ABSTRACT

This chapter develops from concrete social situations, from events where different people are interacting and where dynamic processes may be observed. Specifically, the chapter analyses three Somali socio-cultural festivals: the Moving Library Tour; the Hargeysa International Book Fair; and the Somali Week Festival in London. These gatherings constitute a platform of interaction where different viewpoints and voices coming from a plurality of actors get articulated. I argue that performances staged by those who participate in these events, both as performers and audience, are melded in a way that reconfigures a sense of collectivity crucial to understand the process of a national identity construction. This latest is defined within a transnational arena in a way that the Somaliland nation is organising itself around transnational networks.