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The State and its Fragments: Debates on Kinship and the State in Somalia
Abstract
This article has two primary objectives:
a) to introduce the debate about kinship systems and socio-political identity and organization in Somalia. I do this by reviewing an exchange at a British tribunal between two prominent academics in Somali studies: Abdi I. Samatar and I. M. Lewis;
b) to reflect on what is at stake in this debate by pointing at some of the potential consequences of the current U.N.-led state-building project in Somalia, which has embraced one side of this debate.
Keywords:
Somalia, kinship system, Somali political identity, clanism, state-building, genealogy, colonialism, and anthropology,