From pirate ports to special economic zones: Violence, regulation and port-making in the Somali peninsula

Locating itself within a series of port cities, this paper elaborates a port-centered view of polity, economy, and sociality in the Somali peninsula. The paper begins with a historical and theoretical overview of port cities before turning to a specific set of case studies from the three port cities of Benderbeyla, Bosaso, and Djibouti. The interplay between violence and regulation in channeling and re-channeling mobility within seemingly distinct spaces becomes thus apparent. The comparison of these port cities highlights different modes and scales of port-making. Benderbeyla port exemplifies a space from which global circulation is violently re-channeled, be it through the capture of ambergris or by piracy. Bosaso corresponds to a mode of port-making that is also framed by violence, but provides a safe and cheap haven for circulation. While both port cities have a relationship to regulation, trade and state-making do not fully overlap in the first two scales of port-making. Djibouti represents a third scale of port-making where sovereignty emerges as a resource in order to re-channel trade. Providing a corrective to the land-centered writing that has dominated Somali studies these port cities reveal a polity and sociality that emerge through claims over mobility as opposed to territory or population. In so doing this paper provides a new vantage point to understand the arrivals and departures that constitute everyday life in the Horn of Africa.