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ABSTRACT
While marriage is crucial in the preservation of clan alliances, as well as the reinforcing of the wider kinship structure in Somali society, there is very little research that critically engages with marriage as a concept for emancipation. This paper argues that as a minority clan group, members from the Gabooye collective in Somaliland experience inequality due to a lack of access to the resources needed for reaching full participatory parity, such as recognition, redistribution, and representation. By conceptualising a political economy of marriage in Somaliland, the paper uses empirical data from Somaliland to illustrate how marriage, across clan affiliation, is a possible pathway to justice and, therefore, emancipation. This paper concludes that the Gabooye are experiencing socio-economic challenges due to social rules and customs that put restrictions on their ability to marry other clan groups in Somaliland. The ethnographic findings on justice claims and marriage, as a pathway for reconciling with such claims, will add to the scant literature on this topic and it will also stimulate future research on minority clan members in Somaliland.
Acknowledgements
I am deeply indebted to all the participants in Somaliland who willingly took part in this research. Their stories, time and effort have made it possible to collect the necessary data for this study.
I would like to thank my supervisors, Professors Michael Walls and Dr Zeremariam Fre of the Development Planning Unit, at UCL. I am very grateful for your support and guidance. I would also like to thank my friend, Mr Conrad Heine for feedback on early versions of this paper. I am also grateful for the feedback and suggestions given by the anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Ethics statement
Ethical approval was sought and granted by the UCL Ethics Committee (UCL Ethics Project ID Number: 12393/001) before collecting any primary data. There were no ethical approval mechanisms for conducting research in place in Somaliland during the time of data collection. However, as part of my ethics plan, each research participant had to give either oral or written consent to participate in the research.
Notes
1 Eno and Kusow, “Racial and Caste Prejudice in Somalia.”
2 Besteman, Unravelling Somalia; Eno and Kusow, “Racial and Caste Prejudice in Somalia.”
3 Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy; Besteman, Unravelling Somalia; Eno and Kusow, “Racial and Caste Prejudice in Somalia.”
4 Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy.
5 Somali origin tradition claims that the major clan families are decedents of a fictive Arab ancestor. See Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy; Besteman, Unravelling Somalia; Hill, “No Redress”; Eno and Kusow, “Racial and Caste Prejudice in Somalia”; Walls, A Somali Nation State.
6 Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy; Besteman, Unravelling Somalia; Eno and Kusow, “Racial and Caste Prejudice in Somalia.”
7 Ibid.
8 Hill, “No Redress”; Eno and Kusow, “Racial and Caste Prejudice in Somalia.”
9 Fraser, “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics”; Fraser and Honneth, “Redistribution or Recognition?”
10 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 34.
11 Ekman, Fieldwork notes, 17 August 2018.
12 There are conflicting narratives around the etymology of the word ‘Midgan’, but some of my respondents claimed that it is a version of the words ‘Mid go’, which could mean to ‘break a part’ in Somali.
13 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 169.
14 Interview, Male Gabooye member, 8 August 2018.
15 Ibid.
16 The experience of exclusion and marginalisation differs for members of the Gosha and Bantu in the south. This group, being descendants of former runaway slaves and later emancipated slaves from elsewhere in Africa along with indigenous communities, have historically experienced marginalisation and therefore, ensuing dimensions of inequality such as protracted poverty. Kaptejins, “I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship: A Critique”; Besteman, Unravelling Somalia; Eno and Kusow, “A Tale of Two Minorities.”
17 Interview, Male Civil Servant, 9 April 2018.
18 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 170.
19 Ibid., 177.
20 Ibid.
21 Interview, Male NGO Worker, 29 April 2018.
22 Interview, Human Rights Lawyer, 17 April 2018.
23 Ibid.
24 Interview, Male Civil Servant, 9 April 2018.
25 These lines primarily reflect sub-clan groups of the Isaaq clan group. See Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 40–3.
26 Ibid.
27 Interview, Female Isaaq member, 19 September 2018.
28 Vitturini, The Gaboye of Somaliland.
29 Interview, Male Civil Servant, 9 April 2018.
30 The Mag, Somali word for blood compensation, is a system that in many ways regulates the restorative element of the Somali clan apparatus. Sometimes, the Arabic word ‘Diya’ is also used. Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 165.
31 Interview, Male Civil Servant, 9 April 2018.
32 Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy; Hill, “No Redress”; Eno and Kusow, “A Tale of Two Minorities.”
33 Interview, Male Civil Servant, 9 April 2018.
34 The term ‘Timo Jareer’ means ‘hard hair’ in Somali, and it denotes the perceived distinguishing features between ethnic Somalis, who are referred to as ‘Timo Jileec’ (soft hair) and Somalis of Bantu and Gosha descent, see Eno and Kusow, “A Tale of Two Minorites”; Besteman, Unravelling Somalia.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 198.
38 Ibid., 196
39 Interview, Male Tumal Member, 2018
40 Interview, Human Rights Lawyer, 17 April 2018.
41 Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy; Mohamoud, “Kinship and Contract in Somali Politics.”
42 Ibid.
43 Kaptejins, “Gender Relations and the Transformation of the Northern Somali Pastoral tradition.”
44 Ibid., 243.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Kaptejins, “I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship.”
49 Ibid., 10.
50 Ibid.
51 Mamdani, “Race and Ethnicity as Political Identity in the African Context,” 6.
52 Samatar, “Debating Somali Identity,” 39.
53 Mamdani, “Race and Ethnicity as Political Identity in the African Context”; Samatar, “Destruction of State and Society in Somalia.”
54 Samatar, “Debating Somali Identity,” 39.
55 Samatar, “Destruction of State and Society in Somalia”; Mamdani, “Race and Ethnicity as Political Identity in the African Context.”
56 Becker, “A Theory of Marriage.”
57 Becker, “A Theory of Marriage”; Pollak, “Marriage Market Equilibrium.”
58 Pollak, “Marriage Market Equilibrium.”
59 Gregory, Gifts and commodities.
60 Gregory, cited in Srivastava, “Political Economy of Marriage.”
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Srivastava, “Political Economy of Marriage.”
64 Liberatore, “Imagining an Ideal Husband,” 5.
65 Ibid.
66 Interview, Female Isaaq member, 19 September 2018.
67 Interview, Male Isaaq member, 4 September 2018.
68 Interview, Male Gabooye member, 8 August 2018.
69 Interview, Female Isaaq member, 19 September 2018.
70 Interview, Male Tumal member, 2018.
71 Ibid.
72 Interview, Human Rights Lawyer, 17 April 2018.
73 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 223.
74 Ibid.
75 Vitturini, “The Gabooye of Somaliland.”
76 Samatar, The state and rural transformation in Northern Somalia.
77 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 224.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Interview, Male Gabooye, 29 April 2018.
81 Interview, Male Isaaq member, 4 September 2018.
82 Interview, Male Isaaq member, 9 April 2018.
83 See Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus; Leach, “Introduction: What Should We Mean by Caste?”; and Weber (1978), in JEAS style.
84 Ghurye, Caste and Race in India; Gupta, Interrogating Caste; Subedi, “Caste in South Asia.”
85 Gupta, “From Varna to Jati.”
86 Upadhyay, “Hindu Nation and its Queers,” 2.
87 Samatar, “Debating Somali Identity,” 39.
88 Ekman, A Critical Theory Approach to Inequality in Somali Society, 173.
89 Ibid.