Colonial capitalism, boundary demarcation and imperial placemaking in South Arabia

Abstract

This study analyses the means through which indigenous stakeholders and British imperialists competed for influence in the shaping of Aden’s built environment, thus complementing a robust body of literature highlighting the importance of the port city within the framework of the world capitalist system. Yet in much of the historiography highlighting the colonial port city as an object of historical analysis, the coast of South Arabia – and the city of Aden in particular – remains overshadowed by the wealthy port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Crucially, the imperial politics of demarcation and development found in Aden grounds for experimental placemaking, a process consisting of military and civilian infrastructure projects and the securitisation of territory both within and beyond Aden’s walls. Attempts to territorialise space through the imposition of hard borders and infrastructure exemplify the colonial embrace of geo-spatial abstractions, a process that occurred alongside the consolidation of direct rule within Aden and the concurrent projection of capitalist market forces into the hinterland. British incapacity created room for local agents of change to contest the construction of colonial space; attempts to integrate Aden and neighbouring polities into the imperial orbit entailed negotiation, compromise and occasionally the use of violence.

Keywords:

• Aden
• geography
• spatial analysis
• modernity
• agency
• imperialism

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Mostafa Minawi, Samir Seikaly, and my dear friends at AUB for their invaluable feedback and encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Bibliography

Archival sources (listed by country)

United Kingdom

British Library, Indian Office Records (IOR)

United States of America

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)

Notes

1 File 37/1905, Pt. 4 “Aden Frontier Delimitation” (48/1197), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/66.

2 “Defences of Aden and Perim” (2/56), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/8.

3 Memorandum of Conversation, US–UK Talks (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968 Volume XXI, Near East Region; Arabian Peninsula), Document 51.

4 “Plans and Sections of the Proposed Sea Defences on Seera Island, Aden” [‎1r] (1/2), British Library: Map Collections, IOR/X/3242.

5 “Military Report on the Aden Protectorate” [‎8v] (21/332), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/6.

6 “Dynastic Claims of the Imam of Sana’a to the Aden Protectorate” (3/12), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B418.

7 “Abstract of Correspondence and Memorandum respecting the Yemen” (18/24), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B209.

8 “Abstract of Correspondence and Memorandum Respecting the Yemen” (21/24), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B209.

9 “Aden Frontier Delimitation” (48/1197), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/66.

10 Printed Map of Aden Protectorate Border Region (1/2), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/63, F 268.

11 “Aden Protectorate: Gift of £10,000; Gift of Guns to Sultan of Lahej” (16/578), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/604.

12 Memorandum Regarding the Relations with the Tribes in the Vicinity of Aden, Especially in Reference to the Amir of Zhali” (3/4), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B30.

13 File 37/1905 Pt 1 “Aden Frontier Delimitation” (39/1104), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/63.

14 File 37/1905 Pt 1 “Aden Frontier Delimitation” (40/1104), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/63.

15 File 37/1905 Pt 1 “Aden Frontier Delimitation” (45/1104), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/63.

16 “Map Showing Tribes and New Boundary of the Aden Protectorate” (1/2), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/9.

17 “Field Notes: Aden Protectorate” (19/56), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/7.

18 “Plan of the Peninsula or Cape of Aden Exhibiting the Proposed Military Limits. Aden July 1855” [‎1r] (1/2), British Library: Map Collections, IOR/X/3256/2.

19 “Field Notes: Aden Protectorate” (39/56), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/7.

20 “Field Notes: Aden Protectorate” [‎20v] (40/56), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/7.

21 “Railways: Aden; Railway Construction in Aden Hinterland; Aden–Lahej Railway” (24/308), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/10/89.

22 “The Aden Protectorate” (10/12), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/18/B231.

23 “Middle East (Official) Committee: Reconstruction” (60/940), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/4756.

24 “Middle East (Official) Committee: Reconstruction” (64/940), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/4756.

25 “Aden. Oil Concessions in the Aden Protectorate” [‎13r] (25/54), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/1507.

26 “Aden. Oil Concessions in the Aden Protectorate” [‎18r] (35/54), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/12/1507.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles Alton Sills

Charles A. Sills is a PhD student studying Arab and Middle Eastern history at the American University of Beirut (AUB). He enrolled at AUB after earning a Master of Arts in history at the University of Georgia and bachelor’s degrees in history and political science at Georgia State University. He is co-author of ‘Sanctioning Arabia through the Caesar Act: Economic Violence & Imperial Anxieties in the “Middle East”’ (2020), and the author of ‘The New Sykes-Picot: Imperial Geographies, Economic Violence and the Occupation of Northern and Eastern Syria’ (2021), both published by the Asian Institute of Research’s Journal of Social and Political Sciences. In August 2020, he joined the faculty at Athens Technical College (USA) as an adjunct instructor of history.