Border regions are often portrayed as remote peripheries. Yet they are key sites where local communities, states, markets and transnational networks intersect.

In his new synthesis study Commodification and Conflict in the Horn of Africa Borderlands, Tobias Hagmann brings together findings from six years of research conducted by the X-Border Local Research Network. The study compares five borderland configurations across South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Somali territories.

The findings show that borderlands differ substantially from one another, but are often shaped by comparable processes. Trade, resource flows, political authority and conflict frequently intersect in these spaces, linking local dynamics to regional and global developments.

Rather than treating borderlands as isolated margins, the study highlights their role as important arenas of state formation, economic exchange and political contestation.

The study was produced for the XCEPT research programme and is available online.