Intimacy and morality in Hargeisa, Somaliland Caroline Ackley University College London Department of Anthropology Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2017 1 DECLARATION I, Caroline Ackley confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT In this thesis, I argue that the life course is an entanglement of moralities, time, and selves. Through analysis of women’s intimate relationships, I suggest that life course transformation is a complex process where the self is simultaneously being formed and being dissolved. More specifically, I explore women’s conscious deliberations into what it means to live an ethical life according to values that shift and evolve over time. Time in the life course may be experienced with a sense of forward motion, yet life is comprised of multiple, overlapping moments and is infinite in its nature. Women live the life of this world in order to enjoy the life of the other world; a life understood as one’s destiny and one that is infinite with the potential to do more, be more, and have more than the present moment. Ultimately this is a thesis that describes the complex substances of daily life. 3 IMPACT STATEMENT This thesis aims to make contributions to the discipline of anthropology, to area studies focusing on the Horn of Africa, and to public health policy and practice. It problematizes common representations and moral evaluations of Muslims, Somalis, and women by relying on Somali women’s descriptions of their intimate relationships. Within the discipline of anthropology this thesis contributes to an existing body of work in the anthropology of Islam, anthropology of the body, postcolonial theory, life course development, and an anthropology of ethics and morality. It does so by (1) exploring women’s everyday intimate relationships to illuminate the complex nature of life and the life course, while providing a counter narrative to the ‘flattening out’ of Somali women; (2) reconfiguring life course models to include a theory of entanglement. This includes (a) building on Achille Mbembe’s (1992, 2001) theory of entanglement by revealing a simultaneity of moralities, time, and selves, and recontextualizing entanglement in everyday experiences; (b) analysing how women negotiate sometimes competing moralities and values; and (c) extending temporality in the life course to include the life of the other world. Next, this thesis contributes to the discipline of anthropology by (3) proposing an introductory theory of destiny as a ‘middle ground’ by focusing on everyday experiences of belief in God’s omnipotence and ‘working’ on destiny; and finally by (4) identifying the emergence of a ‘new morality’ being forged by young, urban women. This ‘new morality’ reflects their conceptions of what it means to be modern, and illuminates a counter-narrative to pervading discourse on Islam and women in Somalia/Somaliland. This thesis contributes to a growing scholarship on gendered experiences in the Horn of Africa, namely Somaliland. It draws on observations of everyday life in the family, on the bus, at the market, during cooking, in worship, at rites of passage like marriages, and the everyday conversations I had with women. This focus illuminates the intimacies of women’s daily lives and presents a counter-narrative to the ‘flattening out’ of the complexity of women’s lives. It shows that the simplistic narrative often told about Somali women in the media and present in public discourse fails to reveal that women are many things, at many times; they are not just passive victims or agentive rebels. Within public health policy and practice this thesis contributes to approaches of addressing discourse around gender and body modification. The medium of ethnography here serves to contextualise the experiences of Somali women so that iNGOs, which sometimes influence public health practice, can have a cultural ‘blueprint’. Additionally this thesis illuminates the complexities of body modification, including female genital cutting, and the influences and constraints women have when working on their bodies. In presenting the moral deliberations women undergo when it comes to extreme forms of body modification this thesis aims to guide more nuanced understanding and approaches to public health practice. 4 For my mom 5 Contents List of illustrations .................................................................................................................... 9 A note on language ................................................................................................................ 10 Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 11 Clothing Index ........................................................................................................................ 13 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 18 Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 21 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 25 1.2 Life course development.................................................................................................. 28 1.3 Destiny ............................................................................................................................. 38 1.4 Ethics and morality .......................................................................................................... 44 1.5 A theory of change ........................................................................................................... 44 1.6 Entanglement updated .................................................................................................... 54 1.7 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 2: Somaliland and the anthropological imagination .............................................. 59 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 59 2.2 Why Somaliland? ............................................................................................................. 59 2.3 Pastoral Somalia ............................................................................................................... 59 2.4 Colonial clash ................................................................................................................... 61 2.5 Legacy of the Barre regime .............................................................................................. 68 2.6 Islamic revival movements ............................................................................................... 71 2.7 ‘Modern-ness’ .................................................................................................................. 74 Chapter 3: Method ................................................................................................................ 80 3.1 Field and method ............................................................................................................. 80 3.2 Note on this thesis’ use of Quranic text........................................................................... 94 3.3 On ethics and friendship .................................................................................................. 95 3.4 A note on language and access ........................................................................................ 96 3.5 A note on harassment ...................................................................................................... 98 Chapter 4: The intimate relationship women have with their bodies .............................. 104 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 107 4.2 Body work and discipline ............................................................................................... 108 6 4.3 The ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ ......................................................................................... 118 4.4 Double consciousness and objectification as first person and third person perspectives ............................................................................................................................................. 123 4.5 Fantasy and fetishization ............................................................................................... 126 4.6 Discipline ........................................................................................................................ 129 4.7 Virtue and freedom ........................................................................................................ 134 4.8 Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 138 Chapter 5: Intimate sisterhood ........................................................................................... 142 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 144 5.2