Borderless world vs borders as walls: insights from a borderland group in northern Ethiopia

Abstract

The border between Eritrea and Ethiopia changed status frequently from the 19th century up to Eritrea’s independence (Triulzi, 2006: 7). With the creation of Eritrea as an Italian colony and prior to the incorporation of Ethiopia into the Italian East African Empire the border was defined according to colonial treaties. However, the border waxed and waned over the decades of their political coexistence. Indeed, the border's status shifted from a mere internal-administrative marker to a colonial border, to dissolution, to an inter-state border during the one-decade federation, became an internal border again, went through a phase of contested no-man’s-land during the civil war and, finally, acquired the status of an international border between two sovereign states. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in May 1998 the border had never been delimited or demarcated. For all practical purposes the ethnic groups straddling the border continued their usual daily business regardless of the borderline. For borderland groups Eritrea’s independence was of secondary importance in the face of the general sense of security generated by the end of the civil war against the Derg.