We Do Not Have Borders (2017) by Keren Weitzberg: Somalis and belonging in Kenya

The book

We Do Not Have Borders: Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of Belonging in Kenya is a history by Keren Weitzberg, published by Ohio University Press in July 2017 as part of its New African Histories series. It appeared in hardback (ISBN 9780821422588) and paperback (ISBN 9780821422595), with about 274 pages of main text plus front matter (Schweitzer Fachinformationen; Journal of Modern African Studies). At the time of publication Weitzberg was a visiting assistant professor in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The question it asks

Somalis have lived in what is now Kenya for generations, many of their families since long before the Kenyan state was founded. Yet they have often been treated as outsiders. The book asks how that came about, and what it has meant for Somalis to be both Kenyan citizens and part of a people spread across several states (New Books Network). The wider story of Somalis in the country is on Somalis in Kenya.

Sources and method

Weitzberg combined archival research with oral history and fieldwork among Kenyan Somalis, tracing how ideas of Somali identity shifted from one generation to the next. In his review essay in African Studies Quarterly, Mukerrem Miftah singled out this mix of archival and field sources, and the author's self-reflexivity, as the book's main strengths (African Studies Quarterly, 2019).

Its argument

The book sets two forces against each other. On one side are what Weitzberg calls "exclusionary nationalism" and "settler colonialism": British rule and, later, independent Kenya worked with a split between "natives" and "aliens". British officials saw Somalis as physically and culturally different, including in religion, and some Somalis themselves stressed claimed Arab origins to win a better legal status. On the other side are the Somalis' own social organisation and their networks across borders, linking Kenya with Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia and the diaspora (African Studies Quarterly, 2019).

Weitzberg shows how political activists drew on pastoral life, Islamic ties of brotherhood, shared descent and other non-territorial loyalties to build the territorial project of a Greater Somalia, which aimed to join all Somali-inhabited lands into one state. The book also traces how neighbouring governments, including Ethiopia, saw that project as a threat. The period when Somalis of the Northern Frontier District sought to join the Somali Republic is covered on Northern Frontier District 1962 to 1967, and the founding of that republic on Independence and union, 1960.

How it was received

Reviews appeared in the Journal of African History, the Journal of Modern African Studies, African Studies Review and African Studies Quarterly. The Journal of Modern African Studies called it an indispensable contribution to work on citizenship, nationalism and Kenyan Somali identity. Miftah described it as an important and original contribution to the study of north-east Africa, and noted that its density of information means it takes time to read; he added that almost a third of the book is material for further reading and research (African Studies Quarterly, 2019). The author also discussed the book in a New Books Network interview (New Books Network).

Where to read it

The book is sold in paperback and as an ebook by Ohio University Press and is held by many university libraries. Related reading on this site includes Transnational Nomads, Cindy Horst's study of Somali refugees in Kenya's Dadaab camps.