borders : federalism's transnational topologies

Contraband urbanity : urban egalitarianisms amid autocracy

Transactional frontiers : urban exchanges that make borders

Conclusion. The future in a frontier city.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 07 Mar 2025).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781009556231

1009556231

9781009556279

1009556274

9781009556286

1009556282

OCLC:

1451666370