Punishing the periphery: legacies of state repression in the Ethiopian Ogaden

Abstract

This article scrutinizes dynamics and legacies of state violence by the imperial and current government against civilians in the Ethiopian Ogaden, between 1960 and 2010. While conflict dynamics in eastern Ethiopia underwent significant changes in the past half-century, successive counterinsurgency campaigns employed strikingly similar military tactics against local communities. Combining historical accounts with oral testimonies collected among victims of state violence in the Ogaadeen Somali diaspora in the USA, this article draws attention to the distinct temporality and spatiality that emerges from repeat cycles of state violence.