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Abstract
The study of state borders has long been preoccupied with their artificiality and the negative impact they have had on the local people. Recent studies have shifted the focus on state borders away from constraints to state borders as conduits and opportunities. Different factors are involved in determining the conditions of resourcing state borders and borderlands. The paper argues that local perceptions – the range of cultural meanings attributed to state borders – significantly factor in how a particular international border is used by specific groups of people. Drawing on the ethnography from the Gambella region of western Ethiopia, the paper advocates for a cognitive psychological approach in border studies. In so doing it goes beyond the conventional dichotomous template between the “bounded” European and the “permeable” African border imageries. Here the binary opposites are not Europeans and Africans but rather two African neighbors – the Anywaa and the Nuer – with sharply contrasting concepts of borders. Kew is the Anywaa concept of border which they also use to refer to the International border. Its use should be restricted to the Anywaa only but conceptually it is similar to the European notion of a bounded boundary. The Anywaa subscribe to a compartmentalized view of political boundaries both at the inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic level and thus they project onto the state border the same imagery. The Nuer, on the other hand, subscribe to a more flexible view of a political community. A tribal boundary (Cieng) is permeable. Individual Nuer change identity as situations demand, this often being dictated by their search for “greener pasture”. The Nuer do exactly the same in national identification with a dynamic pattern of border-crossing depending on the fluctuating opportunity structures between the Ethiopian and Sudanese states. The Anywaa's call for the rigidification of the international border and the chronic border crossing of the Nuer seemingly has strategic dimensions. A closer examination of their behavior, however, reveals that in making use of the state border both the Anywaa and the Nuer draw on their respective cultural schemata.
Notes
1. CitationJal, “History of the Jirkany Nuer," 36.
2. CitationJal, “History of the Jirkany Nuer," 36.
3. CitationPerner, The Anyuak, vol. II, 144.
4. CitationKelly, Nuer Conquest, 5
5. CitationCollins, Land Beyond the Rivers.
6. CitationBahru, “Relations between Ethiopia and the Sudan," 50-5.
7. CitationJohnson, ''On the Nilotic Frontier,'' 221-2.
8. Collins, Land beyond the Rivers, 138-40.
9. Bahru, “Relations between Ethiopia and the Sudan.”
10. Gambella Annual Report 1965, Gambella District Administration, Gambella Archive.
11. Simon Gatluak, interviewed on 4 August 2007, Minnesota.
12. CitationKurimoto, ''Politicization of Ethnicity in Gambella.''
13. CitationPatrick, ''The UN Refugee Resettlement Program,'' 1.
14. CitationShandy, Nuer Christians in America, 3.
15. CitationShandy, Nuer Christians in America, 3. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Southern Sudanese refugees were favored for the resettlement program, thanks to the rise of the religious right in the US which basically defined the war in Southern Sudan in religious terms - the Arab/Muslim persecution of the African/Christians.
16. The CPA granted a referendum for the South after six years of interim period. Until the referendum the agreement stipulates wealth and power sharing arrangements between North and South. The wealth sharing agreement promises the South access to the riches of Sudan's “oil bonanza”, which is expected to be used in building infrastructure and provision of social services.
17. CitationYer, The Gaat-Jak Nuer.
18. CitationPerner, The Anyuak, vol. I.
19. Evans-Prichard, Political System of the Anuak, 37.
20. CitationEvans-Pritchard, “Further Observations,” 93.
21. Perner, The Anuak, vol. II, 180.
22. Perner, The Anuak, vol. II, 180.
23. Extracted from interview with Reverend Pastor James, Presbyterian Church of Sudan, Khartoum, March 2002.
24. Interview, Omot Agwa, Director, Gambella Peace and Development Program.
25. CitationEvans-Pritchard, Political System of the Anuak, and CitationLienhardt, “Anuak Village Headmen.”
26. Interview with Abula, Nairobi, August 2002.
27. Collins, Land Beyond the Rivers, 63.
28. Opamo Uchok, former head, Gambella Bureau of Education, Gambella Town, interviewed in Ruiru, Kenya, February 22, 2002.
29. Abula Obong, Head, Social Sector, Gambella Regional Council, Gambella town, January 20, 2001.
30. Evans-Pritchard, Political System of the Anuak, 220.
31. Evans-Pritchard, Political System of the Anuak, 214
32. Evans-Pritchard, Political System of the Anuak, 216
33. CitationLentz, Contested Boundaries.
34. CitationHowell, A Manual of Nuer War, 181.
35. Evans-Prichard, Political System of the Anuak, 48.
36. Evans-Prichard, Political System of the Anuak, 123.
37. Kong Diu, interviewed in Addis Ababa, November 2000.
38. CitationDe Waal, Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa.
39. CitationKurimoto, Multidimensional Impact of Refugees and Settlers in the Gambella Region.
40. The plains of Gambella through which the various tributary rivers of the White Nile flow are amongst the most irrigable parts of the country. The Gambella basin has also been targeted for petroleum exploration in recent years.
41. CitationYoung, Armed Groups along Sudan's Eastern Frontier.
42. The Southern Sudanese Independence Movement, led by Dr Riek Machar, split from the SPLA and was allied with the Government of the Sudan in the mid-1990s.