Doctoral Dissertation Research: Diaspora Investment and Cross-Border Trade

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This research supported by this award addresses the question: How do differences in types of border-crossings and cross-border relationships affect business strategies and economic opportunities? Political borders between nation-states are often barriers for the movement of people, but they also create spaces of opportunity for various economic activities. People may strategically utilize borders to take advantage of factors such as different tax rates, labor costs, and employment prospects. However, international borders do not all function in the same way. Some, such as borders within the European Union, promote cross-border flow. Others, such as the U.S.-Mexico border, reinforce divisions. Emory University doctoral student Daniel K. Thompson, supervised by Dr. Peter D. Little, will address the question of the effects of this variaibility in a regional economy where global migration and finance circuits intersect with local cross-border flows. Combining in-depth interviews with business statistics, the results from this project will inform social scientists and policymakers about the impacts of transnational investment in regions characterized by both poverty and transnational interconnectivity. Through collaboration with students and researchers at Jigjiga University, the project will also help build research capacity at a new university.The research will be conducted in Jigjiga, a key trading town in eastern Ethiopia near the Ethiopia-Somalia border that historically has provided a transit point for trade between Ethiopia's highlands and the coast of Somalia. In the past decade, Jigjiga has become a site for a new type of international business as hundreds of ethnic Somalis from the diaspora, especially from Europe and North America, have returned and started businesses in town. The researcher will compare business strategies, competition, and opportunity among three groups of business people: (1) town-based retailers; (2) merchants who specialize in cross-border commerce with Somalia and have longstanding cross-border relationships; and (3) returned diaspora investors, whose ties extend far beyond the region. Data will be collected through participant observation, informant mapping tasks, in-depth interviews with 90 business owners and managers from the three groups, and a social and business network survey to map out their local, regional, and transnational financial and social networks. These data will allow comparisons among the three groups to determine how they impact the regional economy and economic opportunities, and how extensive circuits of trade and finance are grounded in the borderlands city.