One nation beyond frontiers

Abstract

This article explores the emerging transnational identity that the miskito people have been recently experiencing. The miskito are an indigenous group that used to share a common territory in an area that is now divided by the frontier between Honduras and Nicaragua. This region was divided, in 1957, when the frontier was identified with the river Coco or Wangki, in accordance with state interests. Given that context, the article has two objectives: Firstly, it seeks to understand the determination of the miskito people in maintaining their identity as such in spite of existing differences among them and the split of the population in two different nation-states. Secondly, it argues that the miskito transnational relationship that is emerging is being used as an strategy to consolidate its identity as ethnic group, which will have a consequent positive impact in their claims for land and natural resources towards the Honduran and Nicaraguan states.