Abstract
Mattheis, Raineri and Russo provide an empirical analysis of the Sahara and the Caucasus through the lens of fringe regionalism. They discuss how these regions have been framed and governed as buffer areas separating distinct regional organisations and regional security areas, and the emergence of competing narratives. They then focus on informal practices and exchanges in specific physical sites and portals within these borderlands, practices which perform connective functions across a region. The chapter demonstrates that the cross-border networks revolving around these connective sites progressively foster the emergence of new identities, and of new regional narratives connected to such identities.
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- 1.
This observation contributes to advancing an emerging line of research focused on security pluralism and non-state security providers (Menkhaus 2016; Price 2016). Unlike previous research, however, this thread emphasises the latter’s potential to foster regional integration and security beyond and across the jurisdictions of individual states.
- 2.
To the extent that the Sahara Desert and the Caucasus can be characterised as borderlands, the analysis of their security dynamics contributes to the literature analysing the same phenomena in different case studies, likewise framed as borderlands, in which nevertheless cross-border transnational practices thrive, such as Colombia’s forests (Idler 2013), Myanmar’s heights (Scott 2009), Kyrgyzstan’s valleys (Kaminski and Mitra 2012), and the so-called Af-Pak borderlands (in particular in Rabasa et al. 2007).
- 3.
Tellingly, the specific word adopted by Herodotus to define the concept of “civilised world” is Oecumene, whereas the desert is precisely an an-oecumene. Herodotus’s view recalls Turner’s classical triumphal definition of the “hither edge of free land”, which he attributed to the American western frontier (Turner 1921).
- 4.
At the same time, however, some notable exceptions have surfaced in both the policy and academic worlds to stress the opposite view, that is, the idea that that the Sahara should be seen as a connector. These include: Théodore Monod, the Founder of the French Institute of Black Africa (in spite of the name given to the institution), Joseph Ki-Zerbo, the Burkinabe scholar who edited UNESCO’s General History of Africa and, more recently, William Zartman and Fernand Braudel (Lydon 2015). In addition, the dominant streams of Pan-African ideology advocate for Africa to be seen as a continental unit in the political sense (Van Walraven 1999).
- 5.
However, for over 30 years the exclusion of Morocco from its scope was due precisely to “Saharan” issues, i.e. the unresolved issue of the Western Sahara. Furthermore, just like other organisations with a larger number of members, such as the G77 group at the United Nations, most members of the AU are non-Saharan countries.
- 6.
This refers to the conflict erupted since late 2011–2012 among various non-state armed actors featuring different affiliations (religious, political, ethnic, nationalist) contending the sovereignty of the north and centre of Mali to the internationally recognised government in Bamako.
- 7.
Interview with Malian intelligence officer in Bamako, October 2014.
- 8.
Interview with a former general of the Malian Armed Forces in Bamako, November 2013.
- 9.
- 10.
Interview with AU military advisor in Bamako, November 2015.
- 11.
Likewise, Marshall’s reconstruction has reassessed and rescaled the visions of Caucasian unity, reportedly ascribable to the activity of the diaspora communities often supported by external actors (Britain, Poland, Turkey, Germany…). “Following the expulsion of their respective governments from the Caucasus by Soviet power, the various representatives of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus achieved a brief unity ironically altogether lacking earlier” (Marshall 2010: 217), by signing in Paris, in June 1921 a memorandum of understanding, declaring the need for a close “brotherly” union amongst all of them. Caucasian émigrés then established their own formal political organisations (1924), such as the Prague-based “Union of Caucasian Mountaineers” and the Istanbul-based “Caucasian Independence Committee” (which eventually shifted its base of operations to Paris in 1926). Caucasian diaspora communities regrouped in 1926 in Warsaw, where the “People’s Party of Caucasus Mountaineers” was set up. However, in 1927 a Georgian representative called for German support in the creation a unified Caucasus federation with its main political centre in Tbilisi, renovating a traditional rivalry within the Caucasian diaspora that had repeatedly threatened the fragile illusion of unity.
- 12.
On the occasion of a meeting in the framework of the Council of Europe, held in Strasbourg.
- 13.
These countries’ initials form the acronym that gives its name to their coalition. As a matter of fact, with Uzbekistan joining GUAM in 1999, the initiative became GUUAM; nevertheless, the brief period of Uzbek participation lasted only few years, as Uzbekistan firstly decided to suspend its membership three years later and then withdrew in May 2005, following the controversial events that occurred in Andijan. Similarly, the Community of Democratic Choice was established in 2005 and its founding members include Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Azerbaijan has observer status.
- 14.
A non-exhaustive list includes: Support to Integrated Border Management Systems in the South Caucasus; South Caucasus Anti-Drug Programme; Development/Strengthening of Comprehensive Anti-Trafficking Responses in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia; Strengthening Protection Capacity Project in the Southern Caucasus – Developing a Regional Protection Response in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia; Fostering Community Forest Policy and Practice in Mountain Regions of the Caucasus; Sustainable Land Management for Mitigating Land Degradation and Reducing Poverty in the South Caucasus Region; Trans-Boundary River Management for the Kura River; Caucasus Cultural Initiatives Network; The South Caucasus Mediation & Dialogue Initiative for Reignited Peace Processes (see Russo 2015).
- 15.
As part of the process of borderisation occurring at the administrative border between Georgia and South Ossetia, Russian border guards have been deployed and fences and barbed wire have been installed along the line. Borderisation is leading to the segregation of South Ossetia and the creation of a frontier inside Georgia. Georgian criminologist Alexandre Kukhianidze reported that, before borderisation escalated, both Georgian authorities and separatist leaders allowed the border to remain open for smuggling and the movement of criminal groups from one side of the conflict zone to the other. On one hand, Georgian authorities declared that they could not establish Border Guard and Customs Service checkpoints on the Inguri River and Roki tunnel because secessionists would immediately interpret it as an attempt to establish a new border. On the other hand, de facto governments in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali were not able to control their territories and prevent the various (Abkhaz and Georgian) crime groups from engaging in their activities (Kukhianidze 2004: 90). However, the advancement of the borderisation process does not seem to be preventing the seal of the “Administrative Boundary Line” (Author’s visit to the EUMM Field Office Mtskheta, July 2016).
- 16.
They have all been engaged in mimicking the activities of national governments, being involved in “para-diplomatic activities”, dispatching representatives abroad and trying to develop their status in the international context by means of collective legitimation. Abkhazia and South Ossetia applied for membership in CIS and CSTO , as was declared in September 2008 during a joint press conference in Moscow by Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity, the Abkhazian and South Ossetian representatives, respectively.
- 17.
Similarly, during the Nineties Abkhazia established relations with two other unrecognised states: Serbian Krajina in Croatia and the Respublika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
- 18.
These events were allegedly supported by Russia and can be interpreted as a reaction to the creation of GUAM by the parent-states of the de-facto states http://uaforeignaffairs.com/ua/blog/usi-blogi/view/article/is-it-foreign-policy-of-the-unrecognized-states/#sthash.8h56wOPC.dpuf. See also Kosienkowski 2012: 50.
- 19.
- 20.
Chechnya’s President Ramzan Kadyrov and the leaders of the other North Caucasus republics immediately voiced their support for the decision to recognise Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence while welcoming their refugees. Furthermore, in August 2008, a Chechen battalion (the Yamadaev-led “Vostok”) participated in the operations in South Ossetia. See Merlin 2011; Zakareishvili 2011.
- 21.
The work of Cosgrove (2007) has popularised the heuristic productivity of insiders’ and outsiders’ perspectives in the field human geography. Interestingly, they had been already employed in security studies with a view to identifying security practices, especially in the context of another so-called “ungoverned space”, such as Somalia (Menkhaus 2006).
- 22.
While part of discussion that follows is based on evidence collected during different rounds of fieldwork in Mali and Niger between 2013 and 2015, we are particularly indebted to the seminal work carried out by Judith Scheele in and about In-Khalil.
- 23.
Interview with north Mali’s resident and security consultant, Bamako, October 2014.
- 24.
Although on these matters, whose intelligibility is by definition obscure, empirical evidence going beyond gossips is hard to collect, many interesting reports citing credible sources have been published. See namely: Briscoe 2014; Lacher 2012; Lebovich 2013; Musilli and Smith 2013; Raineri and Strazzari 2015; Scheele 2009, 2011 and 2012; Shaw and Tinti 2014; UNODC 2011.
- 25.
Interview with Malian police, Bamako, December 2013; and with officer of Mali’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, October 2014. In the most recent years, though, these flows might have changed due to Algeria’s enhanced border controls and to prevailing insecurity in the north of Mali.
- 26.
Interviews with drug experts from Gao and Timbuktu, conducted in Bamako, November 2014.
- 27.
Information confirmed in the framework of interviews with former combatants and UN security experts, conducted in Bamako in November 2014.
- 28.
Interview with Malian criminal prosecutor, conducted in Bamako in November 2014. According to judicial sources François Compaoré, brother of the fallen dictator Blaise Compaoré, was particularly active in the organisation of the cigarette smuggling across the Sahel.
- 29.
Informal practices of mobility have shaped and are shaping regional landscapes paving the way to “the bottom-up and everyday emergence of new orders in the fields of economy, morale, urban development and migration”, as highlighted by The Marshrutka Project (http://marshrutka.net, retrieved on 15 June 2018). The latter indeed is exactly studying how the use of minibuses, locally known as marshrutkas, contributes to the production of post-Soviet social and spatial configurations.
- 30.
Author’s visit to the EUMM Field Office Mtskheta (July 2016); see also The EUMM Monitor: A bulletin from the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia, Issue 2 – August 2016 that reports: “[d]espite obstacles, grassroots contacts between Georgians and Abkhaz are increasing. Each day, up to several thousand commuters cross the Enguri River, many to conduct suitcase trade in Abkhazia of commodities and agricultural goods, but also pharmaceuticals and medical equipment”.
- 31.
Author’s conversation with one of the project organisers, Marina Meshvildishvili (Tbilisi, July 2016).
- 32.
Interview with intelligence officer from the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), conducted in Bamako, November 2014.
- 33.
For example, Zayats (2001, quoted from Radvanyi and Muduyev 2007: 158) has observed that “thirteen of the eighteen separatist wars in the contemporary world are localised in mountain areas,” arguing that the predisposition to separatist violence can be explained on the basis of the geographic characteristics specific to these areas. Geographic determinism has become popular among Russian geographers and ethnographers in the wake of the work of Lev Gumilev.
- 34.
The Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic then existed between 1921 and 1924.
- 35.
According to Jones (2000), cultural paradigms explain the role of national identity, traditional values and political culture in Georgia’s foreign policy making.
- 36.
While some of these “Caucasian endeavors” remained inconsistent, contradictory and still “autochthonous” (i.e. in June 1997 Zurab Zhvania proposed an “Interparliamentary Assembly of the Caucasus”), others were promoted or initiated by non-Caucasian actors: early in 1999, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov proposed that a “Forum on the Caucasus” be convened, while in June 1999 a Caucasian Summit was held in Luxembourg under the aegis of the EU.
- 37.
Giorgi Khutsishvili has supported the idea of unification of the three states (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) and the three conflicting territories (Abkhazia, Tskhinvali and Karabakh) granting the latter a special status. Following Khutsishvili’s vision, the Teqali Peace Center has been created in the province of Kvemo-Kartli, at the intersection of the borders among Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. The idea has been firstly discussed in Yerevan in February 2010 on the occasion of a meeting among civil society organisations entitled “South Caucasian Integration: Alternative Start”; the Tekali process premises on the commitment to actively involve frontline residents in the conflict transformation initiatives, among which there are public hearings – sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy and implemented by the Armenian non-governmental organisations (NGO) Caucasian Center for Peace building Initiatives. Quite differently, Abkhazian historian and politician, Viacheslav Chirikba has suggested that the formation of common state by Georgia, the North Caucasian Republics of the Russian Federation, the federated Republic of Abkhazia-Apsny, South Ossetia and the Adjarian Republic should have been brought together in the framework of the pan-Caucasian union (Russo 2015).
- 38.
Interviews with a former member of different State Commissions and Georgian experts (Tbilisi, May 2013).
- 39.
Interviews with a Georgian expert and a former Georgian Minister (Tbilisi, May–June 2013).
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Mattheis, F., Raineri, L., Russo, A. (2019). The Practice of Fringe Regionalism: Evidence from the Caucasus and the Sahara. In: Fringe Regionalism. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97409-5_3
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