violent politics and the politics of violence: the dissolution of the Somali nation‐state

Somalia was one of the first states to crumble in the post‐cold war era. This article undresses the image of Somalia as the one true nation‐state in Africa, arguing that the political economy of class and regional dynamics underscored the dissolution of the Somali nation‐state and that the cultural construction of racial stratification configured the patterning of violence. Explaining Somalia's dissolution is a contribution to the anthropological project of theorizing the global disintegration of nation‐states. [violence, nation‐states, class, race, segmentary lineages, Somalia]