“We are the border”: identity, exchange, and the state along the Bénin‐Nigeria border

Border residents in the Yoruba‐speaking Shabe region along the Bénin‐Nigeria international border have relied on transborder trade as a source of income since the border was first established by French and British colonial governments. Over the past 20 years, however, economic change in the region has significantly reduced transborder traffic and its accompanying income‐earning opportunities for local borderlanders. Border residents have subsequently forged a strong sense of “border identity.” This identity emerges primarily in contexts of transborder exchange and is based both on residential claims to the region and on borderlanders' perceived rights to participation in transborder trade.