Violence and regulation in the Darfur-Chad borderland c. 1909-56: policing a colonial boundary

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Periodical article

Title:	Violence and regulation in the Darfur-Chad borderland c. 1909-56: policing a colonial boundary
Author:	Vaughan, Christopher
Year:	2013
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	54
Issue:	2
Pages:	177-198
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Chad Sudan
Subjects:	boundaries border control colonial administration violence State-society relationship 1900-1949
Link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853713000285
Abstract:	Recent literature has emphasised the political and economic opportunities afforded to peoples living in African borderlands by the existence of permeable inter-state boundaries. This article examines the history of the Darfur (Sudan)-Chad borderland under colonial rule and finds that serious risks existed for those attempting to circumvent state authority in order to take advantage of such opportunities. State-led attempts to control these borders, though always incomplete, were often characterised by considerable violence. The limits of state power did not therefore straightforwardly translate into an accommodation with border societies. That said, this was also a border zone characterised by complex interaction and negotiation between state and local forms of regulation, and by multiple forms of sovereignty. This led to the emergence of plural and hybrid forms of authority, now repeatedly observed in studies of contemporary African borderlands, but rarely fully historicised. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]