The Somali Studies International Association (SSIA) was founded in 1978 was founded in 1978. Since then, it has organized fourteen international scholarly congresses and helped promote several smaller regional meetings of Somali scholars on three continents. Over the past forty years, its members have written and commented on virtually all aspects of Somali life, including those events and forces of the past decades that drove the country into political chaos and civil war. While academic congresses were certainly not the only places where knowledge about Somalia was produced and disseminated, the Association’s work can serve as a useful barometer to measure the condition of Somali scholarship over the past four decades. Read More