ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a number of overlapping, supplementary and conflicting formal and informal, local, international norms that inform the transfer of money from immigrants to family, local communities or local businesses in the south. It focuses on how, in the aftermath of September 11, the broadening and elusive notion of security in international and national laws and policies impacted on Somali remittance companies and Somali diaspora communities trying to fulfill their financial and family obligations. The chapter discusses the regulatory process of hawala-based remittance transfers that was initiated after September 11 and the experiences of the Somali hawala companies in the formalizing process. Hawala is indigenous and has been practised by Somali pastoral nomads for centuries, previously known as an abbaan. Abbaan is a security arrangement that guarantees the protected route of goods carried by camel convoys within and between the different clans and their territories, regardless of whether those respective clans are hostile to and among each other.
