How can you research and analyse one of Africa's most mysterious and secluded rebel groups in Africa? In Conflict at the Edge of the African State. The ADF Rebel Group in the Congo-Uganda Borderland, Lindsay Scorgie answers this question using a conceptual framework rarely used for the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF): the borderland. She addresses the social, political and economic environment where the ADF operates, namely the region between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her study challenges myths and assumptions surrounding African borderlands, particularly those affected by violence and conflict. Deploying a border studies approach to the topic, Scorgie offers a comprehensive and quite detailed picture of the ADF, one of the oldest rebel groups still active in the region, that never really stopped its activity, despite being one that attracted very little attention, probably because of its secretive nature and remote location.

As Scorgie explains in chapter one, the ‘book argues that the Rwenzori borderland of western Uganda and eastern Congo is profoundly anti-state in character and networked/liminal in nature’ and her research ‘discovered that not only were the ADF pivotally shaped by their critical interaction with the surrounding borderland, but that they used their embedded position to strategically take advantage of the resources “on offer” from the borderland’ (p. 12). Hence, together with the ADF, the borderland is the co-protagonist of this book, a space with specific characteristics, too often neglected by scholars that prefer to focus on the State or the international networks at work in conflict areas. Over the years, most of the works on the ADF activity have focused on and explained the violence using mainly three explanations: ‘(1) proxy warfare, (2) spill-over violence from the Congo and (3) most profoundly, Islamist terrorism’. Lindsay Scorgie's choice, on the other hand, is to zoom in and study the environment where the rebel group originates and still acts. In so doing, she analyses how the history of the region intersects with the history of the group, explaining how simplistic analysis in some way helped not only the ADF to act for quite a few decades, but also Uganda and Congo to use the conflict's narrative to implement their policies at the ‘peripheries’. Based on her Ph.D. dissertation, the book uses a wide range of sources, mainly primary material (~125 interviews), media articles and academic works on border studies, compensating for the very little literature published on the ADF history and composition. Scorgie provides a thorough account of the topic, offering a solid analysis of the last three decades of the borderland's history, and the variety of actors and factions involved in one of the oldest and tangled conflicts of the continent. The book is not only well documented, offering an alternative and convincing argument, but it is also well written and enjoyable to read, a quality not often present in academic works – particularly those based on doctoral theses.

The book skilfully highlights the divide between rhetoric and reality and how it is essential to move ‘beyond a state-centric framework in order to fully understand borderland conflicts’ (p. 239). Before entering into the details of the ADF historical background and the various phases of its activity, in the first three chapters, the author explains how a borderland analysis could help make sense of the ability of the ADF to survive and even thrive. After an accessible introductory chapter on the argument and outline of the book, the author moves to a particularly engaging second chapter where she forcefully explains how the borderland is the most convincing and valuable conceptual framework to understand the conflict in its historical and contemporary dimensions. The book is a brilliant contribution not only to Ugandan and Congolese studies, but also to border studies, whilst revealing how a particular case study that introduces other elements can make better sense of conflict situations.

In conclusion, Conflict at the Edge of the African State. The ADF Rebel Group in the Congo-Uganda Borderland is one of the few wide-ranging, comprehensive works on the topic. It has very few faults, the main one being the lack of a map (or better, a few of them) that would help the reader to understand and visualise the region and its geographical characters fully. Nevertheless, Lindsay Scorgie is very good at accompanying the reader through the intricacies and secretive elements of the ADF and the borderland. This makes the book very accessible and worthy of wide scholarly attention across a number of sub-fields.