Navigating Violence and Negotiating Order in the Somalia–Kenya Borderlands

This working paper examines how communities along the Somalia–Kenya border navigate a landscape of war. Over decades of conflict – including civil war, insurgency, and counterinsurgency – local people have relied on their own means of governance and mutual support to repair the damage and maintain life and livelihood. The study draws on people’s reflections on their ‘middle way’, a system rooted in tradition by which they both govern themselves and do their best to avoid the dangers of the war. The informal order blends customary institutions, negotiated agreements, and far-reaching social networks to provide basic public goods and maintain the common good.