Many Somalia(s), multiple memories: remembrances as present politics, past politics as remembrances in war-torn Somali discourses

Abstract

Though a rich body of scholarship on the Somali conflicts has come to the surface, hitherto none has nuancedly analysed political memories that emerged out from traumatic experiences but was disseminated through informal oral discourses. Given the dearth of studies interrogating memory and political memory, the Somali context offers an ideal case study. The political trajectories of memory, myth and metaphor are inextricably interlinked after the armed conflicts. In contrast to existing scholarship on memory studies in general, which has tended to overlook oral informal discourses, this paper examines the ways in which the Somali case interacts and encounters with questions of memory and remembrance in everyday life. This is to shift the focus from the war leaders to their subjects and to underscore the agency of the ordinary people playing upon issues of clannism and clan politics. Drawing upon author's experiences and ongoing ethnographic research, complimented by a variety of...