Across the Horn of Africa, shifting political centres, digital infrastructures, urban governance, historical state formations, and gendered forms of authority are reshaping how power is organised and contested. XCEPT’s 2026 research in the Horn of Africa brings together five studies that examine these dynamics across Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Somaliland.
The projects explore how historical legacies, new economic and geopolitical hubs, digital innovation, emerging urban centres, and women’s grassroots leadership are transforming political order across the region.
The projects
Historical and contemporary centers of power in Sudan
A study examining how historical state formation and shifting centres of authority in the greater Nile Valley help explain contemporary and future patterns of fragmentation.
Shifting centres & geopolitical futures of the Horn’s subnationalisms
Research on how emerging hubs such as Semera, Port Sudan, and Berbera are transforming political authority, investment dynamics, and centre–periphery relations.
Contested digital sovereignty in Sudan and Somali Horn of Africa
An examination of how digital innovation hubs and connective infrastructure shape state capacity and political contestation in fragmented contexts.
Beyond state fragmentation: How emerging urban centres are reshaping political order in Somalia
A study analysing how cities such as Garowe, Baidoa, Las Anod, and Kismayo act as quasi‑sovereign authorities through control over mobility, verification, and extraction.
Embodied Knowledge and Feminist Agency in a South Sudan borderland
Research examining how the Kabarze movement of older Murle women in Greater Pibor challenges invisibility in conflict‑affected borderlands and asserts culturally grounded moral authority.