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Working Paper

IDS Working Paper 618

Navigating Violence and Negotiating Order in the Somalia–Kenya Borderlands

Published on 2 April 2025

This working paper examines how communities along the Somalia–Kenya border navigate a landscape of war.

Over decades of conflict – including civil war, insurgency, and counterinsurgency – local people have relied on their own means of governance and mutual support to repair the damage and maintain life and livelihood. The study draws on people’s reflections on their ‘middle way’, a system rooted in tradition by which they both govern themselves and do their best to avoid the dangers of the war. The informal order blends customary institutions, negotiated agreements, and far-reaching social networks to provide basic public goods and maintain the common good.

Cite this publication

Scott-Villiers, P.; Scott-Villiers, A. and the team from Action for Social and Economic Progress, Somalia (2025) Navigating Violence and Negotiating Order in the Somalia–Kenya Borderlands, IDS Working Paper 618, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2025.017

Authors

Patta Scott-Villiers

Research Fellow

Publication details

published by
Institute of Development Studies
doi
10.19088/IDS.2025.017
isbn
978-1-80470-282-6
issn
2040-0209
language
English

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