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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Transborder' exchanges of people, things, and representations: revisiting the conflict between Mahdist Sudan and Christian Ethiopia, 1885-1889
Author:Seri-Hersch, IrisISNI
Year:2010
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies (ISSN 0361-7882)
Volume:43
Issue:1
Pages:1-26
Language:English
Geographic terms:Ethiopia
Sudan
Subjects:boundaries
migration
trade
history
1880-1889
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/25741395
Abstract:The conflict between Mahdist Sudan and Christian Ethiopia in the late 19th century did not hinder exchanges across an invisible 'border'. The author looks at border dynamics affecting political, economic and social relations between Mahdist Sudan and Ethiopia in the period 1885-1889. Following an exposé on the Sudanese and Ethiopian notions of 'border', the author examines two modes of circulation between Sudan and Ethiopia, viz. trade and war booty, and then elaborates on a phenomenon that is closely connected to both slavery and slave trade. Next, she shows that the border zone between the two countries was an arena of individual and collective 'voluntary' migrations, stirred by political, religious, economic and ideological dynamics. After these examinations of circulation patterns pertaining to goods and people, the author shows that ideas, norms and representations also flowed between Ethiopia and Sudan. At the State level, the diplomatic game - in the shape of epistolary exchanges - constituted a central mode of transmission of such immaterial items, not only between the two supreme rulers, Khalifa 'Abdullahi and Emperor Yohannes IV; governors and lower-rank officers also took an active part in diplomatic interactions between the two States. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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