Overview

"Desert Borderland investigates the historical processes that transformed political identity in the easternmost reaches of the Sahara Desert in the half century before World War I. Adopting a view from the margins-illuminating the little-known history of the Egyptian-Libyan borderland-the book challenges prevailing notions of how Egypt and Libya were constituted as modern territorial nation-states. Matthew H. Ellis draws on a wide array of archival sources to reconstruct the multiple layers and meanings of territoriality in this desert borderland. Throughout the decades, a heightened awareness of the existence of distinctive Egyptian and Ottoman Libyan territorial spheres began to develop despite any clear-cut boundary markers or cartographic evidence. National territoriality was not simply imposed on Egypt's western-or Ottoman Libya's eastern-domains by centralizing state power. Rather, it developed only through a complex and multilayered process of negotiation with local groups motivated by their own local conceptions of space, sovereignty, and political belonging. By the early twentieth century, distinctive ""Egyptian"" and ""Libyan"" territorial domains emerged-what would ultimately become the modern nation-states of Egypt and Libya."

Full Product Details

Author:   Matthew H. Ellis
Publisher:   Stanford University Press
Imprint:   Stanford University Press
ISBN:  

9781503605008

ISBN 10:   1503605000
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   20 March 2018
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Rethinking Territorial Egypt chapter abstractThe Introduction lays out the book's central argument about territoriality. I argue that Egypt constitutes an important case study given that it assumed more territorial definition as a modern nation-state in the late nineteenth century despite the absence of demarcated borders or clear-cut cartographic evidence. I seek to challenge prevailing historiography on territoriality that emphasizes the salience of border treaties and authoritative representational practices such as mapping, by showing instead the range of mechanisms that undergirded the projection of centralized territoriality in the nineteenth century. This argument has implications well beyond Egypt: territoriality as practiced—which we can glimpse by uncovering the lived experience of territoriality across the variegated domains of state space—was always a multilayered process of negotiation between an array of state and nonstate actors. 1Legal Exceptionalism in Egypt's Borderlands chapter abstractThis chapter opens with a brief overview of the historical geography of the Egyptian West, highlighting the diversity within the region's human and physical landscapes. It then moves on to illustrate the uneven political geography of the Egyptian nation-state in the late nineteenth century by highlighting two salient themes: the persistence of legal exceptionalism in the western oases and other desert territories, even after Egypt's state-wide judicial reforms starting in the 1870s; and the state's fraught efforts to standardize its policy vis-à-vis Egypt's bedouin population around the country. Both these themes illustrate the emergence of Egypt's borderlands as enclaves of exceptionalism within the emergent Egyptian nation-state. Accordingly, the chapter questions prevailing notions of territorial sovereignty in the nineteenth century and argues against normative Euro-centric top-down frameworks for understanding the process of state-building in the period. 2Accommodating Egyptian Sovereignty in Siwa chapter abstractThis chapter takes us to Siwa—the westernmost oasis in Egypt, which acquired an almost mythic status as Egypt's final frontier during the nineteenth century. The chapter zooms in on the Siwan political scene in the 1890s, when the Egyptian state intensified its efforts to unify its ruling authority across its various territorial domains. In contrast to the normative accounts of state centralization and local resistance, the chapter explores how a variety of local, nonstate actors—the Sanusiyya, foremost among them—played a crucial mediating role in the Egyptian government's effort to exercise sovereignty over Siwa in this critical decade. The chapter illustrates this dynamic by focusing on the local negotiations of power between state and nonstate actors in Siwa that resulted in the formalization of the traditional Siwan elite's customary authority. 3'Abbas Hilmi II and the Anatomy of a Siwan Murder chapter abstractThis chapter advances the book's argument about territoriality by examining the layers of contested sovereignty in Siwa after the Khedive 'Abbas Hilmi's historic visit to the oasis in 1906. In part through his Da'ira Khassa (the administration of the Khedivial properties), the Khedive mobilized a network of political operatives to serve his own political designs and project his sovereign authority and legitimacy far and wide. In Siwa, this took the form of buying up local property, building a grand new mosque, and providing employment for the Siwan population at large. The Khedive also successfully integrated his private network into the traditional hierarchy of local shaykhs in the oasis. This allowed him to garner sovereignty legitimacy where the colonial Egyptian government failed—a development that is thrown into relief with my careful reconstruction of a little-known Siwan murder case in 1909. 4Cultivating Territorial Sovereignty in the Western Desert chapter abstractChapter 4 explores the relationship between territoriality and economic development in late-nineteenth-century Egypt. It argues that this period witnessed a raft of projects aimed at what, in the French colonial context, was called mise en valeur—the reclamation of barren, unprofitable land. After surveying a number of such projects undertaken under the auspices of the Egyptian government, the chapter then turns its attention to the Khedive's own grand development schemes in the Egyptian West. Foremost among these was the Maryut Railway, which he intended to run from the outskirts of Alexandria all the way to the Libyan border. The Maryut Railway functioned as one of several projects through which the Khedive sought to transform the Egyptian West into a more personalized realm of territorial sovereignty. In this regard, the Khedive strove to outdo the British Residency at its own logic of ""economism"" as a doctrine of ruling legitimacy. 5The Limits of Ottoman Sovereignty in the Eastern Sahara chapter abstractThis chapter documents the emergence of the Eastern Sahara as a contested borderland zone, marked by a nascent political rivalry between the Ottoman state and the ""autonomous province"" of Egypt. The view from the borderland allows us to glimpse fundamental limitations in the Ottoman exercise of sovereignty in the Eastern Sahara, particularly as Egypt acted increasingly as an independent centralizing state in its own right. Through its analysis of bedouin mobility across the invisible Egyptian-Libyan border, the chapter demonstrates that the tribes stood to gain a great deal by negotiating the onset of state power, alternately claiming or ignoring the existence of a border depending on their particular needs and interests at a given moment. Territorialization in the Eastern Sahara was thus a direct consequence of bedouin spatial practices, which threw into relief the vacuum in state authority at this marginal space between Ottoman Libyan and Egyptian sovereignty. 6The Emergence of Egypt's Western Border Conflict chapter abstractThis chapter documents the emergence of a bona fide ""border crisis"" in the Eastern Sahara in the decade prior to the Italian occupation of Ottoman Libya. Through a nuanced investigation of a range of primary sources, the chapter illustrates the interactive and multilayered process through which a sharper sense of borderland territorialization—a sense of there being distinctive Libyan and Ottoman territorial spheres—emerged in these pivotal years. Bedouin spatial practices were again central, drawing the Ottoman and Egyptian states deeper into political-diplomatic rivalry, while the Italian state seized upon the instability caused by the bedouin unrest to stake its own territorial claims. In this decade of heated inter-imperial rivalry and contestation, Egyptian sovereign capabilities emerged as ascendant in the region, to the deep chagrin of local Ottoman officials. Conclusion: Unsettling the Egyptian-Libyan Border chapter abstractThe conclusion uses a variety of archival materials to document the fraught diplomatic negotiations that took place between the Italian and Egyptian governments from the end of World War I until 1925–26, when a border delimitation agreement was finally signed. At the same time, however, the chapter illustrates the limitations of this agreement—how it actually left much unsettled in the borderland in terms of national citizenship and belonging. The book ends with a meditation on how the mechanisms of territorial nation-statehood still seem elusive in this region, which again wrestles with the mobility of the local population as a destabilizing force."

Reviews

Desert Borderland is an engaging and original work that highlights the role of local figures and their experiences in the making of modern Egypt and Libya. With meticulous research and a rich source base in multiple languages, Matthew Ellis challenges readers to consider if there is such a thing as a normative path to state-building. -- Janet Klein * University of Akron, author of <i>The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone</i> * Desert Borderland offers a compelling challenge to conventional wisdom. Matthew Ellis complicates common understandings of the Egyptian nation-state to show how territoriality and sovereignty are the result of accommodation and contestation among multiple players. His work will be essential to future debates in geography, the history of law, colonial history, and late Ottoman and modern Egyptian history. -- Khaled Fahmy * University of Cambridge, author of <i>Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt</i> *

Desert Borderland is an engaging and original work that highlights the role of local figures and their experiences in the making of modern Egypt and Libya. With meticulous research and a rich source base in multiple languages, Matthew Ellis challenges readers to consider if there is such a thing as a normative path to state-building. -- Janet Klein * University of Akron, author of <i>The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone</i> * Desert Borderland offers a compelling challenge to conventional wisdom. Matthew Ellis complicates common understandings of the Egyptian nation-state to show how territoriality and sovereignty are the result of accommodation and contestation among multiple players. His work will be essential to future debates in geography, the history of law, colonial history, and late Ottoman and modern Egyptian history. -- Khaled Fahmy * University of Cambridge, author of <i>Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt</i> * [T]his important book fills a gap in borderland studies and in the study of the history of Egypt-not only for its perspective and conclusions but also because of the wealth of rare archival sources Ellis brings to light. -- M.C. Brose * <i>Choice</i> *

Author Information

Matthew H. Ellis is the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Chair in Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence College.

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