ASC Seminar: Spectres of the state: State collapse and sovereign afterlives in Somalia

It is commonly assumed that the collapse of the socialist-military dictatorship signified the end of a functioning public administration within Somalia. While it is true that the Somali state ceased to exist as a ‘coercion wielding organization’ (Tilly 1992) in 1991, it did not disappear entirely from people’s lives. The speaker examines three distinct stately things: first, the reprinting and continued circulation of legal tender (the Somali shilling) by Somali businessmen; second, the recycling of state symbols by various political groups who make discursive reference to Somali nationalist figurehead Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (nicknamed ‘Sayyid’ or ‘Mad Mullah’); and third the diplomatic relations of the Somali phantom state by self-sponsored Somali diplomats. Please register

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