Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Dossier

Vol. 27 No. 2 (2023): The fear of big numbers. Politics and politicisation of African demographic change

Looking for Political Demography: Population Excess, War and Migration in Somali Arenas of Socio-demographic Transitions

  • Luca Ciabarri
Submitted
November 21, 2024
Published
2024-12-10

Abstract

The article explores methodologies and perspectives for the construction of a non-deter
ministic political demography grounded on case-study analyses and on interdisciplinary 
collaboration, namely between demographers and anthropologists. It argues that a focus 
on transitions (demographic, mobility and socio-economic transitions) and on their inter
relations could provide a bridge between the disciplines. On the one hand, this means de
veloping context-specific analyses of life conjunctures, circumstantial social navigations, 
social becoming, with the goal of showing how specific demographic variables (fertility, 
reproductive choice, family seize) take shape within specific arenas of socio-demographic 
change. On the other hand, working between micro/macro perspectives and between disci
plines also implies, for anthropology and social sciences, an increase in scale and a specific 
contextualisation, one that focuses on structural transitions and interconnects their multiple 
dimensions. This analytical framework is tested in the study of the socio-demographic con
sequences of war, protracted conflict, and displacement in Somalia and its diasporas.