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ABSTRACT
This article investigates the construction of citizens and subjects in eastern Ethiopia during the period of the British Military Administration from 1944 to 1954. It does so by examining processes of identity formation during this period. The article argues that when Britain administered parts of eastern Ethiopia during this period it entrenched customary authority, which became a focal point around which Ethiopian and British forms of domination collided in a bid to assert their authority. The contestation was about establishing hegemony over sections of the population by categorising them. The article demonstrates that current discourses on identification in eastern Ethiopia are not a post-1991 phenomenon, but are part of an ongoing historical process of negotiating identification. The article thus contributes to, and expands on recent literature that seeks a deeper understanding of ethnic federalism and the implications it will have on processes of identity formation in Ethiopia.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Acknowledgements
Large sections of this article are based on my unpublished PhD thesis from the Centre of African Studies (CAS) at the University of Edinburgh (2015). I am grateful to my supervisors, Dr Sara Dorman and Prof Paul Nugent. I am also grateful to everyone who made my fieldwork a success in Ethiopia and in Somaliland.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. James and Donham, Southern Marches.
2. Reid, Frontiers of Violence, 95; Lata, Horn of Africa.
3. Smidt, “Tigrinnya-Speakers,” 67–8; Fukui and Markakis, Ethnicity & Conflict.
4. Markakis, “Politics of Identity,” 130.
5. Wilson and Donnan, “State and identity,”13.
6. Kefale, “Federal Restructuring”; Fiseha, “Theory versus Practice,” 135–8.
7. Kefale, “Federal Restructuring,” 620.
8. Ibid.
9. Jenkins, “Rethinking ethnicity,” 197.
10. Samatar, “Destruction of state,”; Lewis, “Modern History,” Besteman, “Othering Violence”.
11. Samatar, “A Paradoxical Gift,” 1.
12. Besteman, “Othering Violence,” 120.
13. Carruth, “Kinship, Nomadism;” Weitzberg, “Producing History.”
14. Rodd, British Military Administration.
15. Marcus, History of Ethiopia, 151.
16. Colonial Office (CO) 535/138/13, Agreement and Military Convention between the United Kingdom and Ethiopia.
17. The Reserved Areas were sections of Ethiopian territory along the borders with British and French Somaliland and included the Haud grazing areas, which were the lifeline of the nomadic populations that straddled the Ethiopia-British Somaliland boundary.
18. CO 535/138/13, Secret Note from the GOC-in-C East Africa to the War Office.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. CO 1015/1796, Future Relations between Somaliland and Ethiopia, December 1959.
25. Drysdale, The Somali Dispute, 82.
26. Lewis, Modern History, 152.
27. Eshete, “History of Jijiga Town,” 95.
28. Marcus, Politics of Empire, 2, 25.
29. Zewde, History of Modern Ethiopia, 179.
30. Kelly, Cold War, outlines some of the debates that took place at the level of the UN on the future of the Italian colonies.
31. CO 535/138/13, Trevor Taylor (Major), Memorandum on post-war Ethiopia and Somalia.
32. Ibid.
33. CO 535/138/13, Note by Government HQ, Somaliland, 21 August 1943.
34. Marcus, History of Ethiopia; Markakis, Ethiopia, 197.
35. CO 535/138/13, Note by Government HQ, Somaliland, 21 August 1943.
36. Ibid.
37. Cooper, Africa Since 1940, 49–53.
38. War Office (WO) 230/63, Confidential Letter on the Reserved Areas Ethiopia- Policy, 7 January 1945.
39. Eshete, “History of Jijjiga Town,” 97.
40. Foreign Office (FO) 1015/59, Competency of Ethiopian Courts in the Reserved Areas, Civil Affairs Branch, March 1948.
41. Eshete, “History of Jijjiga Town,” 98.
42. WO 230/63, Confidential Letter on the Reserved Areas Ethiopia- Policy, 7 January 1945.
43. Eshete, “History of Jijjiga Town”, 102.
44. FO 1015/49, Annual Report, Somalia, British Somaliland and Reserved Area, 1947.
45. Ibid.
46. FO 1015/90, Annual Report, The Administration of the Reserved Areas of Ethiopia, 1946.
47. Barnes, Somali Youth, 277–8.
48. Ibid., 280.
49. Eshete, “History of Jijjiga Town,”107.
50. FO 371/69402, Future of the Ogaden and the Reserved Areas, February 1948.
51. Barnes, Somali Youth, 282.
52. FO 371/69402, Future of the Ogaden and the Reserved Areas, February 1948.
53. FO 371/113458, Haud Agreement, February 1955.
54. Ethiopian Herald, “Ogaden notables Petition Emperor,” 21 May 1960.
55. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Democratic Somali Republic, The Portion of Somali Territory under Ethiopian Colonization, June 1974.
56. Ibid.
57. Laitin and Samatar, Somalia, Nation, 62.
58. Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond Identity,” 15.
59. Jenkins, “Rethinking ethnicity,” 216.
60. Mohammed, interview with the author, Jijiga, October 2012.
61. Mohammed and Ahmed, interview with author, Jijiga, October 2012.
62. CO 1015/876, Meeting with Ethiopian Representatives at Harar- minutes of Harar Conference between representatives of the Somaliland Protectorate and the Imperial Ethiopian Government, 1956.
63. Ibid.
64. Drysdale, The Somali Dispute, 19.
65. Lewis, A Modern History, 10.
66. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 52.
67. Ibid., 165.
68. Caruth, L. “Kinship, Nomadism,” 156–7.
69. Barnes, “Ethiopia-British Somaliland,” 126–30.
70. Ibid, Barnes documents the prevalence of this practice during the 1920s.
71. Drysdale, The Somali Dispute, 18–20.
72. Lewis, A Modern History, 9.
73. Drysdale, The Somali Dispute, 18–20.
74. FO 93/2/19, Withdrawal of British Military Administration from “Reserved Area”- Agreement and Exchange of Notes, London and Addis Ababa, 29 November 1954.
75. CO 1015/876, Meeting with Ethiopian Representatives at Harar- minutes of Harar Conference between representatives of the Somaliland Protectorate and the Imperial Ethiopian Government, 1956.
76. Ibid.
77. Drysdale, The Somali Dispute, 80–1.
78. CO 1015/876, Meeting with Ethiopian Representatives at Harar- minutes of Harar Conference between representatives of the Somaliland Protectorate and the Imperial Ethiopian Government, 1956.
79. Ibid.
80. Negash, “Colonial Legacy,” 283.
81. CO 1015/876, Meeting with Ethiopian Representatives at Harar- minutes of Harar Conference between representatives of the Somaliland Protectorate and the Imperial Ethiopian Government, 1956.
82. Drysdale, The Somali Dispute, 74.
83. Samatar, “A Paradoxical Gift,” 1.
84. Caruth, “Kinship, Nomadism,” 157.
85. Munro, “Power, Peasants,” 148.