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Abstract
Based on an ethnographic engagement with the Somali coast, this article reframes maritime piracy as an economy of protection linked to longer histories and contestations over trade, plunder, and profit in this region. Through the lens of protection, the article brings into view an emergent moral economy of piracy and ethical debates over the nature of work and trade, including the work of piracy in this oceanic space. Specifically, it brings to the forefront and argues for the analytical separation of two distinct processes and practices of Somali engagements with the sea. The first part locates the development of a “sea of trade” and the centrality of economies of protection within this maritime world. The second part of the argument emphasizes a “sea of fish” and the development of a licensing and rent-seeking regime off the coast of Somalia, from the 1970s onwards. The emergence of maritime piracy is located within these shifting currents and visions of the sea.
Notes
1. Interview with “Abshiir” in Galkayo, March 2011. (Unless otherwise noted, all interviews were conducted by the author. To protect confidentiality, names and location have been changed throughout this work.)
2. Al-Qasimi, Resalat zuamaa’ al-somal, passim.
3. In contemporary Somalia, many engaged in acts of taking at sea do self-identify or are referred to as pirates (burcad badeed) or protectors (badaadinta badah). While I use the word ‘pirate’ throughout the text, I am not referring to its strict legal definition, but rather to a plural understanding of piracy and pirates that recognizes the slippages, contradictions, and political valences within these terms.
4. Interview with “Ali” in Haafun, February 2011.
5. Interview with “Farah” in Haafun February 2011.
6. Sheriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean, 8.
7. For example, Subramanian, “Of Pirates and Potentates”; Prange, “Trade of No Dishonor”; Hooper, “Pirates and Kings”; Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Piracy.”
8. Prange, “Trade of No Dishonor,” 1270.
9. Most of this literature comes from within the subfields of Security Studies and International Relations and is explicitly policy oriented; for instance, Onuoha, “Piracy and Maritime Security”; Chalk, “Evolving Dynamic of Piracy.” For a critique of this security paradigm and an argument in favor of approaching Somali piracy as a development issue, see Singh and Bedi. “War on Piracy.”
10. Samatar et al., “Dialectics of Piracy in Somalia”; Anderson, “Somali Piracy”; Marchal, “Somali Piracy”; Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden; Murphy, Somalia: The New Barbary?
11. Samatar et al., “Dialectics of Piracy in Somalia,” 1379.
12. Marchal, “Somali Piracy,” 39.
13. For a detailed discussion on the development of a privatized trans-regional economy in the aftermath of state collapse in Somalia, see Little, Economy without State.
14. Percy and Shortland, Business of Piracy in Somalia, provide a detailed analysis of the organization of pirate groups, including an analysis of ransom payments.
15. Interview with “Sheikh Usman” in Bosaso, March, 2011.
16. Interview with “Sheikh Usman” in Bosaso, March, 2011.
17. Lane, Profits from Power, 58.
18. For an overview of the role of protection costs in shaping the decline of Portugal and the rise of Dutch and later British hegemony in the Indian Ocean, see Curtin, Cross Cultural Trade in World History.
19. Geshekter, Entrepreneurs, Livestock and Politics, 2.
20. Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea, ch. 2, passim.
21. Cassanelli, Shaping of Somali Society, 148–149.
22. Cassanelli, Shaping of Somali Society, 156.
23. I am indebted to Markus Hoehne for this observation about the expansion of Somali engagements from shore to sea.
24. Durril, “Atrocious Misery,” 289.
25. Durril, “Atrocious Misery,” 289.
26. Cruttenden, “Report on the Mijjertheyn Tribes of Somallies,” 120.
27. For a discussion of these violent interactions over control of ports and other resources of the ocean in the Majeerteen Sultante, see Baldacci, “Promontory of Cape Guardafui.”
28. Hoehne, Encyclopedia Aethiopica: “Majeerteen”, 632.
29. Samatar et al., “Political Economy of Livestock Marketing,” 84.
30. Interview with “Abdirazak” Bosaso in Puntland. May, 2012.
31. Interview with “Abdirazak” Bosaso in Puntland. May, 2012.
32. Interview with “Abuukar” in Mombasa, November 2010.
33. Interview with “Abuukar” in Mombasa, November 2010.
34. Interview with “Anis” in Puntland. January, 2011.
35. Interview with “Hussein” in Garowe, Puntland, February, 2011.
36. Interview with “Omar” in Galkayo, March, 2011.
37. Interview with “Omar” in Galkayo, March, 2011.
38. Interview with “Ali” in Haafun, February 2011.
39. Lewis, Blood and Bone, 127.
40. For a detailed account of the rise and fall of the Siyad Barre regime, see Lewis, Modern History of the Somali; and Laitin and Samatar, Somalia; for a more ethnographic account, see Simmons, Networks of Dissolution.
41. Lewis, Modern History of the Somali, 140.
42. For a discussion on the impact of the drought of 1974 on the resettlement schemes of the Barre regime, see Laitin and Samatar, “Somalia and the World Economy”; and Samatar, “Merchant Capital.”
43. FAO FID/CP/SOM 2005. Accessed January 29, 2013. http://www.fao.org/fi/oldsite/FCP/en/SOM/profile.htm/.
44. Interview with “Hersi” in Benderbeyla, March 2011.
45. Marchal, “Somali Piracy,” 38.
46. International Crisis Group (ICC), Somalia: The Trouble with Puntland, 2.
47. Hoehne, “Mimesis and Mimicry,” 253.
48. For a related discussion with respect to Somaliland, see the work of Luca Ciabarri, specifically Ciabarri, “Commercial Factor.”
49. In Marchal, Post Civil War Business Class, piracy is very much part of this privatized world of commerce in Somalia as the section on the “sea of trade” illustrated.
50. Interview with “Hersi” in Benderbeyla, March 2011.
51. Somcan was one of the numerous private maritime security companies that were involved with the Puntland government in providing licensing to foreign fishing vessels and “anti-piracy activities.”
52. Interview with “Hashi” in Boosasso, June 2012.
53. For a discussion of the relationship between Puntland authorities and the political economy of piracy, see Hansen, Piracy in the Greater Gulf of Aden; and Menkhaus, “Dangerous Waters.”
54. The long history of maritime piracy is marked with this mobility and fluidity; for a resonant example from the golden age of Atlantic piracy, see Ritchie, Captain Kidd.
55. Interview with “Arale” in Bosaso, Puntland, May 2012.
56. Interview with “Bahdoon” in Nairobi, June 2012.