Marriage as a pathway for justice for the Gabooye of Somaliland

Amina-Bahja Ekman

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2023, vol. 17, issue 4, 557-574

Abstract: While marriage is crucial in the preservation of clan alliances, as well as the reinforcing of the wider kinship structure in Somali society, there is very little research that critically engages with marriage as a concept for emancipation. This paper argues that as a minority clan group, members from the Gabooye collective in Somaliland experience inequality due to a lack of access to the resources needed for reaching full participatory parity, such as recognition, redistribution, and representation. By conceptualising a political economy of marriage in Somaliland, the paper uses empirical data from Somaliland to illustrate how marriage, across clan affiliation, is a possible pathway to justice and, therefore, emancipation. This paper concludes that the Gabooye are experiencing socio-economic challenges due to social rules and customs that put restrictions on their ability to marry other clan groups in Somaliland. The ethnographic findings on justice claims and marriage, as a pathway for reconciling with such claims, will add to the scant literature on this topic and it will also stimulate future research on minority clan members in Somaliland.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2023.2328969

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