Borders of violence boundaries of identity: demarcating the Eritrean nation-state

Borders of violence boundaries of identity: demarcating the Eritrean nation-state

an article by Kjetil Tronvoll published in Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 22, Number 6, November 1999 pp. 1037–1060 

This article explores the concepts of borders and boundaries in the formation of an Eritrean national identity.The dialectical relationship between the State of Eritrea and its borders towards the Sudan and Ethiopia are addressed in order to analyse how this relationship infuences the formation of a‘formal’national identity.The cultural,political,religious and historical confgurationof the Eritrean frontiers makes it diffcult to demarcate a particular Eritrean identity,  distinguishing it from Sudanese ethnic and religious identities or historical-politico and ethnic Ethiopian identities.The Eritrean border conficts with the Sudan and Ethiopia are used as empirical cases to show how state violence through the mobilization of the multi-ethnic national army is employed in order to manifest a signifcant other that the ‘formal’ Eritrean national identity may be contrasted against. The article concludes that the Eritrean boundaries of identity and borders of territory are still in the making, and what they will eventually embrace and contain remains to be seen.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/2sm9vxfp5aquocr/Tronvoll_Eritrea_Borders_of_Violence-Boundaries_of_Identity_Ethnic-and-Racial-Studies-1.pdf
-----------------
Thanks to Prof. Kjetil Tronvoll for sharing the article