Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown: An Ethnography of Uncertainty in Migration 3031278208, 9783031278204

Table of contents :
Preface
Names, Places, Transliterations and Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
1: Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration
History/ies of Migration
Colonialism and Beyond
En Route: Flows of Information, Hope and Temporality
Ethnographic Footsteps
Moving Boundaries: Ethical Considerations
The Journey into the Unknown
References
2: A History of Lives on the Move
Snapshots: Histories of Migration- and Refugee Studies
Emic Notions of Movement: Nomads, Camels and Coping Strategies
Suudaal: Searching for Personal Security
Taber: He Who Passed the Red Sea
Tahriib: In the Footsteps of Generations
Tahriib in the Young Generation
Zeynab
Salaado
References
Internet Sources
3: ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death
With Age Comes Wisdom
Investments in the Future
Responsibilities of Adulthood
Where Are You From?: Hierarchies of Clan
Déclassement: Moving in the Wrong Direction
Girls in the House
Freedom: Opportunities, Independence and Adventure
Transnational Marriage
‘Social death’ Revisited
References
Internet Sources
4: Walking the Road of Hope
Hope and Migration Literature
Social Hopes: Collective Dreams and Beliefs
Local Distributions of Hope: From Education to Tahriib
Practising Tahriib at Home
‘I want to become like Obama’
Bends and Dead Ends Along the Road
Practising Hope Between Reality and Fantasy
References
Internet Sources
5: Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain
Kutiri Kuteen [Hearsay]
Goodbye Hargeisa
Untold Stories
Unpredictable Risks
Women, Tahriib and the Search for Information
The Search for a Similar Face
Trust, Secrecy and the Unequal Distribution of Information
(Mis)Trusting in Unknown Terrain
References
6: Tempo(S) of Time En Route
Engaging Time in the Right Way
The ‘time work’ of Leisure
‘We live together, we die together’: Wasting Precious Time
Changing Tempos: Getting Stuck and Moving Fast
Negotiating the Future
References
7: Biometric Ambiguities
(Un)Certainty of Biometric Technologies
The Day of Judgement
Securing Survival in the Land of No Life
Securing a Future
References
Websites
8: Making Home
Emplacement: New Opportunities and Existential Life-Making
Returning Home
When Home Is Where the Heart Is
‘In-between’: The Search for a Place to Make Home
Qurbajoog: Ascriptions of Success
The Ultimate Homecoming
References
Internet Sources
9: Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties
References
Websites
Index

Citation preview

MIGRATION, DIASPORAS AND CITIZENSHIP

Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown An Ethnography of Uncertainty in Migration Anja Simonsen

Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship

Series Editors

Olga Jubany Department of Social Anthropology Universitat de Barcelona Barcelona, Spain Saskia Sassen Department of Sociology and Committee on Global Thought Columbia University New York, NY, USA

For over twenty years, the Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship series has contributed to cross-disciplinary empirical and theoretical debates on migration processes, serving as a critical forum for and problematising the main issues around the global movement and circulation of people. Grounded in both local and global accounts, the Series firstly focuses on the conceptualisation and dynamics of complex contemporary national and transnational drivers behind movements and forced displacements. Secondly, it explores the nexus of migration, diversity and identity, incorporating considerations of intersectionality, super-diversity, social polarization and identification processes to examine migration through the various intersections of racialized identities, ethnicity, class, gender, age, disability and other oppressions. Thirdly, the Series critically engages the emerging challenges presented by reconfigured borders and boundaries: state politicization of migration, sovereignty, security, transborder regulations, human trade and ecology, and other imperatives that transgress geopolitical territorial borders to raise dilemmas about contemporary movements and social drivers. Editorial Board Brenda Yeoh Saw Ai (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Fabio Perocco (Università Ca’Foscari Venezia, Italy) Rita Segato (Universidade de Brasília, Brazil) Carlos Vargas (University of Oxford, UK) Ajmal Hussain (University of Warwick, UK).

Anja Simonsen

Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown An Ethnography of Uncertainty in Migration

Anja Simonsen Department of Anthropology University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark

ISSN 2662-2602     ISSN 2662-2610 (electronic) Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ISBN 978-3-031-27820-4    ISBN 978-3-031-27821-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to all the women, children and men who venture out on hazardous journeys every single day, risking their lives while encountering increased border control and ever stricter rules for obtaining asylum.

Preface

This book is a result of a 13-year-long journey that began in 2010, as I worked with and conducted research among young Somalis born and raised in refugee camps in Ethiopia. In 2010, the world had not yet framed movement from the Global South as a ‘migration crisis’. Though borders were very much part of the landscape, they had not yet taken the spotlight in what Nicholas de Genova calls the ‘border spectacle’ that would soon arise. It was not until 2013, as I was conducting fieldwork for my PhD on youth migration by moving through Somaliland, Turkey and Greece, that the narratives of the ‘migration crisis’ started to surface. Politicians and journalists in a number of European countries began labelling migration flows from Africa, the Middle East and Asia as the ‘migration crises’, which called for various new political initiatives to be implemented. One was the so-called hotspot approach, which the EU implemented at five different locations in Italy and Greece in 2015. This approach enforced biometric registration of all refugees arriving in the two countries without regular documents in an attempt to put a stop to the continued flows of people into northern Europe. Along with the rest of the world, I witnessed how millions of Euros were invested in strengthening the southern borders of the EU. This was done through the implementation of biometric technologies like fingerprint registration and operations at sea like Triton, which had the double task of saving people at sea and securing the borders of the EU. vii

viii Preface

The material in this book builds on and is a result of my own journey throughout the past decade of following people on the move as well as the changing political structures surrounding them. While describing and discussing the political structures and initiatives that refugees encounter is part of the story of youth migration from the Global South, it does not answer the question of why young people from relatively stable or peaceful countries in Africa, Asia or the Middle East risk their lives on the dangerous irregular routes of migration. In this book, I seek to provide such answers not only by exploring the negative aspects of the uncertainty of migration but by also approaching uncertainty as a driver of hope and opportunity. Although certain historic and contemporary patterns of movement explored in the book may be specifically Somali, the hopes and dreams of youth and the innate uncertainties of migration and movement are human and global in nature. The personal and intimate details of the book make the reader join the complex and unpredictable movements of tahriib and capture the young Somalis’ own perspectives on and engagements with the uncertainties of lives en route. This is desperately needed in a world where migrants are usually given one of two roles: as helpless victims caught between unfair regimes and opportunistic smugglers, or as anonymous and unknown bodies, counted and listed in statistics whether dead or alive. Copenhagen, Denmark

Anja Simonsen

Names, Places, Transliterations and Illustrations

While the majority of places in the book are real, all the names of people presented in the book are pseudonyms. All the included pictures have been taken by me during my fieldwork, except for two that have been sent to me by people I encountered en route. For city names and Somali given names, I use the standard English spelling such as Hargeisa, Burao and Abdirahman (rather than Hargeysa, Burco and Cabdiraxmaan). When I make use of Somali words, I spell them in Somali such as hooyo [mother], aabo [father], xog (information), etc. Here, ‘x’ is equivalent to the Arabic letter ‫ ح‬and ‘c’ is equivalent to ‫ع‬.

ix

Acknowledgements

Gratitude! This is what I feel towards all the people who have worked with me through the process of conducting fieldwork, collecting and analysing data, and writing this book. The final result is a product of shortand longer-term collaborations, different academic project constellations, (inter)national colleagues and friendships. Without any one of you, this book would never have seen the light of day. Thank you! I also want to extend my gratitude to Det Frie Forskningsråd (FKK), the Velux Foundation and the Carlsberg Foundation for funding past and present projects. To all the young Somali women and men that I have met during my time in Ethiopia, Somaliland, Turkey, Greece, Italy and beyond: We have laughed and cried together, seen and done things we never thought we would; we have lost people that we knew and cared about along the way. It has been a tough and painful journey, but it has also been a rewarding one. I will be forever grateful for your warmth, hospitality and kindness. I am especially grateful to Hooyo and Aabo, their children and grandchildren. You opened your home and your family to me in Somaliland to an extent that I will never forget: getting up early to eat before sunrise during Ramadan, participating in family gatherings and everyday life, and never being left to the loneliness that new and strange places may hold. It all made a world of difference to me and provided me with an insight into xi

xii Acknowledgements

life in Somaliland across generations that I would never have achieved living elsewhere. I also owe immense gratitude to Mohamed, Ahmed, Dahir, Jama, Abdikarim, Sahal, Zayid, Abdifatah, Abdiqani, Ali, Hodan and Abdulfatah who helped me through setting up and conducting interviews, spending endless hours discussing tahriib, analysing my data and reading through my chapters. Thank you! Those of you who play a main role in the book: I have chosen to thank you by your pseudonyms to protect you and your individual life journeys: Abdirahman, Abdullahi, Nadifa, Ubah, Habaane, Taban, Aden, Feysal, Halaane, Subeer, Riyaan, Wiilka Nololsha, Ladan and many more—you are the true experts [xog-­ ogaal], and I hope this book provides a forum for you to speak, now and in the future. Ali, my taxi driver and go-to-guy in Somaliland. Thank you for always being there. MAHAD-NAQ: Waxa aan halkan uga mahad naqayaa guud ahaan shacabka Somaliland, haday tahay rag, dumar iyo qaybaha kala duwan ee bulshada. Gaar ahaan dhalinyaradii aan waqtiga kula qaatay safaradaydii Somaliland, Turkiga, Giriigga iyo meelo fara badan oo dunida dacaladeeda ahba. Waxa aan marna ii suurto gasheen inaan la’aantiin dhamaystiro buuggan. Waxaynu isla soo qaadanay waqtiyo farxad iyo murugo leh, waxaynu usoo wada joognay dhacdooyin lama filaan ah. Intii aan waday qoraalka buuggan waxaynu wayney asxaab qaali ahayd oo aynu wada jeclayn. Sidaas darteed waxaay ahayd waayo-aragnimo xanuun badan, laakiin hadana waxay ii ahayd mid aan ka bartay wax badan. Waxaan abaal aan go’ayn idiin ka hayn doonaa soo dhawayntii, kal-gacalkii iyo diiranaantii aad ii muujiseen. Waxa aan si gaar ah ugu mahad naqayaa Hooyo, Aabo, ubadkooda iyo ubadka ay dhaleenba. Waxa aan uga mahad ceelinaya sidii quruxda badnayd ee ay iigu martiqaadeen gurigooda intii aan joogay Somaliland. Waligay ma hilmaami doono sidii wanaagga iyo sharfta badnayd ee aynu aqalkiina ugu wada afuri jirnay waqtigii ramadaanka. Sidii aad qoys-ahaan ii soo dhowayseen iyo ka mid noqoshadii qoyskiina waxay iga badbaadisay cidladii iyo kelinimadii, waxayna iigu fadhiday waxtar wayn. Sidoo kale waxay ii ahayd fursad aan wax badan kaga bartay hab-­ nololeedka shacabka Somaliland, run ahaantii arintani la’aantiin marnaba iima suurtowdeen. Waxaan sidoo kale abaal iyo mahad-celin wayn u hayaa Mohamed, Ahmed, Dahir, Jama, Abdikarim, Sahal, Zayid,

 Acknowledgements 

xiii

Adifatah, Abdiqani, Ali, Hodan iyo Abdulfatah oo dhammaantood iga caawiyey in aan qaado waraysiyada ku jira buuggan. Waxaanu saacado badan ­munaaqashayn ka yeelanay tahriibka. Sidoo kale waxaanu isla falanqaynay macluumaadka ku qoran buuggan iyo weliba akhrinta cutubyo ka tirsan buugga. Waad mahadsantihiin dhammaantiin. Sidoo kale waxaan aniga oo aan shaacinayn magacyadooda runta ah u mahad celinayaa dadka qaarkiis ee ku jira buuggan. Waxaan doortay in aanan shaacin magacyadooda runta ah si aysan u soo gaarin waxyeelo nooc ay doontoba ha ahaatee. Abdirahman, Abdullahi, Nadifa, Ubah, Habaane, Taban, Aden, Feysal, Halaane, Subeer, Riyaan, Wiilka Nolosha, Ladan iyo dad intaa ka fara badan. Waxaad tihin xogogalaadii garabkayga taagnaa la’aantiina iima ay suurta gasheen daabacaada buugani. Mahadsanidin. Ugu dambayntii waxaan u mahadcelinayaa Cali oo ah tagsiile ka shaqeeya Somaliland igana caawiyey isu socdka meelkasta oo dalka gudihiisa ah intaaan ku sugnaa Somaliland.

Sahro and Abdirahman, thank you for facilitating my stay in Somaliland. Yusra Osman and Abdirisak Ali Omar, I am forever grateful for your contributions to my analysis. Going through chapters, specific Somali sayings or words with you have helped me to develop my insights and understanding. To my colleagues from the two previous projects I took part in—the Invisible Lives funded by FKK and the Biometric Border World funded by the Velux Foundation; to the two research groups that I have been part of over the last 10  years (the Migration and Society & the Culture, Mobility and Power researcher groups); to all my colleagues who have read single chapters and provided feedback; to Bjarke Oxlund, previous Head of Department of Anthropology, and Ayo Wahlberg, current Head of Department of Anthropology for your constant support in making this book come to life; to Karen Fog Olwig, Susan Reynolds Whyte and Henrik Vigh, who all read through and provided constructive feedback on the book in its entirety; and to Kirstine Varming, my copy-editor and dear friend, who spent endless days and nights on this book—thank you all for your explorative, insightful and supportive contributions. You are all great sources of inspiration for me, professionally as well as personally. To my family: Soheil, Ava and Elina—thank you for your endless support, encouragement and love.

Contents

1 Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration  1 2 A History of Lives on the Move 25 3 ‘If  I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 55 4 Walking the Road of Hope 85 5 Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain113 6 T  empo(S) of Time En Route139 7 B  iometric Ambiguities159 8 M  aking Home183 9 C  onclusion: Universal Uncertainties207 I ndex219 xv

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Family tree—(only the family members mentioned in the book are represented, all by pseudonym) 37 Fig. 3.1 Sabaayad [Somali flatbread] cooking in Hooyo and Aabo’s kitchen, Hargeisa, Summer of 2013 (photo by the author) 71 Fig. 4.1 Beach in Berbera, Somaliland, August 2013 (photo by the author)86 Fig. 4.2 Footprint in the sand, Berbera, Somaliland, August 2013 (photo by the author) 88 Fig. 5.1 Transit house, Greece, May 2014 (photo by the author) 125 Fig. 7.1 Abandoned building occupied by refugees and undocumented migrants, Italy, March 2018 (photo by the author) 171 Fig. 7.2 Abandoned building occupied by refugees and undocumented migrants, Italy, March 2018 (photo by the author) 172 Fig. 7.3 Abandoned building occupied by refugees and undocumented migrants, Italy, March 2018 (photo by the author) 173 Fig. 9.1 A boat used by migrants to cross the Mediterranean Sea confiscated by Italian authorities in Lampedusa, July 2022 (photo by the author) 212 Fig. 9.2 A boat used by men, women and children to reach Lampedusa without regular documents, Italy, July 2022 (photo by the author) 213

xvii

xviii 

List of Figures

Fig. 9.3 Pictures of Amran’s tent in a refugee camp in Cyprus (photos by Amran, spring 2021) Fig. 9.4 Pictures of Amran’s tent in a refugee camp in Cyprus (photos by Amran, spring 2021)

215 216

1 Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration

‘It does happen, but I’m prepared to die’. Gacal’s words made me hesitate for a moment. I did not know what to say to him. Here we were, in Hargeisa, sitting in his aunt’s café. She served us tea, and Gacal, a young university student in his early 20s, told me that he was willing to risk his life by venturing on tahriib, youth migration, a journey into unknown terrain. Gacal saw the unknown as an attractive alternative to the stasis he and his fellows experienced in Somaliland. While I hesitated, he continued, ‘There are three options: (1) I stay here, (2) I die in the middle and (3) I make it to the end’. Millions of thoughts and questions came up while listening to Gacal. Why would he, along with an increasing number of young Somali women and men, want to leave his country in times of peace? Why leave at a time when millions of Euros were being invested in border controls and biometric technologies, like fingerprint registration and iris scans, to keep migrants out of Europe? Why were the young people willing to risk their lives? Gacal reasoned: ‘Everybody in the world will die one day. If I die, I die; if I succeed, I succeed, but mostly I wish that I succeed’. As a young university student, one would think that Gacal had every opportunity to succeed and secure a future in Somaliland. But he felt that staying in Somaliland would make him unable to achieve any of the goals he had set © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_1

1

2 

A. Simonsen

for himself. Therefore, he found his answers in exploring the uncertain experience of tahriib. The uncertainty of the journey produced the hope of succeeding and making it to the end. In this book, I seek to capture the complex questions and intimate details of the lives of young Somalis as they venture out on hazardous and dangerous journeys because life at home is considered unbearable. They are searching for opportunities to create a better livelihood for themselves and their families by getting access to education, jobs and networks that are unavailable to them at home. An important aspect of these livelihoods is also the dream of social mobility and of contributing to and caring for the extended family networks left behind in Somalia. Finally, the young Somalis dream of adventure and a life without restrictions and parental control. I shed light on the multifaceted reasons and reasonings behind the decision to go on tahriib, as well as the many considerations and strategies employed to ensure success before and during migration. I do this by following a number of young Somalis on their journey from the Horn of Africa1 towards the destination of their dreams in Europe. For many young Africans, such journeys into the unknown become reasons to be hopeful and they constitute a form of education in themselves. The certainty of facing an insecure future if one stays behind gives rise to the dream of a new uncertainty: the promises of unknown futures beyond the confines of home. These dreams are constantly kept alive by the homecomings of others: investments, remittances and family holidays spent at home in luxury all paint beautiful pictures of life abroad. Successful homecomings—and displays of wealth and happiness on social media—give life to new generations on the move and breed increasing feelings of despair and hopelessness among the youth left behind. The particular migration experiences of young Somalis are used as a lens through which to grasp broader contemporary migration processes. Through in-depth ethnography of young Somalis’ journeys into unknown terrain, the tahriib, we gain intimate details of a growing transnational phenomenon of lives en route. Here, en route refers to a double connotation of tahriib, first as physical movement and being underway, and second as socio-cultural movement or social mobility—of movement towards adulthood. Not just any kind of adulthood but successful

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

3

adulthood, where one is able to lift the burden of economic responsibilities and be well-respected and visible within society. For many, this means getting a university degree, marrying the man/woman of their dreams and fulfilling personal goals ranging from being the next president to becoming a famous journalist. Although certain historic and contemporary patterns of movement may be specifically Somali, the hopes and dreams of young women and men and the innate uncertainties and insecurities of migration and movement are human and global in nature. My objective is therefore to emphasise these human emotions and create a deeper understanding of the motives and reasonings behind decisions to migrate. Thus, it is my hope to provide individual faces and voices to the many young men and women risking their lives en route to unknown futures and fragile hopes of adventure and success. Although not necessarily fleeing from a country at war or escaping personal persecution, these young people describe themselves as being already dead. What characterises the lives of the Somali youth is the idea of ‘social death’, referring to ‘the inability to dream a meaningful life’ (Hage 2004, 79). As an analytical term, ‘social death’ depicts the disappointments of the young Somalis, as they fail to provide for their families and move forward in their lives. ‘The absence of the possibility of a worthy life’ (Hage 2004, 132 in Vigh 2006, 45) makes their dreams wander elsewhere in the hope that they can create such a life for themselves. Drawing on the analytical gaze of ‘social death’, the stories presented here seek to convey the universal human experience of uncertainty and insecurity, and how this experience shapes not only the decision to move but the process of movement; and how experiences of uncertainty and insecurity similarly shape the practices of security introduced by European state and border agencies in response to bodies on the move. I wish to focus on the universal human responses to uncertainty and the consequences of those responses. I do so by adopting a pragmatic approach to uncertainty in a migration context by including past social and moral worlds of Somali communities in the exploration of the most contemporary ones. Susan R. Whyte’s work on uncertainty, through the focus on misfortunes (like disease or unexpected accidents) and practices of questioning such misfortunes, has contributed tremendously to social sciences by showing that ‘uncertainty has to do with the outcomes of

4 

A. Simonsen

events and actions. It is not a vague existential angst, but an aspect of specific experience and practice’ (Whyte [1997] 2004, 19). I build on the analytical work of Whyte by exploring how people in migration contexts question and respond to experiences of uncertainty. Showing how the uncertainty of movement into the unknown becomes a cure when life itself feels sick or broken, I move away from focusing on uncertainty only in relation to misfortunes. Uncertainty instead becomes a way to revive lives, recreate hopes and explore new futures. Often, the connotations of the word ‘uncertainty’ have been negative. The word has been used to describe a lack of knowledge and ability to foresee future events (Cooper and Pratten 2015, 2). Following more recent anthropological work, however, I introduce uncertainty as a more productive and positive mode of existence (Johnson-Hanks 2002; Cooper and Pratten 2015). Within this approach, uncertainty becomes ‘a structure of feeling—the lived experience of a pervasive sense of vulnerability, anxiety, hope, and possibility mediated through material assemblages that underpin, saturate, and sustain everyday life’ (Cooper and Pratten 2015, 1). Hence, while acknowledging the vulnerability and anxiety that uncertainty produces, I wish to highlight the pragmatism, possibility and hope it also creates (Whyte 2004, 24). In addition, critics of such approaches have argued that there is a need to link individualised human beings and their attempts to manage uncertainty with the overall structural and economic composition of society (Steffen et al. 2005, 10). To accommodate this critique, I seek to understand the broader social and moral worlds in which human beings act by exploring in depth how young Somalis en route, on the one hand, and European policymakers, on the other, question and respond to the experiences of uncertainty and security in light of recent waves of migration. For European policymakers, the movement of people without regular travel documents represents a security threat. This association has been prominent since 9/11 (Goldstein 2010; Besteman 2017). The theoretical body of literature on security can be said to take two different approaches. One, known as the Copenhagen School originating in political science, focuses on the way security actors (e.g. national or European politicians) socially construct a certain topic, like migration, as an exceptional threat to be managed through security measures, so-called

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

5

securitisation (Karyotis and Patrikios 2010, 43; Léonard 2011, 8). Such studies often take as point of departure the top-down policies drawn up by those in power within nation states. The other approach to security, the PARIS approach, takes the existential condition of the individual as its empirical vantage point. This approach, with roots in anthropology and development studies, operates on the micro-scale and often focuses on the people who experience the security practices and policies discussed by the Copenhagen School.2 In this book, I show how the ‘security moment’, which has been traced back to 9/11 and which has seen a revival during the so-called migrant crisis, is best understood if we approach security as a sense of achieving a set of normative goals (Sulovic 2010). The goal is always to eliminate insecurity, whether represented by the physical presence of people without regular travel documents in Europe or by the lack of food and employment opportunities among families in Somaliland. These insecurities and the strategies to eliminate them are created, utilised and socially understood by people representing the state, as well as by ‘actors and groups outside of the state and its official institutions’ (Goldstein 2010, 492–493). Security can thus be seen not as a universal thing out there to achieve but as an expression of the various local experiences and categorisations that can be socially and politically manipulated. This turns the fight to decide what is and should be defined as security into a fight for power. As Buur et al. argue (2007, 12), ‘Security is about real questions of safety and violence, but it is also a way of representing particular problems in a manner that makes them exceptional and a question of survival’. Security, in other words, is about a physical condition as well as a political construction surrounded by struggles for its definition. The encounters between the young Somalis and European law enforcement at border sites, explored in this book, show how socio-culturally and politically constructed perceptions of security can be experienced in a very real and physical manner. They further show how such encounters between different definitions of security result in new uncertainties, containing existential conditions of both fear and hope.

6 

A. Simonsen

History/ies of Migration Generations of Somalis have sought greener pastures, both literally and figuratively, as nomads, students and businessmen have moved across clan territories, state borders and continental divides. They have responded not only to the insecurity of rainfall but to existential uncertainties similar to those described by the young generation of today: the hopes and dreams of youth and the aspiration of spending one’s time wisely and making the most of life. Tahriib, however, is not only a history of Somalis. It is, as argued by a young Somali scholar,3 ‘a history of humankind’: Tahriib starts with the history of humankind. Even the Europeans did tahriib. Columbus, he sailed away from Europe to America facing the dangerous sea looking for a good place. It is human beings’ nature to leave a place without any life to a place where you can live.

Migration is not only a risky endeavour but essentially a way to engage and respond to greater and more existential uncertainties. The stories told about Somali historical movements demonstrate continuities and differences between past and present migratory practices among the Somalis. The differences are found in the directions and modes of movement, as discussed in Chap. 2. The continuities lie in the uncertainties: the uncertainties of existence and the uncertainties of migration. Despite the long history of positive connotations ascribed to movement among the Somalis, the forced mass-migration that began following the onset of the civil war in the late 1980s has received by far the most attention by scholars, with a few exceptions (such as Lewis [1965]2002; Abdi 2005; Horst 2006; Steinberg 2015; Weitzberg 2017). Amid a scholarly focus on structural constraints, the negative associations of war, poverty, terrorism and piracy attached to the Somalis by Western media, and the general framing of movement as a ‘migration crisis’, we lose sight of the culturally informed understanding of migration. This is a trend not only within studies centred on Somali migration but in migration studies in general, which Karen Fog Olwig has called ‘the weak spot in migration studies’ (2018, 157). By turning the attention to migration practices and motivations not solely centred on structural constraints, it becomes clear that the uncertainty of migration may produce hopes of social mobility,

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

7

new opportunities and adventure more generally (Bredeloup 1994, 2007, 2013, 2014, 2016; Honwana 2012; Dalgas 2015; Kleinman 2019; Olwig 2018).4 As stated by a young Somali during an interview in Italy: ‘Travelling is like taking a master’, and is thus seen as producing experience and knowledge. Taking past forms of travel seriously and seeing them as ‘a continuation in the experiences of people’ currently engaging in irregular migration (Horst 2006, 37–38) adds an important perspective to the literature on migration. Centring around human practices in response to uncertainty, this book adds new layers of understanding to more structural studies of migration. Engaging the topic of uncertainty in migration from another angle, I also explore recent responses to migration represented by European border controls and migration policies. They represent another aspect of the uncertainty of movement: the existential insecurity experienced by communities receiving migrants from across geographical and cultural divides. We see a close connection between the securitisation discourse of the ‘migration crisis’, growing anti-migration sentiments and right-wing movements in Europe, and the increased border controls and implementation of new technologies aiming to limit migration (cf. Allsopp, Vosyliūtė, and Smialowski 2020). In many European countries, migration from the Global South has been framed as insecure and dangerous for the existing order of society. The implementation of biometric technologies at border sites represents the most recent attempt to manage such insecurity by controlling and regulating people from the Global South moving across borders without regular travel documents (Olwig et al. 2020). For young women and men en route, the practices of biometric registration add to the negative uncertainty of movement by introducing new modes of fear and hopelessness. The implementation of biometric technology at border sites restricts the right to cross national and supra-­ national borders. When crossing European borders, the young Somalis always ask each other, ‘Have you had your fingers taken?’ Having their fingerprints registered at the border sites means that the people en route can be prevented from moving elsewhere, as they will be returned to the first country of registration. The implementation of biometric technology thus turns the bodies of people en route into borders of their own (Simonsen 2020a, 124, see also Van der Ploeg 2005, Amoore 2006). This

8 

A. Simonsen

creates a new fear of getting stuck in a location where hopes of providing for families at home and live out their individual dreams are unlikely to be realised. To the young Somalis on tahriib, stories from Italy of sleeping in parks and subsisting on free meals from the churches are well known, and therefore, Italy is not considered a desirable destination. Rather, they hope to move on with their fingers intact and unregistered to a location where they can turn ‘social death’ into ‘social hope’. As a result, biometric registration is described, among the young Somalis, as a form of Judgement Day on earth. Nevertheless, as will be illustrated later in the book, some have managed to negotiate the encounters with biometric technologies at unwanted locations and imbue them with new meaning. The practices of tahriib and the responses to the youth en route, which I explore in this book, highlight the incongruence between the rich historical traditions of movement and the current biometric border practices that treat migration as a recent and dangerous phenomenon. Connecting practices of tahriib with their historical roots shows how the world and its opportunities for movement have changed. The next section describes the historical developments that marked the beginning of the international diasporisation of Somalis and laid the foundations of current practices of cross-border movements in the Horn of Africa and beyond.

Colonialism and Beyond Prior to colonial occupation, vast territories in the Horn of Africa were inhabited by ‘the people who self-identified as members of the Somali genealogy traced to common ancestors’ (Besteman 1999, 11). In 1839, the British occupied the Yemeni port of Aden and soon thereafter began exploring the coastal area across the Red Sea. This led to an interest in especially the northwestern part of Somalia, known today as Somaliland (Touval 1963, 31). The initial interest in Somaliland grew out of a wish to uphold security and communication with India (Touval 1963, 32). In addition, Somaliland was one of the only suppliers of meat in the region and hence became a strategically important location for the British to control (Lewis 2002, 40). In 1884–1885, the USA and 13 European

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

9

countries met in Berlin to colonise and divide the African continent between them—what is today referred to as ‘the scramble for Africa’.5 The strategic location of Somalia resulted in a division of the territories between Britain, France, Italy and Ethiopia.6 Two processes of outward migration emerged due to the colonial occupation of Somalia. First, migration from Somalia to Europe started during colonialism when Somalis started working as soldiers and sailors for the British. This led to the establishment of Somali communities in Cardiff, London and Marseilles (Kleist 2004, 1–4; Hansen 2006, 66; Diiriye et al. 2015). Others migrated to Italy as students or military trainees during the 1950s (Fagioli-Ndlovu 2015, 7). Furthermore, some Somalis worked in the merchant navy in America, Russia and the Arab countries (Kleist 2004, 1–4; Hansen 2006, 55; Diiriye et al. 2015). This process of emigration was the beginning of the diasporisation of the Somalis. Second, many Somalis left Somalia and became a minority in another country, not because they actively migrated but because political borders established during colonialism were upheld after the official end of the colonial era. After Somalia’s independence on 26 June 1960, many Somalis wished for the reunification of what is referred to as Soomaaliweyn or Greater Somalia: Djibouti, formerly colonised by the French; Somaliland, a former British colony; the Somali Regional State in eastern Ethiopia; the Northern Frontier District (now North Eastern Province) in the northern part of Kenya; and the remaining areas of northeastern and south-central Somalia that were under Italian colonial rule. The reunification was never actualised, and colonial borders are still in place. As these borders were drawn as a result of conflicts and competition between colonial powers rather than attention to local conditions, they continue to be a source of conflict (Touval [2014] 1963, 155). Ethiopia and Britain, for example, established the border across the customary grazing areas of Somali clans, which has resulted in continuous disagreements and scrutiny of several differing treaties stating the exact location of the borders (ibid., 156).7 Throughout the Horn of Africa, colonial borders have left family networks and important pastoral resources, like grazing areas, separated. This has had severe consequences for families and their abilities to make

10 

A. Simonsen

a living for themselves (Besteman 1999, 12). The colonial border drawing also had consequences on a larger scale. By one stroke, Somalis found themselves living as minorities and outsiders in territories that their families had occupied long before the colonial era. In Kenya’s Northern Frontier District, for example, Somalis went from being majority inhabitants of a vast Somali territory to being seen as ‘quasi-foreign elements in the colony, later as undesirable members of a postcolonial nation, and more recently as national and international security threats’ (Weitzberg 2017, 177). The categorisation of Somalis as outsiders and potential security threats has led to an increase in young Somali Kenyans considering tahriib as a solution. Following independence, the colonial legacy continued to affect many Somalis through experiences of insecurity and displacement, as discussed above. Concomitantly, the early 1960s saw ‘a growing feeling of nationalism inspired by nationalist movements in their struggle against colonialism’ (Ismail 2016, 2). The Somali Republic was born, implementing a parliamentary democracy with two major goals: ‘socio-political unification of the Somalis in the Horn of Africa and socio-economic development of the new nation’ (ibid., 1). In 1969, the newborn state of Somalia saw a military coup led by Mohamed Siyad Barre, whose initial aim was to fight poverty, disease and ignorance (Lewis [1965]2002, 208). During his 30 years of rule in Somalia, he attempted to implement ‘scientific socialism’, inspired by the Soviet Union and referring to ‘wealth-sharing based on wisdom’, including urban and rural mass literacy campaigns in Somalia in 1973 and 1975. According to Siyad Barre and his followers, the success of ‘scientific socialism’ included dismantling clannism. The official state slogan at the time argued that ‘tribalism divides, socialism unites’ (ibid, 209). This specific part of the national campaign was met with demonstrations and later accusations against Siyad Barre himself of favourising his own clan. In addition to the growing dissatisfaction in the population, the unsuccessful war initiated by Siyad Barre against Ethiopia in 1977, which led to the displacement of many Somalis, played an important role in the eventual demise of the regime. In 1991, civil war broke out, the post-­ colonial state collapsed, and Somalis started to flee across the borders in very high numbers.8

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

11

The two major cities of Somaliland, Burao and Hargeisa, were bombed in 1988 when Siyad Barre was still in power. The war between south and north Somalia resulted in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the north, rendering the capital, Hargeisa, a ghost town (Hansen 2006, 20, 56). In south-central Somalia, ethnic cleansing, violent conflicts and famine broke out (Lewis 2002, 262–265).9 The capital Mogadishu became ‘the centre of waves of destruction and terror’ (ibid., 264). In the years after 1991, when the rule of Siyad Barre came to an end, 250,000 Somalis died due to civil war and famine (Menkhaus 2007, 81). The international community attempted to create stability in Somalia through formal state-building and national reconciliation initiatives, like the United Nations Operations in Somalia (UNOSOM) between 1993 and 1995. Most of these initiatives failed (ibid.). Local stakeholders like businessmen, professionals and former military officers have also worked through informal channels to secure rules and regulations in Somalia. But the numerous competing internal and external interests have prolonged conflicts and undermined local processes of stabilisation, thus contributing to militant Islamism and warlordism (Hagmann 2016). In 2012, the Somali Republic went from a transitional to a federal government, marking a more permanent and stabilised state and resulting in increased optimism after 22 years of civil war and 12 years of constantly changing transitional governments (Ismail 2016, 2). Despite positive developments, the country continues to experience major internal insecurities and ongoing conflicts between the government and the militant group al-Shabaab [‘the Youth’].10 Insecurity and hardship continues to make everyday life difficult for the Somali population and leads to ongoing displacement. Out of a population of approximately 16.8 million people in Somalia (United Nations Population Fund 2022),11 more than 2.6 million Somalis have become part of the mixed migration flows within the Horn of Africa, living as internally displaced persons or in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, Ethiopia and Kenya (Human Rights Watch 2022). Another estimated two million people of Somali descent have settled as refugees in Europe and North America as part of the diaspora (Kleist and Abdi 2022). Thus, decades of instability in Somalia have led to a continued existential insecurity for many young Somalis growing up in the country.

12 

A. Simonsen

 n Route: Flows of Information, Hope E and Temporality Migration studies tend to focus on what people move away from, what they move through and what they move towards (Abdi 2005; Schapendonk 2011; Lucht 2012; De León 2015; Steinberg 2015). I take a different approach. Instead of dividing the field into distinct geographical sites of ‘home’, ‘transit’ and ‘destination’, the journey undertaken in this book follows the practices and experiences of young Somalis’ lives en route. The site of this study is the movement itself, as it is given substance by the mobile people who construct it. This multi-sited ethnography of movement is about ‘shifting perspectives, and exploring positions that are somehow connected, related to a certain issue or problem’ (Hansen 2006, 41). Thus, I show how dreams of the future are closely linked to ideas of movement, and how young Somalis gather information, create hope and manage their time throughout the imaginative and physical movements of tahriib, conceptualised as one field site. In line with recent literature within migration studies, I thus argue that social processes occur beyond ‘the imaginary of “terrains” as fixed geographical containers’ (Schapendonk 2011, 10). Bringing to the fore the three major themes of information, hope and temporality, I demonstrate how ‘home’, ‘transit’ and ‘destination’ are interwoven and make up social rather than geographical spaces. The search for (reliable) information, the creation and shattering of hopes and dreams, and the experience of wasting or making the most of time all take place before, during and after actual physical movement. Taking an en route approach, where both ‘home’ and ‘destination’ are integral parts of the social space of lives en route, the ethnographic site and object of study becomes ongoing movement. Such movement rarely takes place in a predictable or linear fashion. Rather than simply taking a person from ‘home’ through ‘transit’ to a predetermined ‘destination’, tahriib makes twists and turns, stops and reversals. Transitional spaces may become permanent, and perceived ‘final destinations’ may prove ‘transitional’. Similarly, ‘home’ may become the ‘destination’ if not physically or permanently then socially and imaginatively. Taking movement

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

13

and uncertainty as the structuring issue, I take the reader through ‘regional differences, historical processes, social ties … and imagined places and spaces’ (Vigh 2009, 93). Bringing to the fore the complexities of human responses to uncertainty, I hope to inspire academics, students, policymakers and general readers alike to see uncertainty as a positive striving for betterment while respecting the existential fear it also encompasses.

Ethnographic Footsteps The first time I set foot in the Horn of Africa was in 2010 as an intern for a Danish NGO as part of my master’s degree in anthropology. I spent 10 months in the Somali Regional State in Ethiopia making friends among young Somalis born in refugee camps in the region. They taught me that despite living in safety away from the ongoing conflicts in Somalia, being labelled a refugee in the eyes of the law did not provide a life in which they could fulfil their hopes and dreams. In fact, many of my interlocutors attended interviews with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the hope of being resettled in countries like the USA. Three years later, in May 2013, I found myself in Somaliland living in a household of three generations. This was made possible by connections made through my friends in Ethiopia and my participation in the comparative research project, Invisible Lives.12 Here, in Hargeisa, the young people I encountered expressed dreams of moving away from a secure but difficult or hopeless situation. While my friends in the Ethiopian refugee camps would leave through regular and legal means of travel, my new friends in Somaliland did not have that opportunity. Instead, they risked their lives on journeys into the unknown, as Gacal told us in the beginning of this book. What struck me about the young Somalis in Hargeisa was that so many shared the dream of doing tahriib, across clan affiliations and economic differences. Most of my new friends, who shared their thoughts and dreams with me, belonged to the lower middle class and middle class. The majority were in the middle of or had just finalised their

14 

A. Simonsen

university education, which they were paying for. Some received the tuition fees from their immediate family; others had collected the money from family members living outside of Somalia, the diaspora. The young Somalis all had very high aspirations in life. What continued to puzzle me was that although these high aspirations did not allow them to compromise with their hopes for the future, so many of them made the biggest compromise of all as they chose to risk their lives to journey into the unknown. This book is the result of ongoing reflections upon this puzzle. As part of my PhD project, I conducted 11 months of fieldwork in three different landscapes: Somaliland, Turkey and Greece. Originally, the three geopolitical spaces were divided into three parts: Somaliland as the country of origin, Turkey defined as a transit country and Greece as the destination country. Departing on this journey myself, reality quickly hit me. Although I travelled to these three countries and thus constructed a linear journey, for most of my Somali friends, tahriib did not entail any clear sense of direction. A destination country like Greece was never really the destination, as the young Somalis tended to ‘live in mobility’ meaning that ‘their experiences were marked by an ongoing mobility that consisted of a multiplicity of potential routes’ and often changes in status (Schrooten et al. 2016, 1199; see also Schuster 2005). Movement was never linear or certain, neither for them nor for me. Instead, it was what Vertovec has defined as ‘circular migration’ characterised by a continuous and non-linear movement (2007). I travelled along these paths and felt as a part of the network constructed from footsteps taken long before me, along with me and continuing after me. A central component of my methodology was making friends, which allowed me to build long-lasting relations and actively participate in the networks of travellers. My new friends would always bring me along and introduce me to others, like when I landed in Hargeisa and was introduced to Abdullahi through another international scholar conducting research there. Abdullahi introduced me to a family member, Taban, whose perspectives on life and migration are introduced in the book. Through Taban I was introduced to Abdirahman, who was a friend of Taban’s younger brother and considering tahriib at the time. Abdirahman’s social network and thoughts on migration, as he gathered

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

15

information and slowly changed his mind and decided to stay in Hargeisa, have been an invaluable foundation for this book. My methodological approach to studying circular migration depended heavily on border-crossing social networks. Just like my new friends, when they ventured on tahriib, I also ‘utilized, extended and established social connections spanning places of origin and places abroad’ (Vertovec 2007, 2). The modern technological solutions and the reduced costs of being online have intensified this and helped me and my friends obtain, maintain and develop border-crossing social networks. Now, almost 10 years later, I still exchange online messages with the people I befriended back in 2013, who are now scattered throughout the globe. The same technology has allowed my friends to make online introductions to other friends through social media. These introductions have helped me develop my network in Italy in 2016, 2017 and 2018, where I conducted my postdoctoral research in the collaborative project, The Biometric Border World.13 Here, I set out to explore how young Somalis en route experienced and negotiated the increased European border control, including the implementation of biometric technologies. I was initially surprised to see how some made use of biometric registration to negotiate family relations or socio-cultural positions at home (Simonsen 2020b). At the same time, I found some of my earlier puzzles re-emerging, as so many young Somalis chose to continue their journey into the unknown despite being provided with temporary security in Italy. This showed me that the young Somalis experienced life in Italy as very similar to life at home—except now, many had no place to live and lacked the stable food supply that most had enjoyed in Somaliland. However, for Somalis in Italy, continuing into the unknown had become more difficult, as the European authorities’ security measures against irregular migration started to include biometric registration at border sites. Throughout the various stages of fieldwork, I have made use of research assistants to set up meetings, to entertain endless discussions on tahriib and other themes and to translate interviews conducted in Somali. All my research assistants were either considering tahriib, were in the process of doing tahriib or were living among their peers doing so. This gave me unique access to the community of young Somalis doing tahriib. This

16 

A. Simonsen

environment was characterised by the uncertainty of never knowing who would be present the following day. My research assistants would do tahriib whenever the opportunity arose, which meant that I would often have to find new assistants to help me. This gave me an intimate insight into the existential feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing in which direction I would be going and with whom.

Moving Boundaries: Ethical Considerations Ethical dilemmas have followed me throughout my fieldwork, from the beginning continuing into the present. Before arriving in Somaliland, I had created an ethical code for myself. I did not want to know when my new friends would depart on tahriib, a trip that could (and for some did) lead to their deaths. This knowledge would put me in the ethical dilemma of whether to share this information with their parents who were usually opposed to their children venturing out on tahriib. Not knowing exactly when they would leave Somaliland did not change the fact that I had information that most of the parents did not, namely that they were planning to leave. This situation, as so many others during fieldwork, meant that I was often faced with the difficult ethical dilemma of being in possession of very intimate information that others desperately wanted. This also included various authorities. In each situation, my loyalty was to my friends, who shared this information with me in confidence. Emerging myself among the young Somalis in Somaliland, Turkey, Greece and Italy, my own life-world changed along with theirs. The more time I spent in the field, the more information they shared with me, including information that I had initially refused to be in possession of. My boundaries were constantly challenged and extended regarding the information passed on to me, such as details on when and how specific individuals would attempt to leave Turkey or Greece. In other instances, I would come across information that I was hesitant to share with my friends, particularly, when I received information about Somalis succeeding in obtaining refugee status in various countries. I was wary of sharing information that could create false expectations. As my own, my friends’ ethical dilemmas were omnipresent, and their boundaries were constantly

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

17

pushed and expanded. They found themselves keeping secrets, avoiding police, negotiating with brokers and some experienced having to leave people behind in the jungle to ensure their own survival. While conducting fieldwork in Turkey, my friends were able to move freely, while my movements were limited. The houses that the brokers rented from locals, and where the Somalis paid for a mattress on the floor to sleep on, were practically off limits to me. In Greece, the roles were almost reversed. I visited many of the houses, and there was one in particular that I visited daily. My friends, on the other hand, had very limited space for movement, as they were in constant fear of being arrested. On several occasions, we decided to end interviews or informal conversations as undercover police were seen working in the area. By minimising the number of places where I met up with my friends and by staying in at night, I tried to reduce the risk of drawing attention to them. I was very aware of the ethical dilemma of jeopardising my interlocutors’ security when entering their landscape(s) with my research project (see Donnan and Wilson 2010, 14). Thus, I did not want to risk them having to defend me in case of fighting or in other ways attracting police attention in my eagerness to conduct fieldwork in the area. Studying people moving through highly politicised landscapes of criminality and violence means that one is constantly surrounded by ethical dilemmas like those mentioned above. This could easily lead to a portrayal of life en route centred around conflict and danger. Following Robben and Nordstrom (1995) in their approach to violence, however, I show how people create everyday lives amid hardship and death. Going to the Bengali shops to have Somali dresses sewn in Greece, buying groceries in the local supermarkets in Turkey or visiting the local churches to receive free food in Italy was as much part of the field as avoiding the police, getting out of prison and moving through hazardous landscapes. As Robben and Nordstrom argue (1995, 6), ‘what is at stake is not simply deconstruction but reconstruction, not just death but also survival’.

18 

A. Simonsen

The Journey into the Unknown The journey into the unknown takes you along on the adventurous and risky voyage of tahriib, a voyage undertaken every single day by people from many parts of the Global South, who lack the travel documents required to enter Europe through safe and regulated travel. Along the journey, I explore the perceptions, practices and positions of young Somalis en route. Through this lens, it becomes clear how the uncertainty of undertaking this journey into the unknown is turned into a ‘subjunctive mode’ (Whyte 2004, 24) of positive striving towards a better future while also entailing existential fear and insecurity. Tahriib is a modern expression of a traditional Somali practice of movement highlighted in the Somali proverb, ‘happiness is two feet’. Somali socio-cultural perceptions of physical movement in the past, through the present and towards the future (Chap. 2) and society and the youths’ own expectations of social mobility as they come of age (Chap. 3), cast tahriib as a solution, sometimes the only solution imaginable, to the existential insecurities prevalent at home. The effects of such perceptions, that is the practices of tahriib, are explored through practices of hope (Chap. 4), the search for information (Chap. 5) and engagements with time (Chap. 6). This part of the journey illustrates the contours of hope and the narratives of promising futures and shows how lives at home are already en route, anticipating and awaiting opportunities to move. It illuminates how the hopes and imaginary travels are replaced by physical movement, how the need for information intensifies and how time spent, with whom and in which tempo, becomes essential in turning uncertainty into the hope of success. The positions that young Somalis and the European border guards take, negotiate and are being given, as the bodies en route engage with the European Unions’ security policies and practices at border sites, are another important part of this book (Chap. 7). The border encounters show how the use of biometric registration brings about new forms of insecurity as well as new ways of negotiating movement and new ways of getting stuck. In lives en route, the traditional understandings of ‘home’, ‘transit’ and ‘destination’ are challenged, as the perceptions, practices and positions of human bodies on the move cut across these divides. Often

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

19

‘home’ is recast as the ultimate ‘destination’ through the dream of homecoming (Chap. 8). The journey ends by drawing up the lessons from the seven chapters to capture a more nuanced view of contemporary global migration processes. These lessons show that rather than continually looking for new technologies, taller fences and stricter policies to regulate and control bodies on the move, policies and practices need to address the underlying universally human experiences of and responses to uncertainty and insecurity. In order to address the root causes of migration and of the increasingly nationalist responses seen throughout Europe, we need to recognise practices of mobility, as well as the increasing demand for security measures and control, as human responses to uncertainty and insecurity.

Notes 1. My interlocutors originate in different parts of the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, and the majority come from the self-­ pronounced republic of Somaliland. 2. For an in-depth discussion of the two main approaches within security studies—the Copenhagen School and the PARIS approach—see Bigo and McCluskey 2018. 3. Semi-structured interview, 04.03.2015, with one of the authors of the book Magafe: Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiq-dhaqaaqday. 4. Of course being aware of national, regional and local differences (Pelican 2013). 5. https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/library_exhibitions/schoolresources/ exploration/scramble_for_africa/ 6. See the work of Touval (1963) for an in-depth exploration of the partition of the Horn. 7. The latest fights in Las Anod, the capital of the Sool region in Somaliland bordering Puntland, which erupted in December 2022, also has its roots in the colonial division of Somalia along with ‘the changing relationship between clan and state in the context of a recent flurry of international investment’ (Norman 9 March 2023). https://africanarguments. org/2023/03/conflict-in-lasanod-and-crisis-in-somaliland-externalinvestment-intensifying-internal-competition-and-the-struggle-fornarrative/

20 

A. Simonsen

8. With the Gulf War in the Middle East and the larger historical context taken into consideration, one could argue that almost every Somali person has been displaced in one way or the other (Hansen 2006, 58). 9. This is an updated version of the book, which was originally published in 1965. 10. Al-Shabaab was created by former members of the Islamic Court Union after its dissolution in 2006, which occurred after fights with Ethiopia and the Somali government. 11. https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-­population/SO 12. The project was funded by The FKK [Det Frie forskningsråd]. 13. This project was funded by the Velux Foundation.

References Abdi, Cawo M. 2005. Elusive Jannah: The Somali diaspora and a borderless Muslim identity. University of Minnesota Press. Allsopp, Jennifer, Lina Vosyliūtė, and Stephanie Smialowski. 2020. “Picking ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ While the Orchard Burns: The Costs of Policing Humanitarian Actors in Italy and Greece as a Strategy to Prevent Migrant Smuggling.” European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10610-020-09465-0 Amoore, Louise. 2006. Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror. Political Geography 25 (3): 336–351. Besteman, Catherine Lowe. 1999. Unraveling Somalia: Race, violence, and the legacy of slavery. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 2017. Experimenting in Somalia: The new security empire. Anthropological Theory 17 (3): 404–420. Bigo, Didier, and Emma McCluskey. 2018. What is a PARIS approach to (in) securitization? Political anthropological research international sociology. The Handbook of International Security: 1–16. Bredeloup, Sylvie. 2016. The migratory adventure as a moral experience. In Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration, ed. Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorse, 134–153. Routledge Studies in Anthropology. Taylor & Francis Group. ———. 2014. Migrations d’aventures: Terrains africains. Paris: CTHS. ———. 2013. The figure of the adventurer as an African migrant. Journal of African Cultural Studies 25 (2): 170–182.

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

21

———. 2007. La Diams’pora du fleuve Sénégal: Sociologie des migrations africaines. Toulouse: IRD/PUM. ———. 1994. L’aventure contemporaine des diamantaires sénégalais. Politique Africaine 56: 77–93. Buur, Lars, Steffen Bo Jensen, and Finn Stepputat. 2007. Introduction. The security-development nexus. In The security-development nexus: Expressions of sovereignty in southern India, ed. Lars Buur, Steffen Bo Jensen, and Finn Stepputa, 9–33. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstittutet. Cooper, Elizabeth, and David Pratten. 2015. Ethnographies of uncertainty in Africa: An introduction. In Ethnographies of uncertainty in Africa, ed. Elizabeth Cooper and David Pratten, 1–16. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Dalgas, Karina. 2015. Becoming independent through au pair migration: Self-­ making and social RePositioning among young Filipinas in Denmark. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 22 (3): 333–346. de León, Jason. 2015. The land of the open graves: Living and dying on the migrant trail. Oakland, California: University of California Press. Diiriye, Axmed Cali, Bashiir Saleebaan Aadan. (B. Raadceeye), Cabdiqani Ibrahin Gaas, Nuuradiim Cabdiraxmaan Sh Abukar, Saamiya Mahad Fadal, Saleebaan Max-amuud Jaamac and Xamse Maxamed Cali. 2015. Magafe, Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiqdhaqaaqday. Somaliland: Nahda. Donnan, Hastings, and Thomas M.  Wilson. 2010. Borderlands: Ethnographic approaches to security, power, and identity. Lanham, MD: UPA. Fagioli-Ndlovu, Monica. 2015/12. Somalis in Europe: INTERACT RP.  Robert Schuman Centre for advanced studies. Italy: San Domenico di Fiesole (FI): European University Institute. Goldstein, Danial M. 2010. Toward a critical anthropology of security. Current Anthropology 51 (4): 487–517. Hage, Ghassan. 2004. “Comes a time we are all enthusiasm”: Understanding Palestinian suicide bombers in times of Exighophobia. Public Culture 15 (1) Number 1: 65–89. Hagmann, Tobias. 2016. Stabilization, extraversion and political settlements in Somalia. Rift Valley Institute. Hansen, Peter. 2006. Revolving returnees. Meanings and practices of transnational return among Somalilanders’. PhD Thesis,. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. Honwana, Alcinda. 2012. The time of youth. Work, social change and politics in Africa. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press.

22 

A. Simonsen

Horst, Cindy. 2006. Transnational nomads. How Somalis cope with refugee life in the Dadaab camps of Kenya. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Human Rights Watch. 2022. ‘World report 2022’. https://www.hrw.org/world-­ report/2022/country-­chapters/somalia. Accessed 26 Oct 2022. Ismail, Abdirashid. 2016. Maandeeq: The dilemma of the post-colonial state in Somalia. Nordic Journal of African Studies 25 (1): 1–22. Johnson-Hanks, Jennifer. 2002. On the limits of life stages in ethnography: Toward a theory of vital conjunctures. American Anthropologist 104 (3): 865–880. Karyotis, Georgios, and Stratos Patrikios. 2010. Religion, securitization and anti-immigration attitudes: The case of Greece. Journal of Peace Research 47 (1): 43–57. Kleinman, Julie. 2019. Adventure capital: Migration and the making of an African hub in Paris. 1st ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kleist, Nauja. 2004. Nomads, sailors and refugees. A century of Somali migration. Sussex Migration Working Paper 23: 1–14. Kleist, Nauja, and Abdi, Masud S.  I. 2022. ‘Global connections: Somali Diaspora practices and their effects’. Rift Valley Institute. https://reliefweb.int/ report/somalia/global-­connections-­somali-­diaspora-­practices-­and-­their-­ effects. Accessed 26 Oct 2022. Léonard, Sarah. 2011. ‘FRONTEX and the securitization of migrants through practices’. Paper presented at the Migration Working Group Seminar, European University Institute, Florence. Lewis, I.  M. [1965] 2002. A modern history of the Somali. Athens: Ohio University Press. Lucht, Hans. 2012. Darkness before daybreak: African migrants living on the margins in southern Italy today. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Menkhaus, Ken. 2007. Governance without government in Somalia. Spoilers, state building and the politics of coping. International Security 31 (3): 74–106. Olwig, Karen Fog, Grünenberg, Kristina, Møhl, Perle & Simonsen, Anja. 2020. The Biometric Border World: Technology, Bodies and Identities on the Move. London & New York: Routledge. Olwig, Karen Fog. 2018. Migration as adventure: Narrative self-representation among Caribbean migrants in Denmark. Ethnos. Journal of Anthropology 83 (1): 156–171. Pelican, Michaela. 2013. International migration: Virtue or vice? Perspectives from Cameroon. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 39 (2): 237–258.

1  Introduction: Uncertainties of Migration 

23

Robben, Antonius C.G.M., and Carolyn Nordstrom. 1995. The anthropology and ethnography of violence and sociopolitical conflict. In Fieldwork under fire. Contemporary studies of violence and survival, ed. Antonius C.G.M. Robben and Carolyn Nordstrom, 1–24. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Schapendonk, Jonny. 2011. Turbulent trajectories: Sub-Saharan African migrants heading north’. Ph.D. Thesis. Radboud University. Schrooten, Mieke, Noel B. Salazar, and Gustavo Dias. 2016. Living in mobility: Trajectories of Brazilians in Belgium and the UK. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (7): 1199–1215. Schuster, Liza. 2005. The continuing mobility of migrants in Italy: Shifting between places and statuses. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (4): 757–774. Simonsen, Anja. 2020a. En route: Introducing the site. In The biometric border world: Technology, bodies and identities on the move, ed. Karen Fog Olwig, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl, and Anja Simonsen, 119–129. London & New York: Routledge, (Routledge Studies in Anthropology). ———. 2020b. ‘Crossing (biometric) borders: Turning ‘gravity’ upside down’, special issue, Ethnos, 1–15. Steffen, Vibeke, Richard Jenkins, and Hanne Jessen. 2005. Managing uncertainty: Ethnographic studies of illness, risk and the struggles for control. Critical anthropology; 2. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. Steinberg, Jonny. 2015. A man of good Hope. London: Jonathan Cape. Sulovic, Vladimir. 2010. Meaning of security and the theory of securitization. Touval, Saadia. [2014] 1963. Somali nationalism: International politics and the drive for Unity in the horn of Africa. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. van der Ploeg, Irma. 2005. The machine-readable body. Essays on biometrics and the Informatization of the body. Maastricht: Shaker. Vertovec, Steven. 2007. Circular migration: The way forward in global policy?. Working paper 4, 1–9. International Migration Institute. Vigh, Henrik. 2009. Wayward migration: On imagined futures and technological voids. Ethnos 74 (1): 91–109. ———. 2006. Social death and violent life chances. In Navigating youth, generating adulthood: Social becoming in an African context, ed. Catrine Christiansen, Mats Utas, and Henrik Vigh, 31–60. Uppsala University Publications. Weitzberg, Keren. 2017. We do not have Borders: Greater Somalia and the predicaments of belonging in Kenya. In New African histories, 1st ed. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Whyte, Susan Reynolds. [1997]2004. Questioning misfortune. The pragmatics of uncertainty in eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2 A History of Lives on the Move

Somali proverb: ‘Calaf waa labo cagood’. (Happiness is two feet)(Varming 2010) The Somalis have a long history of various forms of regional and global movement as nomads, labour migrants, students, seamen and business entrepreneurs (Weitzberg 2017, 2). We know from the literature that these proud traditions of movement are essential to the self-perception of Somali society. We also know that thousands of Somalis have had to flee their country since the outbreak of civil war in 1988 and, consequently, have engaged in newer forms of migration practices. Within Western social sciences, the long history of varied forms of mobility among Somalis and other communities across the globe have been explored through different analytical optics (Olwig and Sørensen 2002, 5). I begin this book by introducing the major trends in migration- and refugee studies within sociology and anthropology, and how these trends have influenced the way migration practices are presented and analysed, focussing on the three main classifications of ‘migrants’, ‘refugees’ and ‘internally displaced persons’ (IDPs). I view these categorisations as problematic

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_2

25

26 

A. Simonsen

when analysing actual migration practices, where categories often overlap and change over time (Olwig and Sørensen 2002, 7). Additionally, migration research has often left out great numbers of mobile populations, such as nomads and IDPs. Therefore, I argue that such categorisations are inadequate in capturing empirical realities of movement and mobility. During my fieldwork it became clear, through dialogue with Somalis, young and old, women and men, that they had their own classifications, which framed and captured past and present ways of moving in the world. This emic approach allows me to view historical patterns of migration as layers of movement overlapping, intertwining and substituting each other. This will contribute to addressing one of the major problems of migration studies, namely that of conceptualising migration as a recent historical phenomenon (Olwig and Sørensen 2002, 1).

 napshots: Histories of MigrationS and Refugee Studies Migration studies emerged first as ‘a fairly small and specialised subfield within the social sciences’ (Olwig and Sørensen 2002, 1). It was not until the last decades of the twentieth century that migration studies developed and took the central position that it has within academia today (ibid., Horevitz 2009, 745). Building on a general interest in quantitative data, like statistics on movement between nation states (see, e.g. Ravenstein’s work 1885, Greenwood 2019, 270), E.S. Lee proposed to view migration through a bimodal model now known as push-pull theory. Lee’s intention was to explain not only how migration took place but also why (Schapendonk 2011, 2). Lee (1966) used the push-pull model to argue that some people migrate due to so-called plus factors at the destination (pull-factors), whereas others leave due to minus factors at the place they occupy (push-factors). Despite the valuable contribution of adding a ‘why’ to the ‘how’ in mid-1960s’ migration studies, the push-­ pull model portrayed migration as ‘a static point-to-point movement’ (Ernste et al. 2012, 509) motivated solely by economic factors.

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

27

It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that the push-pull approach was overshadowed by approaches favouring ‘movement and the formation and sustaining of long-distance ties in human life and society’ (Olwig and Sørensen 2002, 1). Key to this new trend within migration studies was the transnational approach within sociology that focused on the ‘multiple ties and interactions linking people or institutions across the borders of nation-states’ (Vertovec 1999, 447; see for instance: Schiller et al. 1995; Portes 2001; Vertovec 2001; Wimmer and Schiller 2002; Levitt and Schiller 2004). Transnational scholars, focusing mainly on migration towards the USA, paved the way for migration researchers to focus on social fields rather than geographical ones. The discipline of anthropology opened up similar avenues of research but focused primarily on movement towards the metropoles, especially in Latin America and on the African continent. The increased interest in migration issues in the 1950s and 1960s led to the establishment of migration research as a central topic within the anthropological field (Horevitz 2009). This led to the Manchester school of thought,1 which framed migration studies by focusing on migrants themselves, movement, processes, links, changes and simultaneous processes, approaching spaces as social places. The world, in other words, was now understood to be interconnected. Connectedness is a key word for ‘the mobility turn’, which sharpened the focus on movement, exploring human and non-­ human mobilities (Kleist 2019, 73; Hannam et  al. 2006; Sheller and Urry 2006) defined by ‘flows, fluids and deterritorialisations’ (Schapendonk 2011, 9). Olwig and Sørensen, for example, in the early beginnings of the mobility turn, advocated for ‘shifting the analytical focus from place to mobility, and from “place of origin” and “place of destination” to the movements involved in sustaining a livelihood’ (2002, 2). Now, more than 20  years later, I use ‘livelihood’ as a conceptual approach to carve out the connections between movement and social obligations and explore the interesting tension between the negative status assigned to international movement through irregular paths and the positive associations that tahriib holds for the Somali youth and other mobile populations (see Vigh 2017, 479). For the Somali youth, the irregular modes and paths of movement represent a way to show care,

28 

A. Simonsen

take responsibility and as a result, ‘gain a positive social presence within kin and family networks’ (Vigh 2017, 479). Practices of migration are more contested than ever in a world where ‘access to safe and legal mobility’ is unevenly distributed (Kleist 2019, 73; Ferguson 2003; Lucht 2012) and where millions of Euros are invested in human, material and technological borders in order to stop what is described as illegal movement. Throughout this book, I show how the ethics of care is relational and situational and how ‘the moral evaluation and ascription’ of irregular migration ‘is defined inter-subjectively and understood in relation to social responsibility, care and accountability’ (Vigh 2017, 495). Hence, I explore livelihood practices by viewing irregular migration as deeply entangled with local social dynamics. Livelihood practices are about becoming socially visible as one that cares for the family. In the case of tahriib, the youth take on the hardships of migration, as they seek to escape the disappointments of not being able to live up to their responsibility of showing care, as they come of age. I conceptualise this as ‘social death’. The nuances introduced to discussions of migration by the livelihood approach are still not widely accepted. Among politicians and the European public opinion, there is still a strict divide between a migrant’s movements, referred to as voluntary and undertaken for economic reasons, and a refugee’s movements, seen as involuntary conflict-related displacement (Horst 2006, 33; Black 2001, 63, Hamlin 2021). This divide represents a historical split between two fields of research. But despite recent developments in migration studies, opinions and policies still show that a rather static representation of migration practices has prevailed, and primary attention continues to be given to international migration, ignoring other important forms of movement (Olwig and Sørensen 2002, 7). Refugee studies emerged, as people who were forcibly uprooted due to conflict caught increased interest from academics and politicians in the aftermath of the Second World War. During that time it was becoming clear that uprooted people, defined as refugees, were a permanent phenomenon. The Association for the Study of the World Refugee Problem was the first international organisation exploring the study of refugees, initiated in 1950 (Black 2001, 58). Soon followed the 1951 Refugee

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

29

Convention and the 1967 Protocol, defining a refugee as ‘someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a wellfounded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion’ (UNHCR 2022). In fact, the development of refugee studies as an academic field has since the beginning ‘been intimately connected with policy developments’ (Black 2001, 58) and contributions are often said to be more policy-oriented than academic (Horst 2006, 201–202; Davis 1993; Hein 1993). This ‘problem-centered approach and openness to dialogue with practitioners’ can be a strength in some cases (Black 2001, 67). For instance, scholarly engagements with non-academic actors within humanitarian and development aid strengthened the distinction between refugees and IDPs. Thus, such engagements raised attention to the category of IDPs at the political level and resulted in the introduction of certain types of humanitarian assistance for IDPs in Somalia and elsewhere (Black 2001). When researchers work so closely with non-academic actors, there is a risk that they end up producing what Black defines as ‘work that is […] undertheorized and orientated towards particular bureaucratic interests’ (ibid, 67). But scholars within refugee studies have also made important academic contributions to the study of the conflicts that produce displacement as well as the categorisation of people in various situations of displacement, like ‘minorities’ and ‘refugees’ (Shacknove 1985; Zolberg et  al. 1989; Adelman 1999). Important contributions have also been made to the understanding of the consequences of such displacement and categorisations (Arendt 1951; Harrell-Bond 1986; Malkki 1995; O’Neill 2008). Refugee studies thereby ‘form part of and contribute to mainstream academic debate within both disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarly journals’ (Black 2001, 62). Both academics and politicians have used the term displacement when conceptualising and responding to people fleeing conflict. In the early days of refugee studies, such analyses reflected ‘sedentarist metaphysics’ that ‘naturalize people’s connections to place, and view mobility as somewhat anomalous and suspect’ (Lindley 2013, 293). Within this conceptualisation, refugees are viewed as uprooted people in a state of betwixt and between (Malkki 1992, 1995) helplessly exposed in what Hannah Arendt famously called ‘the abstract nakedness of being human and

30 

A. Simonsen

nothing but human’ (1951, 297). These displacement framings uncritically use a political category like ‘refugee’ as an analytical concept (Black 2001, 65–66), and they often present displacement itself as the problem rather than the socio-political context that has defined displacement as the problem (Lindley 2013, 293). The term displacement refers to an approach, where the nation state is the main institution through which migration is defined. Many policies, even today, continue to frame movement across national state borders as a problem. As a result, many political initiatives focus on returning people to their states of origin. In 2019, the Danish government changed the laws on migration, introducing the so-called paradigme-skifte (paradigm shift) (Rytter et al. 2023). This meant shifting the focus away from policies promoting integration of refugees into Danish society to promoting and encouraging the eventual return of migrants, including the Somalis (Støjberg 2019). Despite both the academic and political legacy of viewing displacement as problematic in itself, more recent work explores ‘the political causes of displacement’ (Lindley 2013, 292), seeking to understand the root causes of refugee movements. In addition, this work not only views displaced refugees in terms of passive suffering but introduces an analytical gaze of agency (ibid.). However, terms such as ‘migrants’, ‘refugees’ and ‘IDPs’ are still used within many of these studies, hence running the risk of uncritically reproducing political categorisations. People’s historical particularities and their different practices and social understandings of mobility are lost when explored solely through legal frameworks and analytical concepts. Where would the long history of Somali nomadic movements fit within such categories? Rather than trying to put the local understandings into standardised boxes, I propose to focus on practices of mobility and the emic terms that people have used to describe these practices through generations (see, for instance, the work of Kleinman 2019 on West Africans’ adventure capital in France). For the Somali people, migration and mobility have been seen a defining feature of being Somali (Kleist 2004, 2). It is essential to know the close historical relationship between mobility and the Somali people if one is to understand the young Somalis and their ways of moving in the world. The following section explores the Somali nomadic heritage, referred to

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

31

as reer guuraa [family of moving], through the story of Yusra and her family. This nomadic heritage and the approach to life inherent in it are generally seen as a central part of Somali identity.

 mic Notions of Movement: Nomads, Camels E and Coping Strategies ‘Hello, I’m dying, help me!’ These were the first words that Yusra heard from her 19-year-old brother, after he went on tahriib. Not informing his family that he was migrating, he did not make contact until he reached Libya. Here, he was caught and taken hostage by the Magafe, an umbreally network of smugglers spanning from Somaliland through Sudan to Libya, who wanted to extract money out of him. He called his family because he desperately needed them to pay the ransom, as he would otherwise be tortured or killed. As Yusra and I, in the summer of 2013, sit comfortably on the couch in the home of what I consider to be my Somali family in Hargeisa, she tells me her story. Yusra and her older brother were brought up in a family of ten sisters and brothers, a mother and father. Before the death of their father in 2007, the family lived a nomadic lifestyle caring for the camels and goats that were their primary source of income. They lived in a typical family based grazing camp, consisting of a married man and his wife, children, sheep, goats and a small number of milk camels (Lewis 1993, 51).2 ‘It was a normal life when my father was alive’, Yusra explains and continues: ‘We were living outside the city in a house and my father took good care of our goats and camels. We sold the milk from the goats and camels’. And, Yusra adds, ‘All the children were physically well because they drank the milk from the animals’. Camel milk, like many other aspects of the nomadic heritage, is highly regarded in Somali society, and people often mentioned its health benefits to me. It is widely believed that camel milk secures good health into old age and that it cures a variety of even serious illnesses. In addition to these health benefits, the nomadic lifestyle forms the backbone of Somali economy by exporting

32 

A. Simonsen

livestock to the Middle East, and wealth in the form of livestock continues to provide social prestige in Somali society.3 In general, the patterns or routes of movement among pastoral nomads are loosely defined by where rain and grass can be found to water and feed their animals. In the severe droughts of 1974 and 1975, for example, the Somali nomads were documented to have walked more than a thousand miles to find water for their camels (Lewis 1993, 50). Hence, moving in search of grazing and water becomes essential in harsh environments in which water is scarce (Konczacki 1967, 165; Lewis [1965]2002, 1–12; Horst 2006, 66). This is possible because of the nomadic lifestyle that includes a mobile household, where tent-like huts, called aqal, can easily be dismantled and set up in a new location. Somalia’s natural characteristics vary with geographical area and the seasons of the year and shape the lifestyle and types of livestock reared in specific places. For example, camels can go without water longer than sheep and goats and can be trekked for longer distances (Konczacki 1967, 165). The search for food and water for the animals is combined with a search for ways to stay economically secure in the events of livestock disease epidemics, inter-clan livestock raids and other unforeseeable events. This is typically achieved through economic diversification by combining the nomadic lifestyle with non-pastoral activities (Horst 2006, 66). Hence, some nomads live as full pastoral nomads,4 others as agro-­ pastoralists, while some change between activities according to the change of seasons. Yusra’s family lived as agro-pastoralists. But their lives changed dramatically when several wet seasons failed. ‘This changed our lives’, Yusra explains. ‘We needed to eat, and we needed clothes, so my father and four of my siblings went to the city. All of us could not go because we did not have a house in the city’. The family thus experienced first-hand how ‘migration forms the cornerstone of pastoral economic security in accordance to customary rules, in response to seasonal change and as a coping strategy in periods of natural disaster’ (Horst 2006, 66). When Yusra’s father passed away and his income from the city thus disappeared, the movement patterns of the family changed again. Yusra and one of her sisters got jobs as housekeepers in the city to help pay for

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

33

the family’s expenses. Another of Yusra’s sisters migrated to neighbouring Ethiopia along with their aunt. One of the brothers attended high school in Hargeisa and would travel between the city and the rural home, where his mother was still living. The family had invested in his education, as he was the oldest boy of the family, and they saw this form of movement as an opportunity to economically secure the whole family’s future. One day, while visiting his family home this brother was given money by his mother to pay for his daily expenses while studying in Hargeisa. But instead of taking the money back to the city, he decided to leave Somaliland all together. Without telling his family, he embarked on tahriib through Ethiopia and Sudan and ended up in Libya from where he first called his family, crying out for help.5 The life of Yusra’s family illustrates a very pragmatic relationship to places. Home is not a fixed place; rather, the nomadic lifestyle follows the pragmatics of survival. Surviving in a nomadic context means that you keep moving until you find greener grass somewhere (Unruh 1990; Horst 2006, 18, 49). Figuratively, this is exactly what Yusra’s brother did, as he engaged in tahriib in a desperate attempt to help the family as the oldest male in the household. Thus, movement is a common denominator in how Somalis through generations have responded to the ever-changing but constantly present risks of ecological and political insecurities (Horst 2006, 65–66).6 At the same time, the uncertainty of moving into unknown terrain has been a way to create new opportunities for oneself, one’s family and society as a whole. This double-edged sword of uncertainty and the practices of movement associated with it become apparent in the emic Somali classification of movement into three categories: –– Suudaal: an old word used to describe movements away from something to unknown destinations. Usually defined on the basis of motivations for moving, like the loss of assets or pride. –– Taber: used about individuals who have migrated to Arab countries for education or work since the 1970s. –– Tahriib: first used in the early days of civil war to describe movements to flee the fighting. Now used to describe youth migration practices of

34 

A. Simonsen

leaving for Europe without the required travel documents. It is defined on the basis of how people move. The next three sections will explain each one in more detail and provide examples to illustrate their similarities and differences.

Suudaal: Searching for Personal Security Two years after Yusra had shared her story with me, I returned to Somaliland. Upon my arrival in 2015, I met up with Abdirahman, who was initially my research assistant, but who became a good friend and valuable research collaborator. During one of our many conversations, we started discussing the history of movement in Somalia and the uncertainty with which it is associated. We decided to explore the footsteps of previous generations and began to search for information on the internet, within Somali literature and by asking some of the older inhabitants of Hargeisa. Gathering this form of data required access to these different sources, as not much has been written about traditional patterns and vocabulary of movement, especially not in English. During our research, we stumbled upon the term suudaal, a Somali word that was unknown to both of us. Suudaal, we were told, referred to a journey into unknown terrain, like the current practices of tahriib. But contrary to tahriib, suudaal was usually defined by the motivations for moving rather than the modes or paths of movement. The term belonged to previous generations’ ways of moving. We also learned of a book written in Somali about tahriib, a book which Abdirahman located at the market in Hargeisa. In March 2015, we managed to meet up with most of the authors of this book, the first book of its kind about tahriib, entitled Magafe, Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiqdhaqaaqday [Magafe, tahriib and the young generation travelling with no hope and no direction].7 The book was written in Somali by five young scholars, who had all grown up in Somaliland and had recently graduated from university. They thus represented the young generation that were also the main target group of the book. Watching so many of their peers risking their lives to leave the country, they had taken

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

35

it upon themselves to provide a thorough contextualisation of the growing trend of youth migration, known as tahriib.8 With the authors, we discussed the two terms suudaal and tahriib, their origins and the different historical contexts in which they were used. Suudaal, the authors explained, was an old-fashioned Somali term originating about a thousand years ago.9 They defined suudaal as ‘moving from one place to another to cover a long distance without a targeted destination’. One of the authors explained that two forms of mobility were defined as suudaal. The first category of suudaal was practices by people defined as criminals or who were involved in a dispute within the community. They would do suudaal to avoid social exclusion due to, for example, clan disputes or inappropriate sexual relations before or outside of marriage. Suudaal was, for these individuals, a search for security from exclusion, embarrassment or loss of pride. The second category of suudaal was practised due to economic loss or loss of assets: In earlier times, Somalis were pastoralists, they had livestock living in the rural areas, preferable camels. They were proud of their lives, they had a lot of interest in caring for their camels … they did not go anywhere without their camels. The only people leaving were the ones who lost their camels because of drought. During such incidences, the nomads suffered from lack of ways to sustain themselves, so they had to search for another place where they could get some money to buy another camel. Then they would come back to their original places.

At the early point in history, where the term suudaal first originated, profits could be made through the well-founded business and trade sector, originating in the first centuries A.D. (Lewis 1994, 113; Horst 2006, 66). Economic opportunities developed further in Aden after 1889, when the British colonial power entered Yemen and trade along this route was opened to Somalis. Hence, suudaal continued and was also practised by more urban communities. One of the authors we interviewed explained that ‘suudaal was somehow commercial, you are looking for good business or employment, so you as a person, you make suudaal from your

36 

A. Simonsen

city’. For individuals practising suudaal for economic reasons, there was always an expectation of returning home when resources were restored. Whether suudaal was practised to avoid social exclusion or economic hardship, it was always an individual movement, and as we have seen, suudaal was defined by the reasons for movement. In the next sections, I show how the other categories of movement, taber and tahriib, are also individual journeys but are defined differently. The similarities and differences shed light on how movement has continued to be central among the Somalis, yet the forms of movement and the different social understandings attached to it keep transforming.

Taber: He Who Passed the Red Sea In the 1970s, Somalis began to migrate to countries like Saudi Arabia as workers in the oil industry or as traders to earn an income. Some also went to the same countries as students (Rousseau et  al. 1998, 393; Hansen 2006, 56; Horst 2006, 66).10 They referred to themselves as taber (Ali 2016, 2), an Arabic word meaning ‘he who passed the Red Sea’.11 As such, being a taber was defined not by why or how a person left Somalia but by the destination alone. The father in the household in Hargeisa that I have called my family since May 2013, was a taber. His story will illuminate how being a taber differed from the modern practices of tahriib. To reflect our close relation and the respect I have for the parents of the family, I refer to them as Aabo and Hooyo (father and mother). Aabo’s household consisted of three generations. The oldest generation within the household was Hooyo (referred to by the youngest generation as ayeeyo, grandmother) and Aabo (awoowe, grandfather). Hooyo was born in Somaliland, Aabo in Ethiopia. They married in Djibouti, where Aabo was working, and settled there to start a family. In Djibouti, Hooyo gave birth to four of their seven children, but when Aabo’s employment in Djibouti ended, he migrated to Saudi Arabia to find work, thus becoming a taber. Aabo succeeded in finding employment and settled in Saudi Arabia, while Hooyo and their four children went back to Somaliland,

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

37

Fig. 2.1  Family tree—(only the family members mentioned in the book are represented, all by pseudonym)

where her family originated. Aabo would visit Hooyo from time to time, and three more children came into the world. When I arrived in late May 2013, the household consisted of Hooyo and Aabo, their two daughters, Salaado and Abshiro, and two granddaughters, Amran and Hani. The young girls were 16 and 18 years old at the time and the daughters of Zeynab, who lived elsewhere in Hargeisa. Zeynab visited the house regularly, as did her brother, Yabaal (Fig. 2.1). Most of the people within this household had moved in one way or the other, as I will explore later in this chapter. For now, I will focus on the continuation of Aabo’s story. Aabo migrated to Saudi Arabia, the country with the largest number of Somali guest workers (Ahmed 2000, 383) and a long historical relation with Somalia. Somalis have migrated to the Gulf for centuries for adventure, trade and educational purposes (Abdi 2015). Since the 1960s, Somalis began to migrate in large numbers to work in the Gulf ’s booming oil industry and by the 1980s, approximately 150,000–200,000 Somalis worked in the Gulf, most of them in Saudi Arabia (Gundel 2002).12 Besides Aabo, I met quite a few Somalis with a history of migration to Saudi Arabia. Some of my friends were born or grew up there, as their fathers had been working there since they were young. Some families returned to Somaliland, only to have their sons follow in their fathers’ footsteps and migrating back to Saudi Arabia to find work. Working as a

38 

A. Simonsen

Somali in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in general was experienced by many as both a blessing and a real hassle (Abdi 2015, 60): a blessing because the shared religious heritage with citizens of the Gulf countries placed them within the umma, ‘a global community of believers, an ancient and still-­ potent concept that dictates that all Muslims belong to a borderless brotherhood’. This provided the Somalis with a strong sense of physical and emotional security (Abdi 2015, 59–60). A hassle due to their lack of security in the form of legal, permanent documents like Saudi passports. No Gulf state has signed the United Nations Refugee Convention from 1951, which means that all immigration to the area is defined as labour migration with temporary and contractual visas. As Abdi’s work among Somalis in the United Arab Emirates shows, ‘the result is a jarring clash, as the comfort of religious belonging must coexist with the lingering reminder that you are temporary’ (2015, 60). While I never heard Aabo complain about his time in Saudi Arabia, the younger generation focused almost solely on the insecurity of working conditions in Saudi Arabia and how challenges were increasing, as the rules for obtaining documents had changed. They referred to the kafeel [sponsor] system, an employer-sponsored work visa, where migrants needed a signed contract within sectors such as construction, oil drilling or domestic work to enter and work in Saudi Arabia (ibid, 66). For some, the strict rules meant that they saw no other option than to buy documents through middlemen and brokers. These documents cost a lot of money, and the middlemen would continue to demand money every time the documents had to be renewed. In addition to the stricter rules on obtaining legal yet temporary documents, young Somali women faced increased obstacles to employment, as more and more Saudi women were taking on jobs (Ayla 2013) within the sectors where Somali women used to work. In many cases, according to my friends, Saudi women would be preferred by employers over the Somalis. For Aabo, and many of the men of his generation, migrating meant that he could support his family economically as a taber. Unfortunately, after a number of years, he was involved in a car accident and could no longer work, so he returned home. In general, the migration patterns of people like Aabo had a real economic impact on society. Gundel shows how migration flows from Somalia to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf helped

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

39

increase Somalia’s GDP through an effective remittance system (2002, 5). At the end of the 1980s, 375,000 Somalis had migrated to the Gulf States and were remitting an estimated $500 million per year (Green and Jamal 1987 cited in Hagmann and Stepputat 2016, 11). Remittances started through the so-called Franco-valuta system: foreign exchange earned in the Gulf was given by migrants to traders travelling back to Somalia. The traders would then import commodities to be traded in Somalia (Ibid.). The profits from these activities would be given by the traders to the migrants’ families located in Somalia, where they would spend the money on consumer goods or to pay school fees and the like. Such informal systems of money transfer emerged in the absence of or reluctance to use formal banking systems (Gundel 2002, 269). Hence, movement as a taber produced a financial surplus for the family and relied on strong clan connections, as trust was essential for the functioning of the system (Gundel 2002, 269). In 1982, this system was officially banned by the Siyad Barre regime,13 but another informal remittance system, the Hawala, quickly replaced it. Hawala, which means transfer in Arabic, is not exclusively Somali but has been used in various forms in and across South-East Asia and the Middle East throughout history (Ismail 2007, 170). Among Somalis, the Hawala remittance system (in Somali, xawilaad) cut out the trader middlemen of the Franco-valuta system but continued sending remittances through a mother company (in Somali, shirkada xawilaada). As we have seen, the taber contributed significantly to household and national economy alike. Where practices of economically based suudaal would usually only restore the economy of the individual and his immediate family, the taber produced real societal change. Many of the youngsters embarking on tahriib today dream of making such contributions: of investing, educating themselves and working for the betterment of not just their families but their society.

40 

A. Simonsen

Tahriib: In the Footsteps of Generations In the late 1980s, new patterns of movement took shape and impacted Aabo’s family and families across Somalia, as civil war and ongoing conflict and insecurity ravaged the country. Early on, all movement to escape war and violent conflict was known as tahriib. The etymology of tahriib can be traced back to the 1970s when Somalis migrated to the Arab countries to work and study. The word is a combination of taber, ‘he who passed the Red Sea’, and harab, ‘run’. Tahriib has its origin in ‘contraband, illegal transportation of goods’ (Diiriye and Aadan 2015). Later the social meanings of the word changed, and today tahriib is primarily used to refer to youth migration through informal or irregular paths and modes of travel. Hence, the social understandings of tahriib have changed over time and it is towards the past and present footsteps of tahriib that I now turn. In 1988, Siyad Barre signed a peace agreement with Ethiopia’s leader Mengistu Haile Mariam, in which they both agreed to stop all support of anti-government guerrillas. In dissatisfaction with this agreement, the Somaliland National Movement (SNM)—an anti-government guerrilla consisting of mostly members of various Isaaq clans known to receive support and operate across the border with Ethiopia (Hagmann and Höhne 2009, 49)—attacked government forces in south-central Somalia, leaving whole towns deserted. This was followed by attacks by Siyad Barre’s government soldiers, where the two major cities of Somaliland, Burao and Hargeisa, were bombed. The bombings resulted in the flight of hundreds of thousands of people and more than 50,000 deaths (Hansen 2006, 56). The attacks also resulted in increased mobilisation for the SNM, who found support among the Isaaq clan elders, Isaaq being the majority clan of northwest Somalia. The SNM worked together with clan elders, in fighting south-central Somalis as well as in the establishment of an independent Somaliland government, and the elders came to play a role within the SNM through an advisory board called Guurti (Höhne 2006; Renders 2007). As the war increased in intensity, the members of the Guurti also joined the fighting. The involvement of the clan elders in the war against the south and in the formal government

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

41

institutions of Somaliland meant an increase in the political influence and power of traditional clan leadership. Aabo and Hooyo’s family were among the hundreds of thousands of people who fled for their lives and lost family members due to the government attacks on Somaliland. Hooyo fled to Ethiopia with her children, while Aabo was still working in Saudi Arabia. Sitting in Hooyo and Aabo’s living room one afternoon in 2013, their son Yabaal painted a very vivid image of how the war erupted and the flight that followed: ‘I was very young, I was 14 years old … it was in May, 31st … in the middle of the night at 2.30, we hear the sounds of weapons, dack dack dack dack dack, wup wup wup wup!’ Yabaal repeats the sounds of weapons still so vivid in his memory. He explains how he did not understand what was happening at the time. He got up with the rest of the family and they all gathered in one room of the house. Yabaal continued: The noise is not stopping, we don’t know what’s happening, nobody can go outside. Sometimes my uncle goes outside and looks and tells us to stay inside. We cannot sleep. We wait until morning, where we talk with some of the people in the neighbouring houses. Some of them are leaving. Throughout the day with small intervals of silence, we hear dack dack, [the sounds of weapons] in some areas of the city … We ask ourselves what to do. When the sounds of weapons take off again in the afternoon, Hooyo still says that we will stay here in our house. Again, Hooyo goes to talk to some of the neighbours to discuss what to do, because we are bewildered. Maybe the government is leaving the city, some people say, and then the fighting will stop. But that turns out not to be true. The soldiers working for the government are located in the city, and my family and I are there in the middle, we are on the front line.

Experiencing the insecurity of war led Hooyo to make the decision to physically remove herself and her family from the area of fighting. Yabaal continued: Then Hooyo decides that we cannot stay here because we are in the middle of the battle between the government’s soldiers and the soldiers of SNM … We decide to flee to the side of the SNM. We take some important things with us, everybody takes two shirts or yeah, small things … It takes us one

42 

A. Simonsen

week to flee to the town of Geed-deeble. Geed-deeble is far away from our city, but it’s the same problem. In Geed-deeble nearly 50,000 people are there. Everyone in the town have gathered and they are not getting enough food, enough water, and every time you see people who have lost legs, arms and everything. Some people died in front of me. I see small wheelbarrows, the people are taking five, six dead bodies inside to bury them, but they don’t get enough people to help to dig the ground so they say to me ‘you must take this’. I’m shocked, and I reply, ‘How can you see all the people who lost the neck, the blood, everything?’ They say to me, ‘You must take them, you must help us’. I was very young. I replied, ‘How can I take the dead bodies?’ … and they replied to me, ‘We dig in the ground, and we are putting them there’. After four weeks, me and my family leave Geed-deeble.

During their flight, Yabaal was separated from his family. He joined another group of people fleeing their homes heading towards Ethiopia, but he also got separated from them while fleeing government soldiers: One kilometre or so away from us, we see the government soldiers. We know they will kill us if they find us, so we run away. One guy has a little baby, his daughter, with him. He says, ‘I can’t run, I must stay with my daughter’. The rest of us leave, but when we run away the government soldiers have already seen us. We run to the same side as the soldiers, without knowing, and they start firing their weapons … one guy died, the rest of us we lost each other. I am now alone … I decide to stay inside some trees to hide, and then when I don’t hear anything, I go out. I look at my feet. I can see that my feet are injured, but I cannot feel anything at that time. You are not thinking in a situation like this, you only think about to live or die. I get my shoes that are lying close by… At that time, the soldiers have taken everything, all belongings, like passport, everything. I say to myself, ‘maybe you can survive, you can save your life’. At that time, I don’t have anything, only my shoes. I say to myself, ‘You are lucky if you get your shoes’.

Yabaal found his mother, sisters and brothers when reaching a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Hooyo, Yabaal and the rest of the family were among the roughly 400,000 people fleeing across the borders into Ethiopia.

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

43

Another 40,000 fled to Djibouti, 400,000 into the bush and thousands fled to Europe and Canada (Hansen 2006, 56). Hooyo and her family were not taber—they had not crossed the Red Sea to return money. Instead, the family’s flight in 1988 would be classified as tahriib, as would their movements to safety in 1994, when conflicts between the various Isaaq sub-clans erupted in Somaliland (Hansen 2006, 57). But the social and moral understanding of tahriib differed immensely between generations within this family. Aabo and Hooyo’s four eldest children continued their tahriib towards Europe due to the difficulties they experienced living in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, three via airplanes, one irregularly. In contrast, Hooyo wanted to return to Somaliland as soon as she got the opportunity to leave the refugee camp. Returning to Somaliland for the first time since the eruption of the fighting between south and north Somalia, Hooyo and the other Somalis returning from Ethiopia had to rebuild everything from scratch. Many houses and buildings throughout Somaliland had been destroyed. Aabo returned to build a house for his family but then went back to Saudi Arabia to continue working. Hooyo started a small business where the children would help out to support the family. Peace did not last long, however, as Somaliland once again became the site of conflict in 1994. Hooyo and her family once again fled to Ethiopia. This time, Hooyo decided to bring her remaining children to Sudan from where they returned to Somaliland in 1998. Hooyo reopened her shop to support her family, and they lived in the small house that Aabo had built for the family. In 2009 their oldest son, who had obtained asylum in a European country, sent money to the family so they could build the big, beautiful house they were living in when I conducted fieldwork in 2013. Aabo re-­ joined his family in Somaliland after a very serious car accident in Saudi Arabia, which left him unable to work. The children abroad were taking turns sending home money to support Hooyo and Aabo. Aabo and Hooyo did not want to leave Somaliland. As Abshiro explained, ‘Mother and father love this country, and they are old. They worry about their children abroad, every time mother calls them’. At the same time, Abshiro explained that there would be no jobs and no income

44 

A. Simonsen

if her older siblings were to return to Somaliland. ‘Europe has helped many people’, she said. Flows of people and flows of money and goods have changed over time. While Aabo had followed the trends of the 1970s and 1980s to seek work in Saudi Arabia, the younger generation moved differently. A number of factors, like the civil war, Saudi Arabia’s decision to hire local workers instead of foreign workers (Ahmed 2000, 383–384) and a continued lack of hope among young Somalis within their own country, have caused the flows to change direction. By 2000, remittances from Europe and North America had increased dramatically, and today, an estimated $1.6 billion is sent back from Europe and North America to Somalia, which is approximately a third of Somalia’s GDP, which in 2021 was $5.42 billion (Collins 2022).

Tahriib in the Young Generation ‘What does tahriib mean?’ I would often ask the young women and men I encountered throughout my fieldwork. Their answers can be summarised as follows: Tahriib is ‘the journey into the unknown’ and ‘an illegal travel from the place you are born and brought up to another place like Europe in search for a good life, to get peace, experience, and to reach your aims and goals’. Hence, for the young generation, both women and men, uncertainty, hope and movement defined by international policy as irregular or illegal were the three characteristics that defined tahriib. I would often be told by both young and old that tahriib was the young generation’s thing. Consequently, since Hooyo and Aabo’s household contained many young people, we would often discuss the concept of tahriib. We would sometimes discuss the dreams that the children and grandchildren had about doing tahriib or talk about others who had embarked on such journeys. During such conversations, it became clear to me that different social meanings were attached to the term tahriib. The meanings depended on who was practising tahriib, as well as who was describing and naming the practice. For Hooyo, the only acceptable version of tahriib was fleeing a war, which she had done herself when the conflict between north and south

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

45

Somalia escalated in 1988. Hooyo would get angry when the younger generations entertained the idea of migration during peacetime. She did not want anyone in her family to do tahriib. Nevertheless, four of Hooyo and Aabo’s seven children had done tahriib during times of war, and another two, Zeynab and Salaado, had attempted to do it after peace had been restored in Somaliland. Even the youngest generation of the house, the granddaughters, were contemplating tahriib and both ended up leaving Somaliland years later. While Hooyo found migration during peacetime unacceptable, the younger generation, as will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter, saw tahriib as a reasonable solution to the challenges and uncertainties facing them in Somaliland.

Zeynab The first time I met Zeynab was in Hooyo and Aabo’s house, where two of her three children lived. She was fun, outspoken and eager to talk to me. Zeynab had found work as a cleaner and a cook. Sometimes she worked for various smaller shops, at other times NGOs, the latter being the better paid and most reliable source of income. The work was not that profitable but, as she explained, ‘with the job comes respect and morale, with no jobs comes the worry’. Before she worked as a cook and a cleaner, Zeynab had a small business: ‘I bought some materials and sold them to my neighbours’. Zeynab had a story of tahriib of her own. She had attempted to leave shortly after the first wave of tahriib in 1988, while she was living in Ethiopia with Hooyo and her siblings. At this time, Zeynab was still married to her ex-husband, but she was not happy in her marriage. She had heard of a lottery in Yemen, where the prize was to go to America. For Zeynab, as for many others, America represented the land of opportunities, for some even Paradise on earth (Abdi 2015). Zeynab thus left her children in the care of Hooyo and Aabo to pursue the possibility of getting to America. Arriving in Yemen, she realised that the rumour was false or at least that she did not have a chance to go to America via the lottery.14 She decided to continue her journey anyway.

46 

A. Simonsen

In Oman, she was arrested and detained for 3 months. Recalling the story while sitting in the house of Hooyo and Aabo, Zeynab explained how the police had called Hooyo and Aabo and told them that she was dead. Not knowing that her parents thought she was dead, Zeynab continued doing tahriib upon her release. Like many other Somalis, she ended up in Dubai.15 Here, she was arrested again and upon release returned to Somaliland. Zeynab’s dreams of leaving Somaliland ended there, but they lived on through her daughters: Amran, who did tahriib in 2021 and is currently in Europe awaiting the results of her asylum application, and Hani, who married a young man from the Somali diaspora and is in the process of moving abroad through legal means of migration.

Salaado Salaado, Zeynab’s sister, still dreamt of leaving Somaliland despite one failed attempt at tahriib behind her. She no longer wanted to do the kind of tahriib where you would have to cross icy mountains in the cold and dark night, she explained. Salaado dreamt of travelling by visa and passport, ‘that kind of travel’ as she put it. Salaado was a very kind, gentle and caring woman, who was eager to learn. She lived in Hooyo and Aabo’s house, and when we first met, she worked for a foreign company selling their products to locals in Somaliland. The company, it turned out, did not pay their employees and in the end Salaado quit. At the time, she was also taking lessons in henna decorations, a popular form of beautification worn by women for weddings and other important occasions. Salaado and I would often watch TV programmes about interior design and decoration in Hooyo and Aabo’s living room. We would watch programmes showcasing the homes of millionaires, which would make both of us dream about a different lifestyle. The dreams of opportunity and luxury had gotten Salaado to persuade her sister, residing in Europe, to pay for a study trip to Egypt at the age of 15. This trip had led her to embark on tahriib towards Europe.

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

47

It was not easy for Salaado, or other young Somalis, to talk about past experiences of tahriib—about dreams that had been brutally crushed and left unfulfilled, replaced by difficult memories that they just wanted to forget. But one day, when Salaado and I were alone in the kitchen doing the dishes, she said: ‘Okay Anja, now I’m ready to tell you about my background if you understand what I mean’. I understood and I felt deeply grateful for her decision to share her experiences of tahriib with me. She continued: I got my passport, and I got one month’s visa in Iran. I only messaged with my sister, Abshiro, when I was in Iran because the phone was not good. I walked towards Ankara, Turkey from Iran. When I was walking in the icy mountains my feet got so big. I had no proper shoes, and I was walking in the ice. We were a mix of people from Somalia, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nigeria, Uzbekistan and Iran. All of us wanted to go to Turkey but we had no visa. We could only arrive there by walking. It took eight hours. We walked during the night. Me and one man from Nigeria fell down because we lacked oxygen. We were sick. One man in Iran led the group and took money from us. That man came back and helped me for 1 ½ hour. We could hear the watch dogs and shortly after, the Turkish police caught the whole group and all of us threw away our passports because if they caught me with my passport, they would jail me in Djibouti. The police jailed me for one month and then the Somali Embassy told me to call my mother. My mother paid the ticket for me to come home. Me and the Nigerian man were the only ones staying in Turkey because we were sick. The Afghanis were sent home and the rest stayed underground in Turkey for one month. When I came back to Somaliland, people asked me: ‘Saalado? Is that you?’ I said, ‘No this is another person, not me’—ha ha ha. Mama and papa love me, and they said, ‘another time, don’t go’. They asked me what I would eat, when I was there. I cried when I came back and saw mama and papa and all the people!

After the walk across the mountains, Salaado still had pain in her feet, which was an involuntary, constant reminder of what could have been. She still dreamt of leaving Somaliland, but she was unwilling to risk her life like she had done before. And she wanted to bring her mother and

48 

A. Simonsen

father with her, ‘Aabo and Hooyo only want to stay here. I say, if Hooyo and Aabo went together with me, then it would be good’. The Somaliland that Hooyo fled from was very different from the Somaliland which Salaado, Zeynab’s children and the many other young people currently doing tahriib are leaving behind. Now, movement is more than a question of survival (Horst 2006, 67). For generations of Somalis, migration has been seen as a form of ‘walking stories leaving footprints’ (Legat 2008, 35) for others to follow. I have discussed four Somali emic notions of similar, yet different and intertwined, mobility practices: nomadic migration (reer guura), suudaal, taber and tahriib. Nomadic migration, intrinsic to Somali self-perception, is the mother-­ notion of Somali mobility. It includes numerous patterns of movement, some dictated by the change of seasons others by the unpredictability and harshness of local nature and climate conditions. It includes several types of collective movements, in family groups or gendered cross-family networks. Suudaal, taber and tahriib all cover more individual movement, and they can all include economic motivations for migration. But where suudaal is defined by the motivation, taber is defined by the destination and tahriib by the mode of travel. Despite the differences in definition, terrain, generation and gender, they all come back to one thing, namely that ‘Happiness is two feet’. The next chapter explores how young Somali women and men understand and imagine movement in light of the social context of home and the experience of being young in a gerontocratic society.

Notes 1. Through his work and his foundation of the Manchester school, Max Gluckman introduced the ethnographic extended-case method, defined as situational analysis. Through this method, anthropologists could now derive general conclusions from the dynamic particularity of the case. Thus, the case study became the first step in ethnographic analysis. 2. The second type of grazing unit is the camel unit, called geel her, or ‘camel fence’, which is led by young unmarried men and boys (Lewis 1993, 51).

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

49

3. The value of things is often measured in the number of camels they are worth. In the event of marriage, camels have traditionally been paid as bride wealth, as is still being done in some areas. Human lives are similarly valued in camels in the case of blood money, where one clan must pay compensation to another clan in case of murder or injury (Lewis 2002, 8). 4. When I use the term ‘pastoral nomads’, it is a simplified categorisation that covers many forms of nomadic life and movement. 5. See Ismail’s (2023) work on the impact of prolonged family separation on the families of rejected Somali asylum seekers inEurope’. 6. By combining refugee studies with a transnationalist perspective, Horst (2006, 62) explores how Somali refugees cope with insecurities. In addition to mobility, she shows how investment in the social network and the ‘diversification of investments’ are the main methods to cope with insecurities among Somalis. 7. Magafe is a Somali word, which in English means ‘the one who never misses’. It refers to people, who, individually or in groups, facilitate tahriib for others but also take hostages and extort money from the youngsters and their families. The Magafe are found along the two main routes of Somali tahriib, crossing Somaliland, Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya. The word Magafe is associated with fear, brutality and ransom money (Ali 2016, 24–25; Geeldoon 2016, 90). 8. Authors of the book: A.  Diiriye, B.  Raadceeye, C.  Gaas, N.  Abukar, S. Fadal, S. Jaamac and X. Cali. 9. I have not been able to verify the exact age of the term from other sources. I make use of the age stated by my interlocutors to show that it is an old term. 10. Migration to Saudi Arabia decreased from 1983 onwards when the economy declined, and foreign workers were thrown out (Rousseau et  al. 1998, 393). 11. It comes from the Arabic term tahaber, meaning ‘to have left’. 12. ‘According to surveys by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1985, the 165,000–200,000 Somalis living in the Middle East earned 700 million dollars a year, of which approximately 30%, 280–370 million dollars, was estimated to be sent back to their native country’ (Gundel 2002: 247 in Horst 2006, 145).

50 

A. Simonsen

13. Gundel argues that the ban was introduced, as the system ‘increased the misuse of much needed foreign exchange, but also because it potentially undermined the power of the regime’s own patron-client mechanisms’ (2002, 269). 14. See the work of Charles Piot and Kodjo N. Batema—‘The Fixer’’—in which they write about the American visa lottery, migration and brokerage (2019). 15. See, for instance, the work of Abdi (2015).

References Abdi, Cawo M. 2015. Elusive Jannah. The Somali diaspora and a borderless Muslim identity. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Adelman, Howard. 1999. Modernity, globalization, refugees and displacement. In Refugees: Perspectives on the experience of forced migration, ed. Alastair Ager, 83–109. London: Pinter. Ahmed, I.  Ismail. 2000. Remittances and their economic impact in postwar Somaliland. Disasters 24 (4): 380–389. Ali, Nimo-Ilhan. 2016. Going on Tahriib. The causes and consequences of Somali youth migration to Europe’. Research Paper 5. United Kingdom, Kenya: Rift Valley Institute. Arendt, Hannah. 1951. The origins of totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Black, Richard. 2001. Fifty years of refugee studies: From theory to policy. International Migration Review 35 (1): 57–78. Davis, John. 1993. The anthropology of suffering. Journal of Refugee Studies 5 (2): 149–161. Diiriye, Axmed Cali, Bashiir Saleebaan Aadan. (B.  Raadceeye), Cabdiqani Ibrahin Gaas, Nuuradiim Cabdiraxmaan Sh Abukar, Saamiya Mahad Fadal, Saleebaan Max-amuud Jaamac and Xamse Maxamed Cali. 2015. Magafe, Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiq-dhaqaaqday. Somaliland: Nahda. Ernste, Huib, Karel Martens, and Joris Schapendonk. 2012. The design, experience and justice of mobility. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 103 (5): 509–515. Ferguson, James. 2003. Global disconnect: Abjection and the aftermath of modernism. In The anthropology of globalization: A reader, ed. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, 136–153. Malden, Mass: Blackwell. Geeldoon, Mohamed Hussein. 2016. We kissed the ground. A Migrant’s journey from Somaliland to the Mediterranean. Kenya: Rift Valley Institute.

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

51

Green, Reginald H., and Vali Jamal. 1987. Somalia: Paradoxes of private prosperity, poverty pockets, volatile vulnerability and public pauperisation. New York: UNICEF. Greenwood, Michael J. 2019. The migration legacy of E.  G. Ravenstein. Migration Studies 7 (2): 269–278. Gundel, Joakim. 2002. The migration-development nexus: Somalia case study. International Migration 40 (5): 255–281. Hagmann, Tobias, and Markus Höhne. 2009. Failures of the state failure debate: Evidence from the Somali territories. Journal of International Development 21: i-i. Hagmann, Tobias, and Finn Stepputat. 2016. Corridors of trade and power: Economy and state formation in Somali East Africa. DIIS-GOVSEA Working Paper 8: 1–44. Hamlin, Rebecca. 2021. Crossing: How we label and react to people on the move. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Hannam, Kevin, Mimi Sheller, and John Urry. 2006. Mobilities, Immobilities and moorings. Mobilities 1 (1): 1–22. Hansen, Peter. 2006. Revolving returnees. Meanings and practices of transnational return among Somalilanders’. PhD Thesis,. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. Harrell-Bond, Barbara. 1986. Imposing aid: Emergency assistance to refugees. Oxford University Press. Hein, Jeremy. 1993. Refugees, immigrants and the state. Annual Review of Sociology 19 (1): 43–59. Horevitz, Elizabeth. 2009. Understanding the anthropology of immigration and migration. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 19 (6): 745–758. Horst, Cindy. 2006. Transnational nomads. How Somalis cope with refugee life in the Dadaab camps of Kenya. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Höhne, Markus V. 2006. ‘Traditional Authorities in Northern Somalia: Transformation of Positions and Powers’. Working Paper nr. 82. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers: 1–28. Ismail, Abdirashid. 2007. Lawlessness and economic governance: The case of Hawala system in Somalia. International Journal of Development Issues 6 (2): 168–185. Ismail, Abdirashid A. 2023. ‘Mum, I Sleep Under a Bridge’: Everyday Insecurities of the Families of Rejected Asylum Seekers in Somalia. In: Tiilikainen, M., Hiitola, J., Ismail, A.A., Palander, J. (eds) Forced Migration and Separated Families. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. h ­ ttps://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-031-24974-7_7

52 

A. Simonsen

Kleinman, Jennifer. 2019. Adventure capital. Migration and the making of an African hub in Paris. The University of California Press. Kleist, Nauja. 2004. Nomads, sailors and refugees. A century of Somali migration. Sussex Migration Working Paper 23: 1–14. ———. 2019. Mobility. African Diaspora 11 (1–2): 71–86. Konczacki, Zbigniew A. 1967. Nomadism and economic development of Somalia: The position of the nomads in the economy of Somalia. Canadian Journal in African Studies 1 (2): 163–175. Lee, Everett S. 1966. ‘A Theory of Migration’ in Demography. 3(1), pp. 47–57. Legat, Allice. 2008. Walking stories; leaving footprints. In Ways of walking: Ethnography and practice on foot, ed. Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst, 35–50. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate. Levitt, Peggy, and Nina Glick Schiller. 2004. Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field perspective on society. The International Migration Review 38 (3): 1002–1039. Lewis, I.M.. [1965]2002. A modern history of the Somali. Athens: Ohio University Press. ———. 1993. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, history. London: Society, Hurst and Company. ———. 1994. Blood and bone. The call of kinship in Somali society. Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press. Lindley, Anna. 2013. Displacement in contested places: Governance, movement and settlement in the Somali territories. Journal of Eastern African Studies 7 (2): 291–313. Lucht, Hans. 2012. Darkness before daybreak: African migrants living on the margins in southern Italy today. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Malkki, Liisa. 1992. National Geographic: The rooting of peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among scholars and refugees. Cultural Anthropology 7 (1): 24–44. ———. 1995. Purity and exile–violence, memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press. Olwig, Karen Fog, and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen. 2002. Mobile livelihoods, making a living in the world. In Work and migration. Life and livelihood in a globalizing world, ed. Ninna Nyberg Sørensen and Karen Fog Olwig, 1–19. London: Routledge. O’Neill, William. 2008. What we owe to refugees and IDPs: An inquiry into the rights of the forcibly displaced. In Refugee rights- ethics, advocacy, and Africa, ed. David Hollenbach, 27–49. Washington D.C: Georgetown University Press.

2  A History of Lives on the Move 

53

Portes, Alejandro. 2001. Introduction: The debates and significance of immigrant transnationalism. Global Networks 1 (3): 181–193. Piot, Charles, and Kodjo Nicolas Batema. 2019. The Fixer. Visa Lottery Chronicles: Duke University Press. Ravenstein, Ernst Georg. 1885. The Laws of migration. Journal of the Statistical Society of London 48 (2): 167–235. Renders, Marleen. 2007. Appropriate ‘governance-technology’? Somali clan elders and institutions in the making of the ‘republic of Somaliland’. Africa Spectrum. 42 (3): 439–459. Rousseau, Cécile, Taher M. Said, Marie-Josée Gagné, and Gilles Bibeau. 1998. Between myth and madness: The Premigration dream of leaving among young Somali refugees. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 22 (4): 385–411. Rytter, Mikkel., Bregnbæk, Susanne., Whyte, Zachary., & Japhetson Mortensen, S-L. 2023. Paradigmeskiftet og dets sociale konsekvenser. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. Schapendonk, Joris. 2011. ‘Turbulent Trajectories Sub-Saharan African Migrants Heading North’. Schiller, Nina Glick, Linda Basch, and Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1995. From immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing transnational migration. Anthropological Quarterly 68 (1): 48. Shacknove, Andrew. 1985. Who is a refugee? Ethics 95 (2): 274–284. Sheller, Mimi, and John Urry. 2006. The new Mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 38 (2): 207–226. Unruh, Jon. 1990. Integration of transhumant pastoralism and irrigated agriculture in semi-arid East Africa. Human Ecology 18 (3): 223–246. Varming, Kirstine S. 2010. Lykken er [at Have] to Fødder. In En Narrativanalyse af Repatrierede Somalieres Forhold til ‘Hjem’. Master Thesis, Aarhus: Aarhus University. Vertovec, Steven. 2001. Transnationalism and identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27 (4): 573–582. Vertovec, Sreven. 1999. Conceiving and researching transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (2): 447–462. Vigh, Henrik. 2017. Caring through crime: Ethical ambivalence and the cocaine trade in Bissau. Africa 87 (3): 479–495. Weitzberg, Keren. 2017. We do not have Borders: Greater Somalia and the predicaments of belonging in Kenya. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina Glick Schiller. 2002. Methdological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences. Global Networks 2 (4): 301–334.

54 

A. Simonsen

Zolberg, Aristide R., Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo. 1989. Escape from violence: Conflict and the refugee crisis in the developing world. New York: Oxford University Press.

Internet Sources Ayla. 2013. ‘Saudi Women (and the Saudi Office) adjust as more enter the workplace’. Time for equality. https://timeforequality.org/news/gender-­news/ saudi-­women-­and-­the-­saudi-­office-­adjust-­as-­more-­enter-­the-­workplace/. Accessed 27 Oct 2022. Collins, Tom. 8 April 2022. ‘Somalis changed the face of money transfers worldwide’. Quartz. https://qz.com/africa/2152271/somalia-­changed-­the-­face-­of-­ money-­transfers-­worldwide. Accessed 28 Oct 2022. Støjberg, Inger. 2019. ‘L 140 Forslag Til Lov Om Ændring Af Udlændingeloven, Integrationsloven, Repatrieringsloven Og Forskellige Andre Love’. Folk 2019. https://www.ft.dk/samling/20181/lovforslag/l140/index.htm. Accessed 7 Feb 2022. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2022. ‘Refugee definition’. Emergency Handbook. 2022. https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/55772/ refugee-­definition. Accessed 7 Feb 2022.

3 ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death

Somali proverb: ‘Waad baahantahay looma bahalo cuno’. (‘That you are hungry doesn’t mean that you should eat just anything (eating things that are haram)’. On 5 June 2013, the Somaliland National Youth Organisation (SONYO) is celebrating its 10-year anniversary at one of the biggest hotels in Hargeisa. Abshiro and I are attending escorted by her friend, who is driving us to the location. Before leaving the house, Abshiro has made sure that I am appropriately dressed in a beautiful dirac with black and orange flowers, matching jewellery and hijab. Abshiro is wearing a black dress with a classy red blazer and a matching black hijab. The youth of Hargeisa will be there and we have to look our best. Many have already arrived, and we quickly head towards the main entrance. When we reach the hall along with many other young women and men, we are guided towards the backdoor, where the women’s entrance is. As we finally make it into the venue, we are met by a warm and buzzing atmosphere. Hundreds of young women and men attend the celebrations that include a programme of traditional dance, stand-up comedy, songs, poetry, circus performances, etc. One theme reoccurs throughout all the performances—tahriib—and the message is clear: ‘Don’t migrate, Europe will not live up to your dreams!’ © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_3

55

56 

A. Simonsen

The negative consequences of migration are presented in ways that young people can relate to, e.g., through comedy. In one scene, a father, his daughter and the daughter's boyfriend are discussing tahriib. The father says that when his daughter reaches Europe, she will have no education, and as a result will be left with only the bad jobs. Bad jobs refer to menial jobs like cleaning toilets. The daughter is arguing with her father, while the boyfriend's role is to act as a ‘yoyo’, a young man imitating the West through his clothes: wearing baggy jeans and a large t-shirt, and through his attitude of being young and careless. The audience is laughing a lot at the comedy, but there are also serious moments throughout the night. We are all warned of the network operating in Hargeisa, known as Magafe. They encourage young people to leave by promising to arrange everything before departure, only to demand ransom when they reach Libya. We are told that the government is searching for these people.

SONYO’s event that evening in the summer of 2013 highlighted to me, as a newly arrived PhD student, that tahriib was on everybody’s lips in Hargeisa. Tahriib was ‘the young generation’s thing’, as one young man told me, yet it occupied the thoughts of the elderly, the young, the women and the men. At the event, I also learned of the official prohibition of tahriib, which I later confirmed through conversations with parliament members, NGOs, primary and secondary schools, and universities. In June 2013, the president of Somaliland created a ministerial committee, the Committee on Illegal Migration and Unemployment. Its purpose was to prevent young people from embarking on tahriib by focusing on employment, as it was believed that most of the young people leaving Somaliland were unemployed university graduates (Ali 2016, 7). Not only was tahriib causing the deaths of young people in the deserts or in the Mediterranean, which was tragic enough in itself, it was also causing a brain drain and the loss of the generation that was to be the country’s future. And even the young Somalis that succeeded in reaching the shores of Europe were at risk of ending up at the bottom of European society and never being able to send remittances, educate themselves or in any other way contribute to Somali society. Therefore, tahriib was now prohibited.

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

57

Despite this official discourse and prohibition, young people still left the country, and SONYO’s event in many ways portrayed and exemplified the main reason why many of the young people considered tahriib. The venue for the event represented a modern, wealthy and carefree existence. Like most of the bigger hotels in town, it was owned by Somalis living abroad, and the hotel’s large and beautiful buildings, the flourishing outdoor garden and its popularity among visitors to Somaliland were constant reminders of the success that tahriib could bring. Not only were businesses like this highly profitable, but they provided their owners with status and respect. The dream of life in Europe represented everything the young women and men felt was missing from their lives in Somaliland. Moving towards Europe created the hope of becoming socially visible by being able to provide and show care for their families at home and, as a result, gain a higher social status within society. The ethics of care for the youth involved caring for your family, and they felt that the only possible way to live up to that was to leave Somaliland.1 Here, they experienced the opposite of the hope and opportunities associated with tahriib, namely what I have called ‘social death’, which is the main theme of this chapter. Abdirahman, whom I met in May 2013 upon my arrival in Somaliland, was the first person to explain the local understanding of ‘social death’ to me, when describing what he, as a young Somali man, thought about tahriib: I will tolerate the problems on the way if they face me. The people who have it easy here will not try to go. If all the problems face me, I will tolerate it. If I die, I have already died. If I have smaller problems, I will talk with my relatives and manage it well. In general, the country has an economic problem so the country experiences problems of starvation. If the economy is good, the country will be good. In Somalia, the war has destroyed everything.

Abdirahman illustrated why so many young people like himself were willing to risk their lives en route: they already felt dead. But why was he already dead? Part of the answer to that question can be found in living as a young man in a gerontocratic society.

58 

A. Simonsen

With Age Comes Wisdom The transition from youth to recognised adulthood depended on two separate but intertwined structures: the socio-cultural classification and the political system. Both sets of structures seemed to prescribe that a young male became a man when he was mature and had the capacity and the will to be responsible during important decision-making processes in politics, clan issues or the household. Abdirahman explained the difference between youth and adulthood across the structures in this way: In adulthood, the person is treated as a great person and he will solve problems and conflicts between his clan and others; while the person in his youth, he has not enough intelligence to solve critical issues. That is the difference.

In other words, with age comes wisdom, according to Somali understandings (Glascock 1986, 56). This statement is reflected in the political system. According to the Somaliland constitution, one must reach 40 years of age to be a candidate for the presidency, as this is when a person is considered capable of making mature decisions.2 Similarly, to run for parliament, one must be 35 years of age or above. The constitutional arrangements of the country along with descriptions like Abdirahman’s paint a picture of a gerontocratic society. Anthropologists working in Africa south of the Sahara first introduced the term gerontocracy in the 1930s. In its original form, it referred to ‘rule by old men’.3 Studies focused on ‘age-sets’ and ‘age-grades’ within society and how age determined who dominated politics and society.4 I use Höhne’s definition of gerontocracy as ‘the authority of elders or family heads based on rules regarding age and inheritance’ (2007, 156) while acknowledging that such systems develop and do not function in isolation from their communities (ibid.). A political system governed by older men dominated in Somaliland, and according to the young women and men I talked to, this had negative consequences. The hierarchical distinction between young and older men resulted in young men having little opportunity to enter positions of power and influence before attaining a certain age. Therefore, there

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

59

was an age gap between graduating university and being eligible to run for political office or obtain a position in the government. This was one factor making the young men feel ‘already dead’, as Abdirahman put it. The current role of the elders and traditional authorities within Somaliland is the result of historical developments and uneven access to power. In the pre-colonial period, the traditional authorities concentrated on ‘pastoral politics’ such as access to water, pasture, land and caravan routes as well as keeping peace (Höhne 2007, 156). This focus continued in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but a role as intermediaries was added when they were appointed to formal positions of leadership by the colonial powers. In the post-colonial era, however, the elders’ access to power changed as the Somali elite disregarded the traditional authorities by systematically marginalising them in their attempt to implement Somali political nationalism—an ideology seeking unification of Greater Somalia under one government. This ideology culminated under the leadership of General Siyad Barre, who led the country from 1969 until civil war broke out in 1988 (Höhne 2007, 160–162). The traditional authorities gained support again during the 1980s when the power of the Siyad Barre regime started to decrease, and fighting broke out between government soldiers and supporters of an independent Somaliland in the northwest (Höhne 2007, 156). More specifically, the Somaliland National Movement (SNM) arose in 1981 as a reaction to state marginalisation and abuse of the Isaaq clan. When Somalia lost the Ogaden war in 1977–1978 to Ethiopia, the government seemed vulnerable, and SNM emerged with the intention of creating an independent Somaliland state (Höhne 2007, 163; Renders 2007, 444).5 In the following process of state formation, the SNM worked with clan elders, and the elders were granted formal influence through an advisory board called the Guurti (Höhne 2007; Renders 2007). As the conflict between north and south Somalia intensified, the members of the Guurti took a more active part in the fighting and mobilisation. After Somaliland had declared its independence from Somalia in 1991, years followed with internal conflicts between early SNM combatants and then later between sub-clans. The elders played a major role in solving these conflicts, for example at the National Conference of Somaliland in Borama, which ended in May 2003 after 6 months of negotiations.

60 

A. Simonsen

The result was a ‘hybrid presidential system’ (Renders 2007, 446) with a bicameral parliament consisting of a house of representatives and a house of elders, the Guurti. This ‘hybrid presidential system’ was seen by the youth as one of the ways that the elders held on to power. Egal, a young Somali man temporarily residing in Turkey, had high political ambitions, as did many of the young men that I encountered. He wanted to become president of Somaliland but told me, ‘In Somaliland, the presidents are old, 120 years old, but in other countries, when people are 70  years old, they finish being in politics’. The wish to become someone important was often expressed through presidential and ministerial aspirations among my male interlocutors. Such aspirations clashed with the gerontocratic system that only allocated political decision-making power to older men6 and thus treated young age as a limitation in itself. As a young man noted during an informal conversation, ‘If you want to be a big and wealthy man, you will go to work for the government’. It was possible to find work in ministerial offices, for example as a clerk or manager, even if older men would often be preferred for the job as they were considered more responsible and wiser. But what the youth mostly referred to when wanting to ‘work for the government’ was to be part of the government as a minister. The possibilities of young women entering politics, for example by becoming a minister or MP, were even more marginal compared to those of young men, as women have traditionally7 been viewed as unable to participate in politics due to their double-clan loyalties. The Somali clan system is patrilineal, which means that a woman formally belongs to her father’s clan throughout her life, but when she marries and has children, her children belong to her husband’s clan. Therefore, she would have influence and loyalty towards both clans (Hassan and Ismail 2004a, 142-152, Hassan and Ismail 2004b, 189-219). When writing my PhD dissertation in August 2016, there was only one female member in the Somaliland parliament. The same was true 5 years later, but an additional two women were working in positions in the public administration, one working in the Ministry of Environment and Rural Development and one working in the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs.8 The lack of a political structure to accommodate women’s political participation

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

61

was reflected in the fact that none of my female friends expressed political ambitions. It seemed like this was still unrealistic and out of reach for them. Instead, they would aim to secure jobs within NGOs, which often had gender equality high on their agendas. Women would also aim for employment in other sectors like teaching or nursing. Having a governmental system of gerontocracy does not necessarily go uncontested (Spencer 1976, 158), and this form of rule still has to include the interests of subordinates (Höhne 2007, 155). The young people were taking steps towards changing this political constellation. Until 2011, no one under the age of 35 could run for any political position. In 2011, a campaign led by youth groups in collaboration with international NGOs led to the approval of the National Youth Policy by the Parliament of Somaliland, which reduced the age of eligible candidates from 35 to 25 for local council elections.9 In addition, despite the clear constitutional age requirement for parliamentary candidates, some younger people started to find their way in as MPs and ministers. The reason for this, Abdirahman explained, was that the socio-cultural classifications of being an adult sometimes challenged the legal structures. In practical socio-­ cultural classifications, the statement ‘with age comes wisdom’ depended more on the achievements of the individual than on the physical age. In that way, a married young man could be considered more of an adult than an older but unmarried man (Ali 2016, 15). The allocation of power to older men, who in most spheres of Somali society have traditionally been seen as ‘the wise managers of resources and leaders of society’ (Glascock 1986, 56), must partly be understood as a social mechanism to manage the insecurity of growing old in a society where the social welfare of the elderly is in the hands of their families rather than public institutions. Glascock (1986) shows, through his study of the Bay Region of South Somalia, how the elderly hold on to some of their resources, such as land or animals, until they die in order to ensure continued economic support from their younger family members. In other words, different age groups experience different insecurities, which in the case of the elders can be managed by holding on to power, as it allows them to be viewed as a resource for the family instead of a burden. Some of this power lay in the family’s wealth, and many of the young women and men wanted to contribute to it, either by trying to open a

62 

A. Simonsen

new business, by adding new activities to an existing family business or, in the cases discussed in this book, by conducting tahriib. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the societal and structural restraints facing young men and women in Somaliland, showing how tahriib is seen as an investment in the future and a way to move forward in life rather than backwards. We will also see how restrictions within the family can lead to dreams of ‘freedom’, understood as opportunities, independence and adventure.

Investments in the Future The young Somali women and men often ran their heads against a wall when applying for jobs due to high unemployment rates and the gerontocratic and hierarchical structures of society. Many of them had turned to their parents asking to loan money for investments or for starting up businesses. However, these requests were often declined by older family members, as the youngsters were not yet considered responsible. In other families, they simply lacked the means to invest the considerable amount of capital needed to build a future in Somaliland. Finally, some parents had offered to invest in houses or businesses for their children, but the latter had declined, as they wanted to build their own homes with their own earnings. Discussing this topic with Habaane, a young Somali man whom I met during fieldwork in Turkey, I asked him: ‘If this whole trip is costing you $15,000, why do you not invest this money in a business in Somaliland?’ He laughed and replied, ‘My mother said the same. She said that she would buy two plots of land, where I could build two houses. But I told her not to do it’. Habaane told his mother that he wanted to go to Europe and then come back and build his own house, ‘In sha Allah’. He wanted to be independent. Despite his mother’s willingness to invest in his future, Habaane, like so many other young men, saw tahriib as the only way to achieve independence and upward social mobility. Staying in Somaliland and challenging the traditional structures of society and the political system just seemed like too great a task. Tahriib could potentially earn him a

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

63

European, American, Canadian or Australian passport, which would socially and economically open doors not only abroad but also in Somaliland (Simonsen 2020). Thus, tahriib was seen as a better investment, one that would allow the young people to create an independent livelihood for themselves and their families and contribute to the development of their country. Some families, who had initially refused their sons’ and daughters’ requests to fund either their investments in Somaliland or their expenses for tahriib, found themselves forced to invest later on. I would hear stories from many parents whose children had left without the knowledge or approval of their families. One father explained how he had lent his son his laptop only to find it in the hands of his sons’ friend a couple of days later. The friend explained that he had bought the laptop for $300, which was just enough for the son to initiate tahriib. This father, like so many other family members, would later receive phone calls from his son’s kidnappers in Sudan and Libya demanding the payment of large sums of money to ensure the survival and release of his child. Through Taban’s story, the next section will illustrate the constraints of the gerontocratic system and how it involuntarily keeps young men in an almost childlike position, even when adult responsibilities start to encroach on their lives. Taban, like so many others, felt forced to invest in the family’s future by attempting to do tahriib.

Responsibilities of Adulthood Taban was one of the first young men I met, who would openly share his past experiences of tahriib with me. The interview was conducted at one of the finest hotels in town, similar to the one where SONYO held their ten-year anniversary. This hotel symbolised everything Taban did not have—wealth, respect and social visibility. Surrounded by these material symbols of hope, Taban described to me what it was like being young, hastily coming of age, but not being able to fulfil the social obligations that came with adulthood:

64 

A. Simonsen

My mother brought me up since my father died when I was very young, and when I grew up as an adult, I was thinking how I would economically sponsor my mother, because at this stage of my life I cannot expect economic support from my mother. Since I could not get a job here, I decided to leave and get better life conditions over there [in Saudi Arabia].

Taban’s worries about taking care of his mother reflect what has been conceptualised as ‘the intergenerational contract’ in anthropological literature. This theme has been widely discussed in different geographical and socio-economic contexts (Barakat 1985; Stafford 2000; Whyte et al. 2008; Pedersen 2011). The intergenerational contract refers to the economic and moral bond between parents and their children, where the roles of provider and provided for are expected to shift as the child enters adulthood (Pedersen 2011, 128).10 Many of the young Somalis explained how they had undertaken tahriib or considered doing so to take care of their families. They were willing to risk their lives to live up to the intergenerational contract. The stories of Taban and the many young Somalis like him thus remind us that the moral considerations involved in the decision to migrate through what is categorised as illegal and irregular means must be understood ‘in relation to social responsibility, care and accountability’ (Vigh 2017, 495). Having family members outside of Somaliland have had tremendous effects on household economies ever since the taber migration trend of the 1970s and 1980s. It is estimated that 25–40% of urban households in 2006 received remittances sent by family members located in Europe or North America (Hansen 2006, 21). In the family of Hooyo and Aabo,11 with whom I lived during my fieldwork in Somaliland, the economy was primarily based on remittances sent by two of their sons, who were living in Europe and held European passports. Every month, the sons would send $200–300, which was almost enough to sustain the household. In a Somali context, the idea of the intergenerational contract and the economic responsibility that Taban and the other young Somalis felt for their families were highly ingrained in the socio-economic structure of the clan system. Here, family consists not only of the nuclear unit but of a larger clan network which acts as a safety net by providing access to resources and security (Lewis 1994).

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

65

Throughout Greater Somalia we find six major clan families [qabiil]. The Isaaq, Dir and Darood in the north of Somalia (Somaliland, Puntland and Ogaden), the Hawiye in central Somalia, and the Digil and Rahanwein in the south of Somalia. One clan family consists of 20,000–120,000 people and is divided into clans, sub-clans, primary lineages and diya-paying groups (the latter is called Jilib in Somali) (Lewis 1961, 4). Historically, the diya-paying group has been ‘the most important corporate political group’ (Mohamed 2007, 227) consisting of people ‘who share the most important responsibilities such as the payment of blood money, common defence, and common help’ (ibid.). In Somaliland, the main clan family is the Isaaq and the different clans and sub-clans are spread throughout the country. The capital Hargeisa is divided into districts, like Masalaha, 26th June and New Hargeisa, in which particular sub-clans are predominant. People often prefer to live in the district of their sub-clan as a form of security (Hansen 2006).12 For Taban, living in the area of his sub-clan did not release him from the heavy responsibility of providing for his mother and siblings. He also struggled to provide the contributions needed by his clan’s diya-paying group, which enhanced his feeling of marginalisation and being stuck in the category of youth. It was expected that as boys became men, they would contribute to the clan.13 Abdullahi, my research assistant and friend, explained diya payments to me: If a man injures another man, the violator's clan in four generations back will help pay the money, the compensation to the other clan. If, however, one man kills another man, the victim's family has two choices. Either they agree on the compensation and accept, or they say no and then the violator will be killed. That is how it is by Islamic law. You will count by males in the family. If a man is killed you will pay 100 camels, if a woman is killed, you will pay 50 camels. The payment of the compensation is shared. The 100 camels will be divided by the number of males in the sub-clan. It applies to both young and elder men. What is important here is the sex of the person, not the age so the women are not counted here. If I don’t have a job to earn money, my father is obligated to pay for me, If I’m an elder person who has a job, I have to pay. If the compensation is accepted, the payment will take place, and the man is free to go after that. If, however, a woman is killed by a man, the woman's family has two options. Either they

66 

A. Simonsen

say no to the compensation, which means that the man will be killed, but then her family has to pay fifty camels to the man's family since one man's life is worth a hundred camels and a woman's life fifty camels. Therefore, most families of female victims accept the compensation.

Though the Somaliland judiciary is a three-tier system, including a supreme court, courts of appeal, and regional- and district courts, ‘the Somaliland legal code remains a contradictory mixture of laws and procedures drawn from both the British common law and Italian civil law heritage, as well as shari’a and clan xeer [Somali customary law]’ (Academy for Peace and Development (APD) 2002; Le Sage 2005, 27). Taban felt the continued importance of clan and his diya-paying obligations weighing heavily on his shoulders. He, like many other young Somali men, felt like he was losing the respect of his family and society by not being able to contribute (Ali 2016, 29). Respect is a vital component, not only within the Somali community but worldwide. As stated in the first book written in Somali about tahriib,14 ‘that you are hungry doesn’t mean that you should eat just anything’. This statement, Abdirahman explained, meant that ‘instead of being a weak man within my society, it is better to go to a place far away and earn an income or die during this’. Physically leaving provided Taban with an opportunity to negotiate his current status within the social hierarchy of clans and politics. Though ‘the kinship system is based on blood relation, the ties that bind blood relatives are grounded on social contract—on a public system of rules publicly negotiated’ (Mohamed 2007, 226). Movement became Taban’s means of negotiation. Physically moving became a way to transform the position he found himself in. Taban had not even bothered to look for a job in Somaliland, he explained. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of his father and many others before him and migrated to Saudi Arabia in the hope of finding work. But contrary to his father and the earlier generation, Taban did not follow legal routes of migration, as these were now stricter in Saudi Arabia and required a work contract to even enter the country. He followed the trend of the young generation, venturing out along irregular paths on tahriib. When I met him in 2013, he had returned from Saudi Arabia and was looking for opportunities to move elsewhere.

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

67

Where Are You From?: Hierarchies of Clan Where Taban was discouraged from the beginning and decided not even to try to apply for a job in Hargeisa, Abdirahman applied for one job after the other. This meant that he experienced very directly the hierarchical, clan-based system structuring many aspects of daily life in Somaliland. He explained how he had gone to three job interviews that all ended with one question: Where are you from? That means ‘which district are you from’. When I tell them the reality, they ignore me. All these problems are coming from clan. I'm from New Hargeisa district,15 and the one doing the interview was from 26th June district. When I give him the information, he probably gives the position for the guy from the 26th June District.

Getting a job in Hargeisa depended very much on what my friends would define as ‘tribalism’.16 Many of them had experienced being called for job interviews at the end of which they would be asked where they lived. If they lived in one part of the city, the interviewer in another, which not only referred to geography but clan and family relations, they were often rejected. One of the reasons why such clan nepotism is so widespread is the traditional understanding of responsibility towards clan members. This makes it difficult for individuals who have entered the labour market to decline job requests from members of their clan (Ali 2016). As a result, there is a strong belief among the youth that kinship, not education or job experience, can get you a job. Abdirahman’s experiences at his job interviews and the financial situation of his family made him start saving up to do tahriib. Being young in a gerontocratic system while belonging to a less powerful clan created a double marginalisation. This is what led him to proclaim that if he died en route, it did not matter because he was ‘already dead’. Abdirahman felt confined. Stuck in an undesirable position restricted him and many others like him from realising their hopes and dreams for the future. The clan system, which I initially described as a security net, thus became a burden and constraint on the young men due to the hierarchical relationships among and within clans and sub-clans. The responsibility of acting as a

68 

A. Simonsen

security net for family and clan members, while not receiving security from, and even being marginalised because of, these same constellations, illustrate the existential uncertainties facing the youth in Somaliland. Not every movement is physical. Every young Somali I talked to dreamt of social movement—of moving ahead in the world and up the social ladder. This meant that they tried to engage in specific activities, while avoiding practices seen to take them backwards or down the social ladder.

Déclassement: Moving in the Wrong Direction I was often told that there were very few or no jobs available in Somaliland. When I questioned this statement, I would get a laugh and an explanation of why jobs on, for example, a construction site was not considered suitable for a man with a university degree. One day, I was interviewing Jimaale and his friend, Keynaan, at a local shop in downtown Hargeisa. Jimaale told me, ‘When you have a degree, it’s not good for a man to work at these sites, it’s tough, a low salary, not really a job that you are deserved to have. That’s why we are not focusing on that sector’. Keynaan continued: Our parents are working and we [the youth] focus on education. Previously, if you were fifteen years old, the parents would say ‘find a job’. We are now getting pocket money from our parents. Before the youth worked little jobs like construction work, factory work.

When I asked Jimaale if he would take a blue-collar job, he replied, ‘I would work in an office, register people even though the salary was low, if it was necessary I would. We hope to get some good jobs within the government or in the telecommunication sector’. Posing the question more directly, I asked if he would take a job in a factory. Jimaale replied, ‘We would not take the low-paid jobs of construction. The person who graduates will think of the highest paid jobs. If it is like to register the people, I would do it. But not jobs like construction’.

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

69

The director-general for higher education in Somaliland, whom I interviewed in June 2013, was aware of this general dismissal of menial jobs among the Somali youth. He proposed that young people could take menial jobs to start with and then later find a better job, but the youth did not like this approach. Instead, they chose to do tahriib, he explained. As a consequence, the director-general explained, the vast majority of the lower-paid jobs, referred to as blue-collar jobs, like construction work or gardening, were done by Ethiopians. Few Somalis were willing to take them on due to, among other things, the fact that blue-collar jobs for generations have been linked to certain clan- and ethnic minorities within Somali society and thus to social exclusion (see, e.g. the work of Besteman 1996, 1998). The same trends can be found worldwide, where a variety of menial jobs are often performed by immigrants (Blanco 2017). This depicts a world where a hierarchy of work socially differentiates people into classes, not only in Somalia but globally. Jimaale, along with many other young men, explained how their friends would tease them if they were seen working on a construction site. But more importantly, the majority of my young friends in Somaliland came from lower-middle- or middle-class families, who generally identified themselves with higher education and having white-collar jobs. They thus feared déclassement if they took on menial jobs. Déclassement stems from French and refers to someone who is ‘reduced or degraded from one’s social class; having come down in the world’ (Oxford English Dictionary 2021). My interlocutors were trying to climb up the social ladder, not down, and therefore, they would not consider working a blue-collar job in Somaliland.17 Doing such jobs abroad, however, was possible, as no one would know you or your family there. The category of youth was associated with the idea of upward social mobility. Many young Somalis would rather stay unemployed with a university degree than being socially degraded by taking on jobs of a lower status. Some had given up completely, before even engaging in the search for a job, like Taban, mentioned above. He had seen his friends trying to find work and had resigned himself to the position that it was impossible:

70 

A. Simonsen

When you want to survive and get a job, you can get an income from it, but I did not bother myself to search for a job because I had gathered the information that jobs were very limited in the country.

Taban’s words sum up the general experiences of nullification and marginalisation expressed by the young people I encountered. They were socially and economically ‘exiled at home’ (Vigh 2016, 242), by being young in a gerontocratic and clan-based society, where the economy was in fact booming in certain sectors but was stagnant or regressive in the lives of most of my interlocutors. All these experiences of being held back led to what has been called a lack of ‘distribution of hope’ (Hage 2003) from the state of Somaliland or ‘a cut of hope’ (Mains 2007, 2012). This created a constant feeling of hopelessness and insecurity for the young Somalis. They tried to manage this through the creation of hope—a hope often involving movement through tahriib, as will be explored in the next chapter. But the restrictions and restraints felt by the youth did not all come from societal structures. Many of the young men and women who considered tahriib expressed a need for ‘freedom’, which is probably a universal dream of the youth everywhere: to be free from parents’ supervision and meddling in their lives. For some young Somalis, the restrictions imposed on their freedom by parents were serious, like pressure to marry unwanted partners. For others, it was more a question of unwanted rules and chores. The next sections delve into the more personal and intimate relations that impacted the dreams of possible futures, namely relations within the family.

Girls in the House Many of the young women I talked to during fieldwork expressed the feeling that girls had more restrictions to their freedom and more household chores than the boys and young men. Living in Aabo and Hooyo’s household, I got to know the daily routines of the house, including who was expected to do what. Since this was a household consisting of five women (Hooyo; her daughters, Salaado and Abshiro; and

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

71

granddaughters, Amran and Hani) and one man (Aabo), I cannot compare the relative freedom or restriction of girls and boys based on this experience. But I can use it to illustrate the parental supervision and control that was often discussed by the youth. On a normal day, one of the youngest women in the house, Hani or Amran, would get up early to cook breakfast for the rest of the household, including me. If they had to leave the house early or had fallen sick, their aunts, Salaado or Abshiro, would take over the chore of making breakfast, which would often consist of laxoox, Somali pancakes with sugar and tea (Fig. 3.1). The mornings would be spent on house chores like preparing lunch, cleaning the house and washing clothes, while also taking breaks to talk to friends on the phone or chat on Facebook. Then, the women in the household would take turns going to the market for errands, while at least one of the women would have to stay at home. Here, they had to be ready to receive guests or deliveries, like the 30 litres of water brought by truck twice a month. It was generally expressed that the young women would spend more time in the house than would the young men. The young men would not have the same chores around the house and could spent more time out

Fig. 3.1  Sabaayad [Somali flatbread] cooking in Hooyo and Aabo’s kitchen, Hargeisa, Summer of 2013 (photo by the author)

72 

A. Simonsen

searching for jobs or sitting at cafés drinking tea and discussing with their friends. But this did not mean that the women were constantly bound to the house. As unfolded in the previous chapter, Salaado was taking henna lessons and had previously worked for a Chinese company. As we will see later in this chapter, she had also spent time in Djibouti and Egypt with her parents’ acceptance. Abshiro was taking English lessons, Hani was attending high school and Amran was studying to become a teacher. Many women were educating themselves with their parents’ blessing, just like the young men. But they still felt like they were under more parental supervision. Examples of parental supervision and the chores expected of young women can be illustrated through my experience of Ramadan, 2 months after I arrived in Somaliland. The women of the house spent most of the days during Ramadan in the kitchen cooking for iftaar (in Somali afur), the often elaborate meal at the time of sunset. The smells spreading throughout the house would make my stomach rumble, and in the beginning, I found it difficult to sit in the kitchen on an empty stomach, not being able to eat. I would try to help chopping the onions, but my eyes would keep watering. Or I would try to cut the watermelon, which was always part of breaking the fast at night, but I was not skilled enough at removing the rind from the fruit. As a result, Hooyo would often take over to not loose valuable food. I spent more time in the kitchen than I was used to, and I still needed to upgrade my skills. While the women would spend more hours than usual in the kitchen, the rest of the city would slow down, many only working half days. After shopping, which would usually be done around 4 pm, we would watch TV. In the beginning of Ramadan, we would only watch religious programmes or prayers, but as the month progressed, Hani, Amran and I started to watch Asian soap operas about friendships and love, topics important when one is young. Hooyo did not like that we watched these programmes, and whenever she entered the living room we would have to switch the channel. To my big disappointment, I never got to see the last part of the episodes of my favourite Asian soap opera. Before 6 pm, the food would be brought to the living room. As the sound of the calls for prayer sounded from the loudspeakers of the mosques around the city, we would begin to eat. We would often start by eating sambuusa,

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

73

sweet bread and dates, followed by a bigger meal of rice, meat and salad. Food had literally never tasted better than at this exact time and place, and I experienced a new appreciation for life, physically and mentally. Another aspect of Ramadan, which related to the experience of restraints and supervision, was that the adults of the family would often go to the mosque for tarawih prayers at night. This would leave Amran and Hani at home and unsupervised, giving them the opportunity to meet up with (boy)friends. Usually, the young women would need a special occasion or an event to go to, if they wanted to leave the house at night. Despite feeling somewhat restricted, some young women saw their youth as an advantage, contrary to the constraints of male youth described earlier in this chapter. For the young women youth meant that they still had choices of how to spend their time such as dreaming about becoming a famous journalist, dating potential boyfriends and being free from the responsibility of motherhood. For most young women considering tahriib, although they often talked about the chores and restrictions of the family, it was not necessarily the time spent in the house that led them to feel hopeless for their futures. Like many of the young men, they felt that they lacked opportunities in Somaliland—opportunities for education and jobs and for independence and adventure. So, while perspectives on ‘social death’ varied between men and women, the young men feeling a heavier burden of responsibility and placing more emphasis on political marginalisation, while the women felt more restricted by parental supervision, much of what the young people longed for was really the same.

F reedom: Opportunities, Independence and Adventure Just like so many other young men and women, Salaado wanted opportunities. She wanted to live in a place where her dreams could unfold. She wanted to learn and to use the potentials she knew she had, and she saw tahriib as her only option:

74 

A. Simonsen

I was born in Somaliland, and I was a student here in 12th grade. Then I took training at the teacher’s college. Then I worked six months at the beginner school level. Then I went to Djibouti and got a passport because I wanted to go to the university in Egypt. I only told my mother and father that I was going to Egypt. I told my whole family that I had no money, I want to learn, I’m bored. It cost me $2600. I wanted to study decoration at the university in Egypt. I did not begin at the university because I did not have any money. Instead, I went to study hair cutting for half a year in Egypt. I learned Arabic and ended up staying in Egypt for two and a half years. Then I was thinking to myself that if I go to Europe, I will get money. I wanted to learn, and I wanted to have a job. That is why I went to Europe, or tried to.

Salaado’s family had paid for her education in Egypt, which they supported. Such regular educational travels were not considered tahriib, but when Salaado decided to migrate further to Europe without regular documents, it was without her family’s knowledge or acceptance. She went on tahriib to move closer towards reaching her dreams, hoping she could gain the skills she would need to get a good job that would secure not only her own but also her family’s future. Instead, she got permanent injuries on her feet due to walking in the icy mountains without proper shoes, as mentioned earlier. Despite the harsh experiences of tahriib that Salaado had already had, she still dreamt of going back to Egypt and moving to Europe, but she wanted to travel regularly by plane as mentioned previously. One day in Ramadan, I joined Salaado in the kitchen, as she was busy making sambuus for iftaar. I asked which of her friends she was planning to see during Eid, and her reply surprised me: ‘I don’t have any friends here, only Munira, the rest are all over the world, some working, some studying. I am not happy here’. ‘Why?’, I asked. ‘Wallahi, Anja, I already told you. I do not have any job, no study. I just stand up, sleep, stand up, sleep, all the stuff I wish for I cannot get here’. Salaado felt unhappy due to the lack of opportunities in Somaliland in the form of jobs and education. She wanted the freedom to move and follow her dreams. So did Salaado’s sister Abshiro. Their four siblings had left Somalia as refugees during times of war, and they had sought asylum and were now living in Europe.

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

75

Salaado had tried to leave on tahriib crossing the icy mountains between Iran and Turkey during times of peace, risking her life. While the two sisters shared the dream of leaving Somaliland for a life with more opportunities, Abshiro did not want to risk her life as her sister had done. Besides the harsh experiences of her sisters’ and brothers’, Abshiro knew a girl who had decided to try her luck on tahriib after her father passed away. She died in the Mediterranean on her way to Italy. Therefore, Abshiro had decided to stay and be patient in Somaliland. She said, ‘Believe in Allah, everything comes with the belief in Allah’. Besides believing in Allah, Abshiro continued to actively move towards her dreams for the future, dreams that entailed either leaving or staying in Somaliland: Sometimes I wish for tourism in another country. I have a passport from Djibouti so sometimes, I’m invited to Dubai by family or relatives but then I go back, I love my country. Sometimes you will get the chance. Other times, I dream to be a business woman, because you are the only one in charge, if you wish to go to another country. Sometimes I wish I have a big supermarket in here. I want to help the people who don’t have a job, who are sick or abnormal.

Abshiro had applied for scholarships for universities in countries like Sudan, China, Malaysia and Turkey but had never been successful. The three components in Abshiro’s dreams were ‘a good life, a good husband and a good job’. She was constantly looking for new opportunities and was taking English lessons in order to obtain a good job in or outside Somaliland, only she had not paid the latest fee of $50 for the class, as she lacked the money to do so. A job would lead to the freedom of economic independence for Abshiro. For others, freedom was about achieving individual independence from the family. When I met Mire at his house in August 2013, the 15-year-­ old had just attempted to do tahriib the week before. He was caught by family members who managed to prevent him from leaving. One of his family members was a friend of mine, who had brought me to meet him. Mire was tall and handsome, and his face looked older than his age. He

76 

A. Simonsen

had finished eighth grade and was now working at his father’s shop. Mire told me: My father’s shop is selling house utilities, sometimes he sells cars, sometimes he constructs houses, but his main business is selling house utilities. Besides this, I’m now taking private lessons in a private school that being English, computer and mathematics and at night I take religious studies. I left the regular school because I dislike it. I like to earn my own money, to be independent, to go abroad and once I go there, I will establish my own business.

Specifically, Mire was hoping to go to Sweden. He explained, ‘I’m hoping to get my full rights there, everyone’s respect, travel documents, a job, a better life and the education there. I’m hoping to get a business education and any job I can get there’. Not fully understanding why Mire did not at least finish secondary school in Hargeisa, I kept returning to the question of why he wanted an education in Sweden. Besides the fact that 60 young people from his school had already left on tahriib with the hope of getting an education and a well-paid job, there was something else bothering him. Finally, he told me: I feel I’m a slave to my fathers’ shop, here all of us share, I want to be separate. I don’t get my own salary here, everything I do in the shop is considered to belong to the family since I’m considered as the son, not the worker.

To this my friend, Mire’s family member, added: ‘It should be added that his father is illiterate really. He does not encourage education. He sometimes hits them that’s also a big part of the story … his father just wants his sons to work in the shop’. He said that Mire attended one of the cheaper private schools in Hargeisa, even though his father had a lot of money, because the father did not see education as a good investment. Finally, he told me that Mire wanted to leave so bad that he considered becoming a soldier in Qatar, where they would take Somalis on as soldiers. I asked Mire why he would like to be a soldier. He said, ‘I would like to be independent so I would like to be a soldier, they pay high salary and I would get to use my body’.

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

77

When I asked Mire what independence meant to him, he said, ‘It’s not being controlled, not scolded, have my own house, purchase and sell my own stuff, have fun for myself, be independent. I don’t have that now’. Like many other young people around the world, Mire felt that his family and their rules and expectations limited his freedom and restricted his life and his dreams for the future. Similarly, many of my friends dreamt of seeking new adventures. They dreamt of freedom, referring to a position out of reach of their parents’ control—similar to young Europeans moving out on their own or going interrailing or backpacking. Both my female and male friends would use the English term ‘freedom’ when explaining what they were searching for. They described how, in Europe, young people lived in apartments by themselves and were thus not controlled by their parents to the same extent as they were in Somaliland, where they would live with their parents until marriage. The search of freedom, understood as opportunity, independence and adventure, was part of the reason why the young Somalis dreamt of a life abroad. Their dreams of travel, as shown by Abshiro’s story above, did sometimes go beyond the thoughts of tahriib. There were few avenues of legal migration open to the young men and women from Somaliland, but one was transnational marriage.

Transnational Marriage By many Somalis, the diaspora were considered the backbone of the country—the ones who could financially take care of a household and who had opportunities overseas that the young woman and men in Hargeisa did not have. Marrying within the diaspora was one way of securing your future, and it might also give you access to one of the few legal paths of migration. But it was not always easy. One example of a transnational marriage was recounted to me by Amran. One afternoon in the summer of 2013, our bus passed by her friend’s house in Hargeisa, and Amran told me, ‘My friend, she is 18 years old, and her husband is a tall man and an old man, he is maybe 30 years old. He is from the UK’. I asked Amran whether her friend liked him.

78 

A. Simonsen

‘He has a lot of money’, Amran said and laughed. ‘Here [in Somaliland] it is not about love, it’s about money. She has a house, internet, beauty, every month she has $300’. We continue to talk, and I ask Amran whether her friend wants to go to the UK with her husband. ‘Wallahi, she likes to go to the UK, but her husband does not like it, he says she should stay in Somaliland’. Amran told me that many of her girlfriends had married Somalis living in Europe. She had also been approached herself by a man living in Finland, who was visiting Hargeisa. They had been chatting on social media, and he wanted to meet her. ‘When I came, he showed up in his big car. He was old, maybe 30. He had no hair’. We laughed. ‘He said that he wanted someone who was 17 or 18 years old. I did not like it. He asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said “okay, okay” and then I quickly left the car. I did not call him, and I did not pick up his call from that day on’. Despite having just told me that marriage was not about love in Somaliland, Amran had refused the offer that day. She might like the idea of marrying someone from the diaspora, but this man was too old and a little scary. And Amran already had a boyfriend who she was in love with. So maybe there was more to life than money after all. There were many stories about transnational marriages in Hargeisa, among both men and women. Musa had agreed to marry a Somali woman living in Sweden. Their wedding had been formalised at the Swedish embassy in Addis Ababa, and Musa had travelled to Sweden 5 months later. When I met Musa, he was back in Somaliland. He explained, ‘The woman in Sweden was not from my clan, but my mother and her mother are friends so they arranged for us to get married. I agreed to this because we knew each other when we were young’. Then he continued: When I came to Sweden, she said that she wanted to marry another guy. She told me to go and seek asylum from whatever country I wanted. We had a baby boy together who lives with her in Sweden. She told me that this boy was not mine when I came to Sweden, but in Addis Ababa when we got married, she said she was pregnant and that the child was mine, so I don’t know what to believe. I stayed 17 days in Stockholm with the woman, but after a long discussion we did not find any agreement to live

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

79

with each other, so I decided to go to Finland to escape from her. There, I requested for asylum, and I requested the police to give me shelter and food.

It took Musa almost 2 years to get a decision on his asylum case, which was denied. Musa had also realised that maybe Finland was not the place for his many dreams to come true: ‘The only thing I wanted was education when I went to Europe, but it was the worst life in Finland, they told me that I would have to start from scratch to take an education, it would take me 12 years’. Consequently, Musa returned to Somaliland: When I came back to Somaliland, I did not have a job, a house, anything, I had my faith, my luck and the confidence of myself. Everything happened as according to Allah, and after three months I got a job from the university. My hope is fine now, I am working, I have everything. The only damage I feel was that I lost three years of my time. Still, I would like to get a higher education from those countries. And things were systematised there, they are not here. That’s my only problem. It’s not about the money. In general people expect that they can get everything. Now I receive $900 per month in salary and in Europe I was paid $300. Some say I am mad for coming back to Somaliland. Even my mother and my sisters tell me, ‘Why did you come back?’ Now I pay $200 per month to my family [mother, father, three brothers, two sisters] and $54 for my brothers’ university. I tell them, ‘What is best? In Finland, I was not able to pay you anything, and here I pay $200’. Sometimes they put pressure on me. They say: ‘You came from Europe, why did you come here? If you come here, then you should pay a lot’. Sometimes I am even thinking to go back because of the pressure.

Of course, there were plenty of successful transnational marriages. What the stories related here illustrate is that families’ expectations of and pressures on transnational marriages were high, as they were considered a way to secure the future of the family by securing socio-economic prosperity for the younger generation. While the young Somalis might be willing to risk their lives on tahriib, their families often consider the safer, legal option of marriage a better way of going abroad. So even if the older generation sends the message to the youth not to migrate, for example at events like SONYO’s ten-year anniversary, they still often see movement as a way to secure a better future.

80 

A. Simonsen

‘Social death’ Revisited Revisiting my many thoughts and impressions from SONYO’s ten-year anniversary in June 2013, one thing was clear to me: despite the various performances and slogans, all encouraging the Somaliland youth to stay in the country and not be seduced by the lures of tahriib, the material symbols of upward social mobility represented by the physical surroundings of the event were a much stronger signal to the youth. All the young people who dressed up in their best clothes to attend the event showed the same need to see and be seen, to be socially visible and important. When constantly being reminded—even at this anti-tahriib event—of the successful investments made by diaspora Somalis, even the cleverest comedy and the most thought-provoking slogan would fall short in convincing them that staying in Somaliland represented the better investment in their future. As I have made clear in this chapter, tahriib was much more than physical movement. It represented the hope of social mobility and of overcoming ‘the absence of the possibility of a worthy life’ (Hage 2004, 132 in Vigh 2016, 45). But before this book takes us further along the journey of tahriib, I want us to pause for a moment and remember that not everyone made the decision to leave Somaliland despite the uncertainties and challenges they faced there. Ten years after my own departure from Somaliland, many of the young people I met there had made lives for themselves, been educated and gotten married without doing tahriib. Salaado was now married, had children and lived in Hargeisa with her family. Abdirahman had initially wanted to do tahriib but decided against it after hearing the many stories of suffering and hardship en route. He managed to collect enough money from working menial jobs in Hargeisa and from his social network to pay for his studies in South-East Asia. Returning to Somaliland with a master’s degree enabled him to land a good job. He decided to settle down in Hargeisa and was now married and recently became a father. The story of Musa also clearly shows that he managed to get a better job in Somaliland and provide more money to his family than he ever did during his unsuccessful stay in Europe. Thus, it is important to remember, as we move along the journey into the unknown, that although tahriib was often portrayed as the only possible solution for a dignified or even bearable future, this was not necessarily the case. For the ones who decided not to do tahriib or who were

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

81

unsuccessful in their attempts to do so, life continued as did the aspirations of social mobility. And many young people managed to create a future for themselves and their families in Somaliland without physically moving. Not all life was socially dead after all. In the next chapter, I turn the attention back to the young men and women who ‘walk the road of hope’ by practising tahriib, even before physically leaving Somaliland.

Notes 1. See the work of Vigh (2017) on the ethics of care in precarious situations. 2. The Republic of Somaliland (2005)). 3. Oxford Reference (2022). 4. Oxford Reference (2022). 5. Other parts of Greater Somalia have seen the elders of traditional authorities play the same important role in peace-making processes. See for an example Hagmann (2007). 6. Gerontocratic structures in general have been depicted among various African societies (Hamer 1970; Spencer 1976). 7. I use the term traditional according to Höhne’s (Höhne 2007, 156) definition as ‘a sense of constant movement that points to the active and process-oriented aspect of tradition, in which the present is connected to the past in a dynamic way’. 8. Women, however, have been viewed as strong agents in other parts of society, for example during peace-building (see Gardner and El Bushra (eds) 2004). 9. The Republic of Somaliland (2005), article 41. 10. Pedersen (2011, 136) rightly criticises earlier literature for its tendency to approach intergenerational contracts mainly through the perspective of the young (Mørck 1998) and thus positioning the older generation through the young people’s framework. By introducing the various social perceptions of moving in the world through a historical perspective in Chap. 1, it has been my intention to give voice to the older generation, whose ways of being and moving in the world are still very much present among my interlocutors. 11. See chapter 2 for a description of Hooyo, Abo and their family. 12. Descent is traced patrilineally, and through this genealogy, Lewis (1994, 19-20) argues, each individual has an exact place in society.

82 

A. Simonsen

13. Women have traditionally not been regarded as members of the diya-­ paying groups. The size of the group is counted in terms of the number of men, when calculating payment and compensation. Therefore, families with many girls pay less and receive less. 14. Magafe, Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiq-dhaqaaqday’—[Magafe, tahriib and young generation travelling with no hope and no direction]. 15. I have changed the name of the district Abdirahman lives in to protect his anonymity. 16. My interlocutors would use the terms tribe (tribalism) and clan interchangeably referring to the same genealogical structures of society. 17. See, for instance, Mains (2007, 2012), who explores similar trends among the youth in Ethiopia.

References Academy for Peace and Development. 2002 ‘The judicial system in Somaliland’. Workshop Report. Hargeisa. Ali, Nimo-Ilhan. 2016. Going on Tahriib. The causes and consequences of Somali youth migration to Europe. In Research paper 5. United Kingdom, Kenya: Rift Valley Institute. Barakat, Halim. 1985. The Arab family and the challenge of social transformation. In Women and the family in the Middle East. New voices of change, ed. Elisabeth Warnock Fernea, 27–48. Austin: University of Texas Press. Besteman, Catherine Lowe. 1996. Violent politics and the politics of violence: The dissolution of the Somali nation-state. American Ethnologist 23 (3): 579–596. ———. 1998. Primordialist blinders: A reply to I.  M. Lewis. Cultural Anthropology 13 (1): 109–120. Gardner, Judith and Judy El Bushra. 2004. ‘Introduction’ In Somalia. The untold story. The war through the eyes of Somali women eds. Gardner, J. and J. El Bushra. London: Ciir and Pluto Press, pp.1–20. Glascock, Anthony Philip. 1986. Resource control among older males in southern Somalia. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology: 51–72. Hage, Ghassan. 2003. Against paranoid nationalism: Searching for Hope in a shrinking society. Annandale, N.S.W: Pluto Press. ———. 2004. Comes a time we are all enthusiasm’: Understanding Palestinian suicide bombers in times of Exighophobia. Public Culture 15 (1): 65–89.

3  ‘If I Die, I have Already Died’: Entanglements of Social Death 

83

Hagmann, Tobias. 2007. ‘Bringing the Sultan Back In: Elders as Peacemakers in Ethiopia’s Somali Region’ in State recognition and democratization in SubSaharan Africa. A new dawn for traditional authorities? Eds. L. Buur and H. M. Kyed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 31–51. Hamer, John H. 1970. ‘Sidamo Generational Class Cycles. A Political Gerontocracy in Africa’ in Journal of the International African Institute. 40(1), pp. 50–70. Hansen, Peter. 2006. Revolving returnees. Meanings and practices of transnational return among Somalilanders’. PhD Thesis,. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. Hassan, Zeynab Mohammed, and Shukri Hariir Ismail. 2004a. Women and peace-making in Somaliland. In Somalia. The untold story. The war through the eyes of Somali women, ed. Judith Gardner and Judy El Bushra, 142–152. London: Ciir and Pluto Press. ———. 2004b. Post-war recovery and participation. In Somalia. The untold story. The war through the eyes of Somali women, ed. Judith Gardner and Judy El Bushra, 189–152. London: Ciir and Pluto Press. Höhne, Markus Virgil. 2007. From pastoral to state politics: Traditional authorities in northern Somalia. In State recognition and democratization in sub-­ Saharan Africa. A new Dawn for traditional authorities? ed. Lars Buur and Helene Maria Kyed, 155–182. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Le Sage, Andre. 2005. ‘Stateless justice in Somalia. Formal and informal rule of law initiatives’. Centre for humanitarian dialogue report, 1–59. Lewis, Ioan Myrddin. 1961. Pastoral democracy. London: Oxford University Press. ———. 1994. Blood and bone: The call of kinship in Somali society. Lawrenceville, N.J: Red Sea Press. Mains, Daniel. 2007. Neoliberal times: Progress, boredom, and shame among young men in urban Ethiopia. American Ethnologist 34 (4): 659–673. ———. 2012. Hope is cut–youth, unemployment, and the future in urban Ethiopia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Mohamed, Jama. 2007. Kinship and contract in Somali politics. Journal of the International African Institute 77 (2): 226–249. Mørck, Yvonne. 1998. Bindestregsdanskere. Fortællinger om køn, generationer og etnicitet. Copenhagen: Forlaget Sociologi. Pedersen, Marianne Holm. 2011. You want your children to become like you’. The transmission of religion practices among Iraqi families in Copenhagen. In Mobile bodies, Mobile souls. Family, religion and migration in a global world, ed. Mikkel Rytter and Karen Fog Olwig, 117–138. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.

84 

A. Simonsen

Renders, Marleen. 2007. Appropriate 'Governance-Technology'? Somali clan elders and institutions in the making of the 'Republic of Somaliland. Africa Spectrum 42 (3): 439–459. Simonsen, Anja. 2020. ‘Crossing (Biometric) Borders: Turning ‘Gravity’ Upside Down’, Special Issue, Ethnos, 1-15. Spencer, Paul. 1976. Opposing streams and the Gerontocratic ladder: Two models of age organisation in East Africa. Man 11 (2): 153–175. Stafford, Charles. 2000. Chinese Patriliny and the cycles of Yang and Laiwang. In Cultures of relatedness. New approaches to the study of kinship, ed. Janet Carsten, 35–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vigh, Henrik. 2016. Life’s trampoline: On nullification and cocaine migration in Bissau. In Affective circuits and African migration, ed. Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes-Green, 223–244. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2017. Caring through crime: Ethical ambivalence and the cocaine trade in Bissau. Africa 87 (3): 479–495. Whyte, Susan Reynolds, Erdmute Alber Sjaak, and van der Geest. 2008. Generational connections and conflicts in Africa: An introduction. In Generations in Africa. Connection and conflict, ed. Susan Reynolds Whyte, Erdmute Alber Sjaak, and van der Geest, 1–23. Berlin: Lit Verlag.

Internet Sources Blanco, Octavio. 2017. ‘Immigrant workers are most likely to have these jobs’. 16 March 2017. CNN. https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/16/news/economy/ immigrant-­workers-­jobs/index.html. Accessed 13 Feb 2021. Oxford English Dictionary. 2021. ‘Oxford English Dictionary’. http://www.oed. com/view/Entry/48269. Accessed 25 Feb 2016. Oxford Reference. 2022. ‘Gerontocracy’. Oxford Reference. https://www-­ oxfordreference-­com.ep.fjernadgang.kb.dk/view/10.1093/acref/97801995 33008.001.0001/acref-­9780199533008-­e-­922. Accessed 08 Feb 2022. The Republic of Somaliland. 2005. ‘The Constitution of the Republic of Somaliland’. Somaliland Constitution. http://www.somalilandlaw.com/ somaliland_constitution.htm. Accessed 08 Feb 2022.

4 Walking the Road of Hope

Somali proverb: ‘Raga socdaalku waa u daawo hadii mawdku daayo’. (Movement for a man is like medicine if death lets him go.) Berbera, August 2013. The heat that welcomes my four Somali girlfriends and me, as we arrive in the port city of Berbera,1 is overwhelming. Stepping out of the car, which has driven us from Hargeisa, literally feels like stepping headfirst into a wall—of heat. We hurry to our air-conditioned rooms at the hotel to drop off our things, so we can run to the beach and throw ourselves into the waves. Though still an economically important port for Somaliland and Ethiopia, what meets us at the beach in Berbera on this day is a loud echo of silence with very few people in sight. Reaching the beach, we start walking into the water. It is beautiful, warm and welcoming, and I dive straight in. For me, the ocean is safe, comforting and it gives me a sense of freedom. My body floats. Nothing is weighing me down. But my thoughts go to the young Somalis conducting tahriib, for whom the ocean is cold, wild and uncontrollable, as their inflatable boats cross untamed oceans in the dark. I have promised to teach my Somali friends how to swim. The youngest, 18 years old, is the most eager to learn. I want her to feel comfortable with the ocean and tell her: ‘lean back and relax. The ocean and I will carry you’.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_4

85

86 

A. Simonsen

We laugh. We take pictures. We write our names in the sand. Spending the afternoon at the beach, we come across two other young women. We notice them because they are skilled swimmers and swim far away from shore. They are not on a relaxing girls’ day out. They are locals and they are here for a purpose. They are practicing their swimming skills because they want to do tahriib. They tell us that this training will increase their chances of surviving tahriib, as the small inflatable boats often capsize on the vast ocean leading to Europe.

The two young women practising their swimming skills in Berbera is an example of how some young people practise hope (in Somali rajo) before departure. It illustrates the contours of hope and the narratives of promising futures. It shows how lives at home are already en route, anticipating and awaiting opportunities to move, and how this continues as they move along the journeys into the unknown (Fig. 4.1). Hope, as I use it throughout this book, is, first, the universally shared human cognitive condition of looking forward, the spirit of utopia (Bloch

Fig. 4.1  Beach in Berbera, Somaliland, August 2013 (photo by the author)

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

87

1986), as if we are walking on a road heading somewhere. Utopia, in this sense, is reachable. It points towards the not-yet-consciousness, hoping beyond the present day and projecting our thoughts forwards, not backwards (Bloch 1986, 10–11). Second, hope is our practice of looking forward and working towards our dreams, like strengthening our swimming skills before venturing out on tahriib. Hope is, I argue, a social practice (Bourdieu [1979]1984), and I divide the practices into social fantasies and social hopes. A social fantasy2 refers to a form of mediator between the real world and people’s hard-to-reach dreams and desires. Although they may seem unrealistic, they originate from the experiences of everyday life and are very important to people’s abilities to keep hoping. A social hope, on the other hand, is a hope more closely connected to people’s immediate life-­ worlds and therefore has a better chance of being fulfilled. It is, in other words, ‘grounded within the realm of the thinkable or imaginable’ and ‘has a strong collective and normative dimension’ (Kleist 2016, 2). So, while both social fantasies and social hopes can be expressed and practised as individual goals or dreams, they are generated within the collective, within the social and political context of the individual. Therefore, similar hopes and fantasies are often shared by many people within the same social context. The following quote by a young Somali man, whom I met during fieldwork, captures elegantly how practising both social hopes and social fantasies is about projecting one’s thoughts into the future while also working very hard in the present: Hope follows you so that you can reach your future. You cannot live without hope. Hope, it is like a road. If you go straight and trust your life, you can reach your goal. Hope depends on how you act and how you take your chance. Hard work is the main point. You will be near your goals the harder you work and have discipline.

Walking this road of hope,3 however, required hard work—physically and mentally—as local and international practices and structures were in place to prevent the young Somalis from reaching the destination of their dreams.

88 

A. Simonsen

The two women we met in Berbera worked very hard to reach their goal of leaving Somaliland. They were walking the road of hope, leaving footprints in the sand and hoping that their training would take them ‘near their goals’. The dark side of walking this particular road, however, was that their footprints could be washed away forever—despite their hard work. The migration practices of the young Somalis, and many young migrants throughout the world, are taking place within what Kleist (2016, 1) has called ‘a mobility paradox’: in a world where the increased use of technology showcases the possible and enables travel for the privileged, the hopes and opportunities to travel and experience the world are increasingly unequally distributed. While certain passports will give access to almost every corner of the world, the legal means to emigrate out of the African continent towards greener pastures in Europe or North America have all but disappeared (Fig. 4.2).

Fig. 4.2  Footprint in the sand, Berbera, Somaliland, August 2013 (photo by the author)

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

89

Hope and Migration Literature Except for the work of Ernst Bloch (1986), hope had not been given much attention in the social sciences until the beginning of the 2000s, when academics like Crapanzano (2003) called for an engagement with hope. Since then, the concept of hope has been written about widely (Hage 2003; Braithwaite 2004; Miyazaki 2004, 2006; Webb 2007, 2012; Piot 2010; Axel Pedersen and Morten. 2012). Hope has been explored through and paired with themes like temporality (Miyazaki 2004, 2006; Piot 2010; Barber Pauline 2018), uncertainty (Cooper and Pratten 2015; Horst and Grabska 2015) and a longing for something else (Jackson 2011; Lucht 2012). It is essential to grasp such themes and their connection with hope if one wants to explore the everyday life of young migrants and their movements through the world. Paradoxically, scholars have been slow to incorporate the concept of hope into the migration literature (Kleist 2016, 2). My goal in this book is thus to contribute to the literature of hope and migration by portraying what hope is and how it is practised among young Somalis specifically and young Africans more broadly. I do this by building on other recent contributions like Vigh (2009), Lucht (2012), Steinberg (2015), Kleist and Thorsen (2016), and Barber Pauline (2018). I propose a theoretical framework of hope that takes its point of departure in the social practices of young Somalis as well as the uncertain circumstances that surround them. Uncertainty, I argue, is the force that pushes them to migrate while at the same time being the fuel that keeps their hopes alive en route. Hope always contains a degree of uncertainty and is therefore double-­ edged in nature. This doubleness of hope has been portrayed across the hope literature (Kleist 2016). On the one hand, hope has been described as vital to the human being (Webb 2012) and the open-ended nature of hope as what might lead people to act and to create change and resistance (Cooper and Pratten 2015). On the other hand, scholars remind us that collective imaginaries and hopes also have a flip side (Rousseau et  al. 1998; Drahos 2004; Horst 2006). The mental journey, the imaginative footsteps, can be a way to cope with waiting, but Rosseau et al. argue that it also encompasses the possibility of losing touch with reality, of ‘sliding

90 

A. Simonsen

into madness’ (1998, 387–388). So, while hope encompasses the unpredictability and unknowability of life and future, it offers ‘a particular take on uncertainty, one which emphasizes potentiality and anticipation rather than fear and doubt’ (Kleist 2016, 2).

Social Hopes: Collective Dreams and Beliefs Hope experienced as ‘that sense that one may become other or more than one presently is or was fated to be’ (Jackson 2011, xi)4 emphasises the processual nature of hope. Hope changes as we grow up and experience life; it grows, fades or mutates with our circumstances and social circles. As a ‘collective hope’ (Braithwaite 2004, 7), it is created and fuelled from our social, economic and cultural context (Kleist 2016, 7) while at the same time being grounded in our individual life-worlds and being expressed and practised as individual goals and dreams. ‘Collective hope’ is hope ‘that is genuinely and critically shared by a group’, a space ‘for the expression of human need’ (Braithwaite 2004, 12). The young Somalis that I encountered throughout my fieldwork constantly expressed hopes of acquiring an education abroad, being able to provide for their families and getting married. These collective hopes represented upward social mobility in their specific social, economic and cultural context and were thus created as a response to that exact context. These collective hopes are what Hage (2003) names ‘social hope’ and Braithwaite (2004) calls the ‘institutions of hope’. Hage’s (2003) work shows, in the context of Australia, how the state often attempts to be the distributor of social hope as a means of connecting its citizens closer to the state. What I explore, in the Somali context, is what happens when the distribution of social hope from the state and social institutions like kin- or clan networks fails. More specifically, I investigate what happens when (hope of ) social mobility in the form of education and work is distributed unequally and unevenly within local contexts. And when local distributors of hope, failing to create collective hope within Somaliland, have been outbid by the big shiny hopes of Europe, Canada and the USA that are distributed with exceptional efficiency through movies and social media.

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

91

While some social hopes were specific and society-oriented, like obtaining a passport or becoming a famous news reporter, others were vague and focused on intimate, personal relations. Some of the young Somalis hoped to (re)connect with these relations, that is get married or provide for their parents, while others wanted to get away from unwanted marriages and controlling family members. Whether their hopes were specific or vague, they were only hopes. That meant that no one could know if the hopes would ever come true. Most of the young Somalis expressed a great acceptance of not knowing where they would end up and how their hope(s) would turn out. This was partly due to their belief in God. Crapanzano (2003) has explored this form of hope among American Evangelical Christians. In his approach, hope is shaped by an unknown component, which is a general feature when human beings hope. Within a religious framework, hope is expressed through the belief in God. My Muslim friends would always define hope as partly anchored in their religious beliefs, exemplified through their daily prayers, their fasting during Ramadan and their constant use of the phrase Insha Allah (meaning ‘God willing’). Another part of hope was their own efforts, the way they practised hope through their actions. The uncertainty of never knowing the end result and the willingness to accept this as a part of life were what kept them walking the road of hope. Accepting uncertainty did not mean that they did not experience fear in their lives en route. They did. Never knowing what lay ahead or how their journeys would twist and turn, fear was always present as they walked the road of hope. In sum, the practices of social hope are anchored in collective dreams and beliefs as they come to life in individual expressions and practices. Practices of hope are found throughout the decision-making processes involved in tahriib before, during and after young Somalis set off from Somaliland into the unknown.

92 

A. Simonsen

L ocal Distributions of Hope: From Education to Tahriib My research assistant Abdullahi has gathered five of his friends at a hotel in the outskirts of Hargeisa in the beginning of June 2013. These five young men in their mid-20s shed light on the way hope changes with age and experience and the massive loss of hope marking the young generations in Somaliland. Kaafi, one of the young men, explains: We were dreaming to be something in the future but few of us have accomplished that. When I was a young boy, I dreamt of being a doctor or an engineer. Then you grow up, the universities don’t have the faculties and you are forced to do whatever is available in the schools. Students have a diary book and when they fill out the field for ambition, most will write doctors or engineers. But there are no opportunities, so here in Somaliland you don’t really achieve any of the dreams you have, if you are not so lucky to go overseas … You just do the exam. You just submit your paper. Those who are educated outside of Somaliland are the ones we call doctors. There are two schools of medicine in the country, but they are not recognised. We do not trust the Somaliland medical schools.

Kaafi’s account, and others like it encountered throughout my fieldwork, clearly shows that the distribution of hope among the youth in Somaliland is inevitably linked with their possibilities to move in the world. My interlocutors kept referring to the value of having pursued education abroad, whether in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Malaysia, Turkey or Europe where the quality of education was perceived to be higher than in Somaliland. However, only a small number of people could afford to educate themselves abroad. The majority chose to enrol in universities in Somaliland, despite the lack of trust in the educational system. The young people still valued education because it represented social mobility (Ali 2016, 34). It was a way to leave the prospects of blue-collar jobs behind and instead focus on white-collar jobs. It represented a way to practise the hope of becoming someone important one day, of projecting oneself into the future and looking forward (Bloch 1986, 10–11). Primary and secondary schools in Somaliland were publicly provided and free. At university level, students would have to pay a minimum of $220

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

93

per semester. Some young women and men were already struggling to make ends meet in their daily lives and would be unable to pay university fees. Others had family members, either within or outside Somaliland, to pay the fees for them. Increasing numbers of young people were attending educational institutions in cities like Hargeisa, but the unemployment rates were sky-­ rocketing, reaching rates of 95% for those between the ages of 15 and 24 (Ali 2016, 27–28). Figures from local and international NGOs state that unemployment is around 67% in a population where 70% are below the age of 30.5 In addition, the jobs that were most widely available, like teachers, would be paid salaries so low that even full-time employees could barely make ends meet (Ali 2016, 34). The unemployment rates must be understood as a result of an economy, which, with a priority on export of primary commodities, created few job opportunities. Additionally, an increasing percentage of young people in the population and a mismatch between expectations of the job market and the skills offered by the youth have created the dire situation (Ali 2016, 27–28). As I was sitting with the five young men, we started to discuss the challenges of getting educated in Somaliland. Kaafi made it clear that the lack of proper education was one of the drivers of tahriib: Boys of my age don’t get the type of education you would expect … many youngsters go to school even though the quality of the education is not good … The education here is not enough. The system, the curricula. The teachers did not get enough education to be able to teach. Also, the environment here is not supportive to you. If the father and the uncle are chewing khat,6 then that is what the son sees. In regards to the economy, there is a lack of institutions that can create jobs and lack of enough knowledge to manage the sectors. Politically, there is no creativity from the government, if there is a lack of knowledge then people will go tahriib.

Kaafi’s description of an educational system that lacked quality must be seen in the context of post-civil war Somaliland, where increasing numbers of young people started getting a higher education. In 1998, the first university in Somaliland was built, which became a symbol of hope.

94 

A. Simonsen

By 2013–2014, however, Somaliland had built 24 universities without any form of standardisation and control, which created a mistrust of the quality of education they provided (Ali 2016, 33–34). The lack of trust in the educational system, coupled with an absence of support from the closest family members (in some homes) and the lack of political intervention, characterised much of the criticism raised by the young generation in Somaliland. In addition to the poor quality of education, the young generation was often disappointed by the lack of support from family members and the unequal distribution of opportunities. The disappointments and lack of hope led some young men to give up on society completely, Kaafi explained: The jobs are limited. It’s only some guys who are lucky enough to get a job. Families here consist of a mother and a father without education and without jobs, which means that the economy is not sufficient for the whole family. Boys don’t have playgrounds and other things to spend their free time on. Instead, they might be joining other groups who influence them. At an early age, they begin chewing khat. This makes them not go to work, they spend their time on khat instead, sometimes robbing people to get money. Some, therefore, get disappointed with the country, and this leads to tahriib.

And even for the few who worked hard and managed to get an education at home or abroad, Kaafi continued, jobs in Somaliland were hard to come by: Some do get jobs, but it’s the minority. There are three sectors, which provide jobs: the government, business or the NGO/management sector. The government does not have the capacity to create many jobs, businesses are run at the micro-level and the number of jobs within the NGO sector is limited. All of us want to be employed by international NGOs because they give the best salary.

Having a good job referred to more than just having a job. It spoke to a broader understanding of the social surroundings in which my interlocutors found themselves, as I have already discussed in Chap. 3 (see also

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

95

Ali 2016, 28). Kaafi also linked the importance of having a job to the expected transition from young to adult, where (educated) young people should find a job and fulfil their duties to the greater family (Ali 2016, 34). Having a job would also enable them to start a family of their own, which again symbolised entering into adulthood and a position of responsibility. In other words, ‘Unemployment alone does not trigger tahriib. Rather, what it means to be unemployed—a word that is highly charged with context-specific innuendos and socially constructed and construed meanings—is what may drive young people to leave’ (Ali 2016, 28). Seen in this light, education, no matter the bleak situation of the future job market, represented a transition: a practice of upward social mobility and a practice of hope. But for many, the lack of local distributions of hope, through state- and social institutions alike, meant that the transition into adulthood was replaced by physical movements out of the country in the pursuit of a different future. Practising tahriib and being en route, even while still being at home, thus became a way to manage the uncertainties experienced in the local life-worlds of the young.

Practising Tahriib at Home Practising the hope of tahriib often began before ever leaving home. One example is the two young women practising their swimming at the beach in Berbera. Another example is the preparations of three young men, Gacal, Mowliid and Absimil, who were all in their early 20s and who all had plans to do tahriib. I had met Gacal before, as mentioned in the introduction. We were introduced through his aunt, who had lived abroad for many years. This time, he had agreed to meet me at a more private location away from his family, because he wanted to share information about his and his friends’ plans for the future. The young men had picked Restaurant Summertime for our meeting, which in many ways symbolised the essence of our conversation—the diaspora and Europe. On most evenings during the summer months, Restaurant Summertime was packed with young Somalis visiting from abroad. They would arrive in their finest clothes and often spend the evening with (potential) girlfriends or boyfriends. However, as

96 

A. Simonsen

we sat there in the early afternoon when most people were taking their obligatory afternoon nap, Restaurant Summertime lacked its usual buzz. Gacal, Mowliid and Absimil explained that they had just come from the university. They were in their final year and were busy with their last project, which they were doing together. After the initial greetings, I opened my notebook and started posing my questions to the three young men. I was curious to understand the flows of information that circulated among the younger generation in Somaliland and what, or rather how, that influenced their decisions on if and how to migrate. Absimil explained: There is a direct route from here to Libya. You pay some money, stay some time in Libya, and then find a boat that can take us somewhere in Europe, such as Italy or Malta. In Europe, there are a lot of developed countries, universities with masters and PhDs. My dream is to create something new. To do that you need some advanced lab or equipment, so I must go somewhere else, which is very developed. I want to have my education and that form of equipment so I can fulfil these dreams … some of these countries are more economically developed. There are certain countries I hear a lot about [like] Spain, Italy and their economic situation. I communicate with lots of friends that took the route I’m going to take now. Some of them already made it, some to Germany, some to Italy.

Absimil and his friends had gained information on the possibilities of reaching Europe and the opportunities available there, like masters and PhDs. Levels of education, which were not available in Somaliland or were not reliable, as described by Kaafi above, played a big role in their decision to practise hope through tahriib. The clues and bits of information gathered created an imaginary for Absimil and his friends about Europe, one that established a basis for action (Vigh [2006]2007).7 Finding a solution to their current unsatisfactory situation required walking the road of hope. They did so by preparing themselves for surviving tahriib, not by practising their swimming skills but by acquiring the skills and information needed when encountering the network of migration brokers known in Somali as Magafe. I asked about the routes to Europe, and Absimil answered:

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

97

What I’m going to face? Which obstacles? I have a good chance, I can make it, there are some dangers, but I can go through it. I have a very big chance. It is very important to have a good plan, how I’m going to contact with those men who can take me to Libya. My friends also gave me some advice to avoid certain dangers like behaving badly with those men [the Magafe]. I have to behave gladly with them. All of them. When they are rude and rough, I have to obey them. They give me those advice.

Then I asked how he was preparing for tahriib, and he continued: I prepare both financially and psychologically. Mentally I get worried and nervous, but I have the courage to go. I believe I can go through those obstacles. One of my friends went to Sudan so he advised me about Sudan. I’m a bit worried about Libya and travelling all the way to Italy. Somehow, Libyans hate Somalis. They treat Somalis hardly and badly. Also, I’m worried about the sea, about drowning or of those people who throw out people from the boat to make it lighter. If I go through the sea and all the way to Malta and Italy there is not going to be that many worries, and hopefully I will be able to fulfil my dreams.

Absimil’s narration was full of expressions like ‘If I …’, ‘I’m worried …’, ‘I believe I can …’, ‘chance …’ and ‘hopefully …’. The information he had gathered was still in an immediate and unfiltered state. His plan was still suffused with doubts, illustrating his uncertainty experienced through equal measures of fear and possibilities. The way forward was open, the information had been gathered and a plan was forming. ‘It is very important to have a good plan’, Absimil said, echoing the words of the young man who emphasised that hard work and discipline were essential in the practice of hope. At this stage of tahriib, Absimil, Gacal and Mowliid did not have any experience of their own, and therefore, the only available information was other people’s experiences, whether told first- or second-hand. For instance, the three young men had obtained information on which route to take. Passing through Libya was generally seen as the ‘direct route’, as chaotic conditions in the country led authorities to exert less control over the movements of people within the country and across its borders. Furthermore, they had acquired information on what obstacles they

98 

A. Simonsen

might face, like how to get from Libya to Italy, being well aware of the violent attacks occurring in Libya against Somalis and other Africans en route. The three young men were also in possession of more intimate, micro-level information, namely how to approach the brokers ‘gladly’ even when being treated badly and rough, and, as Gacal explained, to make sure to say that their mother was alive: When you reach Libya, they will ask, ‘Is your mother alive’? If you say no, you will be put in one group. This group will be killed, and their organs will be taken out because they don’t think they are getting the money. The other people will come in another group.

Absimil added: I had one friend who died and got the organs cut out. They requested my friend to pay $3000, and then the family sent half of it. Then while the family was preparing the other half, they rejected the money because they had already killed the person. That is how they heard about the death of their son—because the money was sent back.

Being in possession of such brutal information about friends who had died en route did not change the young men’s hopes of making it to Europe. They knew that during tahriib their own lives might end too, if their families did not pay the ransom fast enough, if their boat capsized and they could not make it to shore, if, if and if. But they continued their practices of hope by gathering as much information as possible. Why would they embark on such a risky journey hoping that they would be the ones to make it despite the harsh realities of so many deaths? The answer lies partly within the concept of social death described in Chap. 3—they felt that they were already dead—and partly within the socio-material landscape of Hargeisa, where members of the diaspora often occupied the beautiful buildings, the successful companies and the well-paid positions. This unequal distribution of opportunities triggered the double-edged construction of hope—in the Somali context referred to as buufis (‘to blow into or inflate’)8:

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

99

One the one hand, images cannot be satisfied and only lead to frustrations about global inequality. On the other hand, buufis as a form of collective imagination provides hope in quite a hopeless situation, and also increases people’s level of power and choice (Horst 2006, 31).

Despite the knowledge of death and organ trade along the route, many young Somalis wanted to escape their current circumstances and experience everything the world had to offer. The collective imagination of making it to Europe, built on the back of the disappointments and insecurities experienced at home, kept the hope alive despite the harshness and the uncertainties of not knowing their destinies. The tantalising uncertainty of the not-yet kept them practising hope through tahriib.

‘I want to become like Obama’ The hope of migrating was partly to become socially visible when (or if ) returning home. Many of the young men hoped to become leaders, highly successful in either business or politics. Many even expressed the specific dream of becoming president. Keyse, a young student at a university in Somaliland, explained how he was a man of politics: I’m a politician man. My dream is to become the leader of tomorrow. I would establish step by step. I want to become minister of finance. Then I become the president … I want to become like Obama.

Becoming the president remained for most a khayaali. Khayaali refers to something imagined, which is unlikely to happen, similar to what I have called a social fantasy. Statements like ‘I want to become like Obama’ therefore did not (only) represent an individual dream of becoming president. They should be seen as metaphors or figurative images of becoming socially visible. Somaliland overflowed with symbols of social becoming. The mansions and big cars of the president, ministers and successful businessmen, along with the hotels and fancy clothes of the diaspora Somalis, were symbols of success and of potential futures. These visible symbols accentuated the current status of my interlocutors and kept reminding

100 

A. Simonsen

them of the great distance between their present and the future they dreamt of. Abdirahman, one of my research assistants, claimed that the government was complicit in causing tahriib. He based this statement on the fact that many members of the Somaliland parliament were members of the diaspora, who had made it abroad, taken educations and now returned to take up positions as MPs and ministers. Hence, being part of the diaspora, living abroad and preferably having a passport from either Europe, Australia, the USA or Canada, was perceived as one way of fulfilling one’s hope of success. Similar narratives are found in a report by Nimo-Ilhan Ali, stating that getting a foreign passport is believed to grant access to good jobs when returning to Somaliland (2016, 35–36). Such narratives are summarised in the Somali saying, ‘tahriibta maanta wa qurba joog berito’ [the person making tahriib today is a diaspora of tomorrow] (Ibid, 36). Egal, a young Somali man undertaking tahriib, had in fact built his entire hope of success on getting a European passport. I met him in Turkey, and during an afternoon discussion at a local café, he told me: I want to become a businessman in the future. When I take the passport in Europe, I want to make a company like export and import, to help my family, my mother, my brothers and my sisters, when I become a rich man … Now the people who work for the new government, they have the European passport. If you have a certificate from Turkey, but a Somali passport it does not give access.

This was not only the case in Somaliland but throughout Somalia. ‘Taking the passport’ represented much more than acquiring a valid travel document. It meant obtaining the means to reach the top of social, economic and educational hierarchies and was thus a way to move forward in your life and be one step closer to realising your hopes and dreams (cf. Simonsen 2020). The hope of taking the passport did not change through the different stages of being en route. Sitting in a Somali restaurant in Turkey one afternoon in mid-January 2014, I happened to talk to Haaf, a young student in Turkey, originating from Somaliland. Like Abdirahman and Egal, he

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

101

stated that the authorities indirectly contributed to creating the practices of hope actualised through tahriib. We discussed the recent election of the new prime minister in Puntland, and Haaf explained that just like I was doing my PhD, the new prime minister had a PhD in economics from the USA. Curious to understand the relationship between the so-­ called diaspora and local Somalis, I asked Haaf how people in Puntland felt about the fact that so many from the diaspora, returning from the EU, Canada, the USA or Australia, were leading the country. He replied that people did not mind the diaspora returning and occupying the best jobs because they were the ones with the education and the experience. As Haaf said, ‘They have what all of us want. That is why we go [to Europe]’.9 The American president at the time, Barack Obama, was a symbol for Keyse of how to obtain success. Obama also had a definition of hope, expressed in the following victory speech, which very much resembled the way the young Somalis approached hope: Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be (Obama 2012).

While the youth in Somaliland believed that God had partly written their destiny for them, they still practised hope as something they could write for themselves. And they certainly needed courage to walk the road of hope that was tahriib. While the individual dream of becoming president was a social fantasy, a khayaali, unlikely to ever be realised, it was imagined within the collective socio-cultural context, where making it to Europe was a realistic step on the way. And the social hope of a successful tahriib and a European passport was continually practised through hard work, like swimming practice or information gathering. This meant that the abstract dream of

102 

A. Simonsen

becoming president was no longer ‘blind optimism’. Instead, all the young ‘men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is’ were practising hope in their daily lives, by taking small steps towards the symbols of success and wealth that the presidency constituted. As shown throughout the beginning of this book, walking the road of hope—being en route—began at home. The dreaming and the planning, all the practices of hope, were ways of trying to move forward despite constraining circumstances. In the next section, we will see how practices of hope persisted through physical movement, even when those movements took unwanted twists and turns.

Bends and Dead Ends Along the Road Istanbul is projecting a summer-vibe on this day in early February 2014. Sometimes the streets in this particular part of town slow down, but today the area is unusually busy, and the air is thick with life, laughter and light-­ heartedness. I head towards the sea, where I usually meet Subeer, a Somali man in his thirties, married and a father of six. On my way, I see cars driving down the narrow street, while men carry their stands in place with oranges, bananas and pomegranates. Today is market day, so extra small stalls are set up selling everything from bags to towels, pants to pots. Sean Paul’s ‘Got to love you, got to love you’ blasts out from a set of loudspeakers. As I walk a few meters further ahead, the call for prayer—‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar’—sounds from the mosque down the street. I finally reach the sea, where I find Subeer kneeling down. He is talking to a young Syrian boy. We get a table outside at our usual restaurant. The waiter brings us two cups of tea before we get a chance to order. They know us well by now. As we sit there, sipping tea, Subeer starts to tell me about his attempts to leave Turkey.

His first attempt took place by bus. He travelled with people of different nationalities, Somalis, Syrians, Afghanis and Chinese. They all went by bus to a small city near the border, walked for about two hours, then crossed the river. ‘One Kurdish man was with us’, he says. The Kurdish man was the broker, or smuggler as Subeer would call him, but if they were to get caught by the Greek soldiers he said, ‘Please, don’t tell that it

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

103

is me who is taking you, they will punish me badly, there is nowhere for me to run, we are in this together’. ‘We say okay’, Subeer says and continues: ‘We enter the Greek side, and we are in a farm area’, he imitates the high grass in his face with the use of his hands. When we are there, the Kurd calls a person, someone who is supposed to come to pick us up in a car and bring us to Athena. First, they tell him to wait so we wait and wait, but then he [the Kurd] calls again and asks, ‘what is happening, where is the car’. They say that the car is not coming because there is too much police. After this, suddenly the Kurdish man is gone. We ask each other if anyone has seen him, but he is gone.

After being left by their broker, they divided themselves into groups and spread out in different directions. Subeer’s group got lost after splitting up, as they had no sense of direction or knowledge of the area. After 3 days without food, drink or progress, they decided to stand on the main road and wait for the police to see them. ‘We are dying and soon the police will see us’, Subeer explains. The police questioned Subeer and his group: ‘What are you doing here? Where are you from?’ Subeer says that the police beat the Arabs, referring to the Syrians and Afghanis. ‘They don’t like the Arabs’, he adds. ‘Why?’ I ask. Subeer says that he does not know, maybe the police suspect them of being members of Al Qaida. ‘How do they beat them?’ I ask. He explains that they take their weapons and ‘pang, pang’—he imitates having a gun in his hand and banging that gun into each side of the face of a person. Then he continues: ‘Our whole group is being put in a truck. We are cold and hungry. The soldiers are getting breakfast for themselves, and they tell us: “Do you want something? Then give us money”’. After a while, the group was told to cross back into Turkey, where they were found by Turkish soldiers, who fed them water and biscuits. They were then put in prison and their attempt to cross the border without the necessary documents was noted in their case files. Then, ‘We were sent to a UNHCR camp where I stayed for maybe 15 days, relaxed, ate and then I came back to Istanbul’, Subeer explains. In Istanbul, Subeer is living a precarious life. Without regular documents, he is always running from the police, while at the same time

104 

A. Simonsen

trying to get a job to pay for his onward journey. He desperately hopes to make it to Greece and further into Europe to provide for his family, who are still in a refugee camp in Kenya. He tells me the story of his second attempt: The second time I leave Turkey, we crossed again to Greece. We were with someone experienced. We went through some small towns. We were walking on a side road to the main road where a train was passing through. This time, we were hiding from the police. We went to the toilet at the train station, changed all our dirty clothes into new clothes and washed our shoes because we were about to enter the train. The experienced man, he knew everything. It was around 5 in the morning, and the train was leaving 05.20 am. There were houses with dogs who made too much noise, so maybe someone called the police, because the police came. We were only Somalis.

Subeer explained how his friend, who was in Athens, had mailed his temporary residence documents from Greece to Subeer. The idea was that he had documents to show the police in case he was caught. The documents, however, had expired, and Subeer got in trouble with the police nonetheless. ‘The police ask why we were there, where we came from. We tell them. They call someone. Then they take us to another place. They were talking with us, giving us a little bit of food. They were good’. After explaining their situation and the expired papers again, the police were told to bring the group to a camp in Greece. Halfway there, apparently, the driver got a call that a big group of Syrians had been caught and were being brought to the river at the border. So, their orders were changed, and they were told to bring the Somalis back with the Syrians. The lorry carrying Subeer and his fellow travellers turned around, and Subeer was once again forced to cross back into Turkey, like so many migrants before and since.10 Subeer, once again back in Istanbul, was disappointed, frustrated and sad. Walking the road of hope, it turned out, was not straightforward. In fact, hope always carries the risk of failure, no matter how hard you work—otherwise, ‘it would not be hope. In fact, hope never guarantees

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

105

anything. It is characteristically daring and points openly to possibilities that in part depend on chance for their fulfilment’ (Bloch 1961). On the two occasions described, Subeer did not succeed in crossing the border. But from each experience he would learn something that might make his next attempt successful. So out of his frustration and disappointment he would form a new hope and keep moving forward. Thus, hope is not linear, nor is it always positive and rosy. Hope has its dark spots, its rifts and valleys. Sometimes our dreams have to be known deeper, need to be nourished, educated and trained in order for us to move towards their fulfilment (Bloch 1986, 3).

Practising Hope Between Reality and Fantasy The human imagination is ‘a migrant form of consciousness that is constantly seeking some object that will give the isolated ego a sense of greater power and presence’ (Jackson 2007, 129). Throughout this chapter, I have shown how the young Somali women and men sought to challenge the constraints and restrictions of the external world through social hope and social fantasy. Both can be seen as attempts to take back agency in a restricted life, but the practices differ as they take place in the context of ‘the immobility paradox’ (Kleist 2016, 1). In the words of Jackson, hope: Constitutes an expression of the human condition that everywhere entails a perplexing indeterminacy between our confused longings, imaginations and desires, on the one hand, and the external world, on the other hand, that affords us ways and means of realizing these longings and integrating them with the longings of others (2007, 134).

For the young people of Somaliland, the dreams of entering the university, getting a job or getting married were experience-near constructions of social hope and had a relatively good chance of coming true. The social fantasy of becoming like Obama, by contrast, was profoundly more difficult to achieve (cf. Weiss 2002, 97; Jackson 2011, xii). Very few people would ever become president in Somaliland, but the social fantasy represented a mediator between people’s desires and the external world

106 

A. Simonsen

(Weiss 2002, 97). The imaginary of becoming president represented the dream of becoming visible and noticeable, of driving a big car and having political influence. Escaping into the space of fantasy opened up a world of agency that did not exist in the everyday life-world. It was, in the words of Victor Frankl ‘the last of human freedoms’ ([1959] 1984), the space that no one could touch, and where you could dream your way through harsh and constraining circumstances. Fantasising became, in other words, a way to practise hope. But practices of hope also took more practical and worldly forms. Inspired by the luxury mansions, fancy cars and big hotels in Hargeisa, all belonging to the diaspora, the social hope of upward mobility became the social hope of physical mobility: of making it to Europe and ‘getting the passport’. The distribution of social hope within Somalia through stateand social institutions alike had continued to fail. Lack of education and jobs meant that social mobility was distributed unequally and unevenly within local contexts. Therefore, it was easy for the social hope of making it to Europe, Canada and the USA, distributed evenly and efficiently through movies and social media, to outshine the dim lights of a future at home. Practising their social hopes through tahriib, the young women and men’s ‘longings, imaginations and desires’ (Jackson 2007) challenged the external world in more ways than one. First, it challenged the status quo of ‘social death’ and lack of opportunities, that is the many constraints and restrictions facing the youth of Somaliland, as described in Chap. 3 and this chapter. Second, it challenged the increasingly strict immigration policies and practices of border security of the European Union and individual nation states trying their best to keep people from the Global South immobile (Lucht 2016, 171). The Somali proverb that introduces this chapter suggests that ‘movement for a man is like medicine if death lets him go’. The young Somalis’ practices of social hope through tahriib thus build on earlier generations’ practices of hope through migration, and tahriib is expected to cure all their ills of social marginalisation and being stuck in dissatisfaction. Such social hope can enable them to ‘challenge the impossible’ referring to the hardships endured en route—before, during and after physical movement (Lucht 2016, 171), as illustrated by Subeer’s story. However, despite

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

107

modern technologies (and in some cases because of them) travelling through the world is still a dangerous endeavour (Olwig et al. 2020). Death is still, as shown in many of the accounts of tahriib, an ever-present possible outcome of movement. As Gacal said to me in Somaliland, ‘If I die, at least I die while trying’. The constraints and absence of opportunities that affect the local life-­ worlds in Somaliland create certain ways of practising hope and specific ways of moving in the world. As Ali argues, ‘Tahriib is often invoked by young people as a collective response to the wide range of social and economic challenges they face growing up in the Somali regions. It is a way out—an exit strategy’ (2016, 30–31). But as I discussed in this chapter, and later in the book, specific hopes of re-entering society and of moving up in the world are connected to tahriib. So, the (anticipation of ) movement entails much more than simply exiting. The social hopes tied to tahriib are what keep the young people moving, even when they have no way of knowing the outcome, and even when the road of hope takes non-­ linear routes and shows them its dark side. In the following chapter, social hopes and imaginary travels are replaced by physical movement.

Notes 1. Berbera is part of the 850 km coastline of Somalia facing the Gulf of Aden. The city used to be a thriving fishing town and the centre of maritime trade between the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, but this changed after the civil war erupted in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 2. My conceptualisation of fantasy is inspired by the discussion within social sciences of whether fantasy should be seen as separate from reality (Freud et al. [1952] 2004), Lacan ([1969–1979] 2010) or as part of reality (Appadurai 1991; Weiss 2002). 3. See the work of Lucht, who, inspired by Schopenhauer, uses the analogy of ‘running downhill without stumbling’ as a way to describe the experiences of most migrants en route (Lucht 2016, 155). 4. Jackson’s work is inspired by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Heidegger invented what are known as existential phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology, inspired by his teacher and the founder of phenomenology Edmund Husserl. Heidegger makes use of the term

108 

A. Simonsen

Geworfenheit, meaning ‘thrownness’ to describe the way human beings are always in the world, somewhere. Secondly, he argues, using the term Entwurf meaning ‘projection’, how human beings prove they are capable of more by acting (Heidegger 1962). In the quote by Jackson, we see the same argument of being in the world, but with the potential to strive for something more. 5. Somaliland: The Strains of Success. Crisis Group Africa Briefing N113. Nairobi, Brussels, 5th October 2015. 6. The buds and leaves of the khat plant (Catha edulis) are chewed for stimulant and euphoric effects and have traditionally been used for medicinal purposes as well as recreational. https://adf.org.au/drug-­facts/khat/ 7. Vigh (2007), in his work with young men in Bissau and the process of racialisation among them, focuses on what he calls ‘social imaginaries’. By illuminating how ‘blackness’ is equated with destruction by his interlocutors, who not only define themselves as products of history, but as having destruction within them due to the colour of their skin, he links social imaginaries to action (2007, 485–488). Social imaginaries, he argues, consist of four different components: the retrospective, which refers to the way people reflect upon the past; the introspective, which focuses on their current status; the extrospective, which casts light on their relations with other people and finally, the prospective, which points towards possible future action (2007, 483). 8. Buufis ‘refers to air, hawo, which also stands for a longing and desire for something specific, an ambition or even daydream … buufis indicates a longing or desire blown into someone’s mind’ (Horst 2006, 143). For more information on buufis in the Somali context, see Horst (2006). 9. See the work of Hammond (2015), who describes the mixed reception of the Somali diaspora in Somaliland as both heroes and job stealers. 10. See, for example http://www.frontexit.org/fr/docs/49-­frontexbetween-­ greece-­and-­turkey-­the-­border-­of-­denial/file

References Ali, Nimo-Ilhan. 2016. ‘Going on Tahriib. The causes and consequences of Somali youth migration to Europe’. Research Paper 5. United Kingdom, Kenya: Rift Valley Institute. Appadurai, Arjun. 1991. ‘Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology’ in Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

109

Present ed. R. G. Fox. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 191–210. Axel Pedersen, Morten. 2012. A day in the Cadillac: The work of Hope in urban Mongolia. Social Analysis 56 (2): 1–16. Barber, Pauline Gardiner, and Winnie Lem. 2018. Migration, temporality and capitalism. Entangled Mobilities across global spaces. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. Bloch, Ernst. 1986. The principle of Hope. Vol. One. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ———. 1961. Public lecture. Bourdieu, Pierre. [1979]1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London, Cambridge, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Braithwaite, Valerie. 2004. Preface: Collective Hope. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 592: 6–15. Cooper, Elizabeth, and David Pratten. 2015. Ethnographies of uncertainty in Africa: An introduction. In Ethnographies of uncertainty in Africa, ed. Elizabeth Cooper and David Pratten, 1–16. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Crapanzano, Vincent. 2003. Reflections on Hope as a category of social and psychological analysis. Cultural Anthropology 18 (1): 3–32. Drahos, Peter. 2004. Trading in public Hope. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 592 (1): 18–38. Frankl, Viktor. [1959]1984. Man’s search for meaning, an introduction to Logotherapy. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Freud, Sigmund, Josef Breuer and Nicola Luckhurst. [1952] 2004. Studies in hysteria. London: Penguin Books. Hage, Ghassan. 2003. Against paranoid nationalism: Searching for Hope in a shrinking society. Annandale, N.S.W: Pluto Press. Hammond, Laura. 2015. Diaspora returnees to Somaliland: Heroes of development or job-stealing scoundrels? In Africa's return migrants: The new developers? ed. L. Åkesson and M.E.  Baaz, 44–63. Bloomsbury Academic & Professional. Heidegger, Martin. [1962] 2013. Being and Time. Blackwell Publishing. Horst, Cindy. 2006. Buufis amongst Somalis in Dadaab: The transnational and historical logics behind resettlement dreams. Journal of Refugee Studies 19 (2): 143–157. Horst, Cindy, and Katarzyna Grabska. 2015. Introduction. Flight and exile– uncertainty in the context of conflict-induced displacement. Social Analysis 59 (1): 1–18. Jackson, Michael. 2007. Excursions. Durham: Duke University Press.

110 

A. Simonsen

———. 2011. Life within limits. Well-being in a world of want. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Kleist, Nauja. 2016. Introduction. Studying hope and uncertainty in African migration. In Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration, ed. Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen, 1–20. Routledge Studies in Anthropology. Taylor and Francis. Kleist, Nauja, and Dorte Thorsen. 2016. Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration. In Routledge studies in anthropology. Taylor and Francis. Lacan, Jacques. [1969–1979] 2010. ‘The Ethics of Pschoanalysis 1959–1960. The seminar of Jacques Lacan’ ed. J-A Miller. Book VII. London, New York: Routledge. Lucht, Hans. 2012. Darkness before daybreak: African migrants living on the margins in southern Italy today. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. ———. 2016. Death of a gin salesman: Hope and despair among Ghanaian migrants and deportees stranded in Niger. In Hope and uncertainty in contemporary African migration, ed. Nauja Kleist and Dorte Thorsen, 154–172. Routledge Studies in Anthropology: Taylor and Francis. Miyazaki, Hirokazu. 2004. The method of Hope: Anthropology, philosophy, and Fijian knowledge. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2006. Economy of dreams: Hope in global capitalism and its critiques. Cultural Anthropology 21 (2): 147–172. Olwig, Karen Fog, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl and Anja Simonsen-2020. The Biometric Border World: Technology, Bodies and Identities on the Move, edited by Karen Fog Olwig, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl and Anja Simonsen. London & New York: Routledge. Piot, Charles. 2010. Nostalgia for the future. West Africa after the cold war. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Rousseau, Cécile, Taher M. Said, Marie-Josée Gagné, and Gilles Bibeau. 1998. Between myth and madness: The Premigration dream of leaving among young Somali refugees. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 22 (4): 385–411. Simonsen, Anja. 2020. Crossing (biometric) Borders: Turning ‘gravity’ upside down, 1–15. Ethnos: Special Issue. Steinberg, Jonny. 2015. A man of good Hope. London: Jonathan Cape. Vigh, Henrik. [2006]2007. Navigating terrains of war: Youth and soldiering in Guinea-Bissau. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books. ———. 2009. Wayward migration: On imagined futures and technological voids. Ethnos 74 (1): 91–109.

4  Walking the Road of Hope 

111

Webb, Darren. 2007. Modes of hoping. History of the Human Sciences 20 (3): 65–83. ———. 2012. Pedagogies of hope. Studies in Philosophy and Education 32 (4): 397–414. Weiss, Brad. 2002. Street dreams & hip hop. Barbershops. Global fantasy in urban Tanzania. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Internet Sources Obama, Barack. 2012, November 7. ‘Barack Obama’s victory speech in Chicago’. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/barack-­obama-­speech-­ full-­text. Accessed 22 Dec 2021

5 Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain

Somali proverb: ‘Xog la helyaaba talo la helaa’. (When information is found, the solution is found.)

Kutiri Kuteen [Hearsay] ‘A few days ago, the news reported that seven human beings died but down at the market, people say that 200 people lost their lives’, Abdullahi says. He refers to a fatal boat accident with Somalis onboard. The boats were heading out of Libya towards Italy. ‘The Somali expression for such news is kutiri kuteen1 [hearsay, rumours, or news from mouth to mouth where you never know the original source]’, Abdullahi continues. We kill our time this afternoon by discussing what in Abdullahi’s words is ‘news circulating among Somalis that is unreliable due to the way it is delivered’. Abdullahi explains why kutiri kuteen should not be trusted by unfolding the story of the fatal boat accident: ‘46 names of the people who died were published in the newspapers. Some of them were from the cities of Hargeisa, Burao and Mogadishu. The deaths are from three boats, which set off from the coast of Libya and out of these three boats, two of them broke’. Abdullahi’s phone rings. It is Taban, my friend, who says that there is still no news of their relative who migrated and who might have been onboard one of the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_5

113

114 

A. Simonsen

ships. Finishing the call, Abdullahi picks up the conversation where he left off: ‘among the names of the 46 people who were thought to be dead, not all of them have actually died. We know this since they have called from Italy and informed their loved ones that they made it. Some of them even call in the middle of the night because there is a rush to the phone […] They have been put in camps in Italy’.

Kutiri kuteen means news by word of mouth, where you never know the original source, as Abdullahi explained. News was constantly passed from one person to the next before, during and after tahriib. This could be devastating news or good news on the status of loved ones. The youth were constantly exposed to kutiri kuteen. Xog, on the other hand, was the sort of information that they needed to actively search for. Xog is associated with detailed and more accurate information needed to make well-­ informed decisions, as in the Somali proverb ‘xog la helyaaba talo la helaa’ (when information is found, the solution is found). Xog was translated as ‘news with a lot of information’ and was considered very precious to the youth en route. Walking the unknown terrain of tahriib, the right kind of information defined their chances of not only staying mobile but staying alive. Xog includes the clues, hints and pieces of information that the young women and men are constantly searching for, and which they would often pay money for as their journey progressed. Therefore, information, in this context, is a variable that generates or triggers a possible way forward. Information is, in other words, ‘about specific know-where’ and can be ‘circulated, allocated, privatized, published, hidden or used deceptively’ (Olsen and Thuen 2013, 274). Being exposed to kutiri kuteen and searching for xog along with the young Somalis made me curious as to what information people en route make use of before and during tahriib; which roles trust, mistrust and secrets play in the navigation through dangerous and unknown border zones; and finally, how practices of seeking and verifying information change throughout the journey. These questions highlight that tahriib is not only about physically navigating through dangerous terrain but also about situating yourself in the intersections of social relations and

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

115

information. This was a lesson that the two young men, Aadan and Feysal, came to learn as they left Hargeisa behind to venture into the unknown.

Goodbye Hargeisa On a sunny afternoon, I was interviewing Aadan and Feysal in the cool shade of Aadan’s brother Abuukar’s beautiful house in Hargeisa. Abuukar and his friend took turns translating for the two young men, who vividly described the steps they had taken together—steps that should have taken them towards an unknown future outside Somaliland, but had taken twists and turns and ended up back in Hargeisa. Before leaving Somaliland, Aadan and Feysal had done what most of their peers did before embarking on tahriib, they had collected as much information as they possibly could. In fact, Aadan and Feysal’s search for information in many ways resembled my own. Like me, they were gathering information about a journey and everything it entailed without physically leaving. They did that through interviews with peers, acquaintances and strangers, through the news, through keeping up with new laws and policies, and through tales and stories from fellow Somalis with whom they had no direct contact. Spradley writes, in his book on classic participant observation, that fieldwork for an ethnographer includes ‘the disciplined study of what the world is like to people who have learned to see, hear, speak, think, and act in ways that are different. Rather than studying people, ethnography means learning from people’ (1980, 3, my emphasis). Similar to my ethnographic search for information, Aadan and Feysal learned from their peers by looking for the right people to ask questions. They gained valuable information on the hardships one would have to endure, the obstacles one would encounter, and the actions and demeanours that might save one’s life during tahriib, all novel and unknown experiences to them. The main differences between their endeavour and my own were the intention and the stakes involved. For them, the intention of seeking information was to make it through tahriib alive. For me, the study of tahriib was about academic curiosity and a genuine wish to achieve a more intimate

116 

A. Simonsen

understanding of how migration is understood and practised in a Somali context in order to provide a counterweight to the European Union’s narrative of ‘the migration crisis’. Aadan and Feysal started their journey by walking on their own two feet and saying goodbye to the city they had both grown up in: So, once we were out of Hargeisa, we turned around and said ‘bye bye’ to the landscape of Hargeisa while we were asking ourselves, ‘Is there anything left, anything that you left in Hargeisa, are you complete?’ We were asking ourselves about these things. ‘This is your final moment to say goodbye to Hargeisa’.

Not having legal documents to facilitate a legal and direct journey to Europe, they had to begin their journey by walking to Ethiopia.

Untold Stories When Aadan and Feysal took their initial steps out of the city along with two other friends, they had made one promise to each other: ‘We decided one thing: either to face death the four of us or to cross there successfully, actually assist each other, no matter what we face’. The four young men were aware that they were risking it all and that they could end up paying the highest price, namely their lives. To minimise the risk of dying, they decided to travel as a unit, not as four individuals. Their promise to either cross successfully or face death together directs our attention to how ‘the idea of risk is bound up with the aspiration to control and particularly with the idea of controlling the future’ (Giddens 1999, 3). Having access to the right information was one way of seeking to control the future. For Aadan, Feysal and many other young people en route, they felt well prepared for departure, having gathered all the available information. But their later narratives showed a realisation that the further away from home their journey progressed, the less information they had access to. As they ventured into the unknown, it turned out that not all information was accessible beforehand. As noted by Jackson, ‘for every

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

117

story that sees the light of the day, untold others remain in the shadows, censored or suppressed’ (2002, 11). After crossing the border to Ethiopia and making it to Addis Ababa, it was clear to Aadan and Feysal that many stories had been left untold by their peers and brokers: The real risk and all the worries start from Addis Ababa, so once you reach Addis Ababa you will witness a lot of struggles you have never met before. So, it means that some of the stories that we experience here were untold by other people travelling before us. So, from that moment, we are going to experience a lot of issues that are affecting our life. The moment you are leaving Addis, you are living in the touch of death. You are in the biggest risk because you will be put in a sisow [the car brand Isuzu], which carry many people, female and male. People are pushed together and packed and actually, it’s only suitable for fifteen people, but they put forty people, so we are packed like items … the more you are proceeding, the more you are in the risk zone. We were in the sisow for three days in order to cross the border to Sudan. Within those three days, we didn’t have any single thing to eat.

The untold stories emphasise that the ability to access information and the power to share it are unequal. Many interests are at play when it comes to sharing information. For instance, some young men explained how peers and brokers had withheld information, solely sharing the positive sides of tahriib and not the threats and hardships that they were likely to encounter. The reasons, I was told, were twofold. First, among peers the decision of what information to share with whom was gendered. If a young man requesting information was seen as a hard man [nin adag], his peers believed he would be able to endure the harshness. That meant that they would be less likely to share the most brutal details and more inclined to let him fend for himself along the journey. The migration practices, including the search for information, among the young men depended on what one could endure. It was about strength and about being tough. As the route across Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya was considered to be for the strong men, I was only able to interview one female about this route, the rest of my information on this

118 

A. Simonsen

tahriib experience came from males. In fact, I found that some young men did not even define the route through Turkey and Greece, which was considered easier, as proper tahriib, but would reserve this term for the route through Sudan and Libya. A young man once explained, while sitting at a café in Turkey, how he had initially decided to take the route through Sudan and Libya but had changed his mind after three of his friends died in Libya. Before, he had wanted to become a hard man [nin adag]: ‘Your friends will tease you. The one who is afraid of Libya comes here’, he said. The second reason for withholding information was that many brokers were unwilling to tell the whole truth because their income depended on selling the story of making it out of Somaliland alive. The brokers based their interventions on testing the endurance of their customers, meaning their ‘ability to suffer and yet persist’ (Povinelli 2011, 32). So, rather than prepping the young Somalis before embarking on the journey, the brokers would use limited information as a test of the endurance of the people en route. After being packed in a truck with 40 people ready to depart from Addis Ababa, Aadan said: We were being told [by the brokers], that the people who could not resist the three days of travelling, which is actually luxury, cannot resist to walk in the desert. So, this is a sort of training to be given because we are not being given any food. ‘This is a test, so everyone stop, if you cannot resist within these three days, frankly you cannot resist the rest of the journey, this is the easiest part’ … so people are packed, we are not allowed to talk and have discussions during these three days, everyone must be like a sheep or a goat, we are not allowed to see outside because its shaded completely and the car, the truck that takes us from there to the border, it’s non-­ stop … Everyone is ready to continue because we are tired.

In this way, they were asked to evaluate whether they could endure the intensified challenges ahead.2 Now they were gathering information based on their eyes being their teacher (‘Ishaa ayaa macalin kuu ah’), as a Somali proverb puts it. As they began their physical journey, knowledge was being transformed from simply being comprehended intellectually to becoming embodied. This meant that the second- and third-hand

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

119

information that Aadan and Feysal had gathered about tahriib was going through a process of coming to know. In this process, a certain perception of endurance and masculinity prevailed, a form of ‘physical masculinity’. This referred to ‘the ability to protect and defend against interpersonal violence, valuing strength, aggression, toughness [nin adaag], the ability and proclivity to withstand pain and discomfort …’ (Cook 2005, IV). Such understandings of ‘physical masculinity’ were expressed through the hierarchical, gendered practices of sharing information and came to the fore during the unknown and unpredictable parts of the journeys. Neither peers nor brokers shared all the information they had, but certain things were simply unknown and unknowable to all: the unpredictable risks hidden along the journey.

Unpredictable Risks The next steps taken by Aadan and Feysal show how the secrets and untold stories of others exposed the young men to unpredictable risks in the borderlands they moved through. There were many components to their movements that Aadan and Feysal could neither predict nor control. They were constantly at risk of facing death or injury in the rough landscape or being caught by border guards. This constituted a constant experience of insecurity for the young men en route: When the truck reached its destination, it went to the outskirts of the town, and people are hungry, some of the people we travel with cannot get out of the truck, they fall down to the ground because they have not moved for so long […] Once we are unloaded in the border between Ethiopia and Sudan, we must walk between six to eight hours.

The group was taken over by a Sudanese broker who gave them a brief orientation and then left the group to fend for themselves. Along the road, the local farmers had been paid to not inform the border guards about the migrants passing through. Unfortunately, one woman had kept a secret that would prove fatal for Aadan and Feysal’s attempt at tahriib:

120 

A. Simonsen

There is a lady who had a caesarean section just four weeks back, who had a baby, so without getting recovery she went on this journey. She didn’t inform us so when we are walking, and this was the most dangerous area, and crocodiles have eaten many people in this area during nighttime, and both sides of the borders are well guarded, the lady falls down. She hits a stone in her stomach, and she starts bleeding, so she shouts. And even if you say a single thing and it’s the jungle, soldiers or border guards they will hear it, immediately they will surround you.

A discussion started among the group of migrants. Among the 40 people, there were several who had been arrested before in the same area, which was infamous for being heavily guarded. In many other areas, the brokers had connections among the guards and the checkpoints, but not in this area. So, within the group people disagreed: ‘ten of them say, “we have been here three or four times before, we will be caught”. They know the soldiers are behind us, they hear them’. Aadan and Feysal decided to stay behind along with a group of women to look after the injured woman: Around ten persons—most of the ladies and us—we stay with the lady because we were sitting together in the truck, we did not want to leave her behind, so within a short period of time four guys surrounded us.

Despite trying one last time to escape the guards, Aadan, Feysal and the women were captured and taken to prison. To all the Somalis en route, the presence of border guards was expected, even if they did not know exactly where or when they would appear. What no one could prepare for were the untold stories of fellow migrants. Aadan and Feysal had started their journey with people whom they knew everything about and trusted with their lives. The four friends had made a pact to live or die together. The further away from home they went, however, the less they knew about the people around them. Untold stories, like the woman’s recent caesarean, could have severe consequences. The fellow travellers who kept secrets and suppressed information became a risk and an unpredictable one. Aadan and Feysal had been caught on the border between Ethiopia and Sudan. As a result, they were imprisoned for two and a half months.

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

121

They were transferred from prison to prison and were even asked by the authorities to pay for fuel for the long transport. They ended up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from where they were later returned to Somaliland. They recalled these experiences in the following way: The prison was full, even the ones towards Addis Ababa were full, there was not space inside them to add us, they are forced to take us, because there is not a single space to arrest local criminals. After two weeks, the authorities say, ‘we transfer you from one jail to another jail’, so we went to another area called Bahadar [Ethiopia].

Aadan and Feysal had attempted to move forward but had ended up taking just as many steps backwards. No matter how well someone was prepared, the information gathered beforehand was rarely enough. The right information from the right sources could minimise the risks of dying or being forcefully returned. But in the practical implementation of knowledge, unknown and unpredictable stories and events were always ahead. This search for knowledge and the implementation of such knowledge into praxis resemble what Bourdieu has called ‘illusio’: having a feel for the game (2000, 206, [1986] 1990, 64). This feel for the game is what allows a person to navigate within a certain field and get ahead of the other players (in this case the authorities). Such navigation, however, usually requires some knowledge of the field—of the game board and the rules that the other players are playing by. The young Somalis did not have such knowledge, as they were navigating a game with a constantly changing game board and rules under continuous development. They thus had to sense the physical terrain and the positions of border crossings and border guards on the particular day, when they wanted to move. Routes were constantly being closed down by the increasingly stringent border controls, and while other routes usually opened in the process, these usually entailed greater risks of attacks and of death from lack of food or water or due to the harsh environmental surroundings of desert, jungle or sea. This was another unpredictable risk: even if the information gathered before leaving was accurate, things could change at any time, leaving all information outdated and useless. While tough

122 

A. Simonsen

environments were somewhat predictable and expected, suddenly changing routes or being forced into unforeseen territories was an unpredictable risk. The fact that it is often defined as natural causes of death when migrants die of hunger and thirst reflects the socio-political hierarchy in which not only young Somalis but marginalised youth from the Global South move today. The rough encounters with nature are, on the one hand, defined as a natural, untamed beast whose actions no one can be held responsible for. On the other hand, the risks people encounter in the desert and on the sea are the direct consequences of policies and practices of border control that provide them with no other ways of travelling. The border agencies that embody European securitisation policies ‘can draw on the agency of animals and other nonhumans to do its dirty work …’ (De León 2015, 43). Unpredictability, thus, was a relative phenomenon, which constantly impacted the world in which the young migrants moved. We have seen how practices of sharing information were gendered in terms of building on ideals of masculinity. In the following sections we will see how the search for information was equally uncertain and intense for the young women en route.

Women, Tahriib and the Search for Information Many of the young women who were keen to leave Somaliland attempted to do so through marriage or education as discussed in previous chapters. This form of travel was much safer than tahriib but was not available to all. Women attempting tahriib along the tough route through Sudan and Libya were particularly vulnerable to rape, and thus, this route was associated with shame for women. Some young women preparing for tahriib along this route decided to take birth control injections prior to departure in order to avoid the unbearable shame of returning home pregnant without a husband. They thus had to doubly protect their bodies due to their biological circumstances as potential mothers.

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

123

The young women that we will meet in this section had embarked on tahriib on their own and had travelled through Turkey and Greece. This was considered easier and safer for women than the route through Sudan and Libya and was thus more socially acceptable for a woman to take. But this route required economic capital that not everyone was able to collect. Hence, taking this route usually required having family or friends, either in or outside of Somaliland, willing to help finance tahriib. Ubah, a young woman in her early 20s, had managed to convince her brother to let her do tahriib through Turkey and Greece. She came from a family of five sisters and brothers and a mother. Her father had passed away. Ubah had finished high school but never went to university for lack of funding. After contemplating tahriib since 2008, Ubah managed to persuade her brother to pay for the journey and left in 2013. Ubah was so determined to leave that her brother was worried that she would risk taking the route through Sudan and Libya. Ubah’s brother, located in Somaliland, was the only financial source she had, where many of the other young women had family members in Europe sponsoring their journeys. As a result, Ubah often had to wait longer than the others for the financial means to continue her travels. Despite taking what was considered the easier route, the young women were still acutely aware that they were extremely vulnerable to assaults and physical exhaustion. Nadifa, whom I met in Turkey and later in Greece, highlighted the concerns of conducting tahriib as a woman: Mostly, girls are leaving with passports […] Serbia [the route taken on foot without a passport] is very tough, maybe it is raining, maybe you are walking for twelve hours. When you have made it here [Greece] you can’t go home; you have to stay here or move on. We have to do something, because if you stay here, maybe you lose your mind, you have to live or die, that’s it. The options are three: either with passport, with boat and truck to Italy, or through Serbia. Sometimes I tell myself that if you go with truck, you will be dead, Nadifa.

I asked Nadifa about the risk of rape that I assumed a woman travelling alone would be exposed to. She told me that this was also a fear of hers, but that women often tried to travel with a man from their clan to

124 

A. Simonsen

have some protection. She thus highlighted that the women feared the ordeal of moving through a rough landscape that was physically challenging as well as occupied by challenging and sometimes dangerous people, whether the mafia, brokers, the authorities or fellow migrants. As I was often told, ‘Anja, people are like the five fingers on my hand, they are not the same’. Life en route was a public life with many different people passing through. Some were good, others bad. The public life even followed the migrants into their houses along the route. Many of the Somalis hated the temporary houses, as they found them ‘noisy’ and ‘public’. People would leave in the night, others arrive the next day, some would go to bed at midnight, others in the early morning. Living a public life referred to the way the local brokers would allocate the Somalis to whatever house had a free place, when they arrived in a new location. Often the houses would hold a mix of men and women of all clans and ages. Usually, they would pay €60 a month for a mattress to sleep on and €10 a week for food. Only Somalis lived in these houses that were rather old and very hot during the summer and cold during the winter. The owners were Greek, but the ‘mothers of the houses’—the women in charge—were most often Somalis who had been in Greece for many years either settling down or still waiting for a chance to leave. These ‘mothers’ collected the monthly rent and paid the bills for electricity and water, and in some houses they bought the food as well. Those who could afford it could pay to change house, but the rest had to stay put until getting the chance to leave Greece, if that chance ever came. Ubah and Nadifa’s house had three rooms, two for the men and one for the women. In addition, there was a living room, a kitchen, a toilet and an open balcony (Fig. 5.1). There were 15–20 people living in the house, including a woman in her late 50s or early 60s, young boys no older than 17 and children only a year old. They came from all over Somalia, a mix of clans, minorities and majorities, men and women. None of them had ever experienced living mixed like this before embarking on tahriib. The women would take turns doing the cleaning and cooking, thus continuing their traditional domestic roles. Nadifa often told me how she hated all the work of cooking for the men and cleaning for everyone. She wanted to live alone without any noise and responsibilities. She wanted freedom.

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

125

Fig. 5.1  Transit house, Greece, May 2014 (photo by the author)

The women were constantly searching for information that could take them out of Greece to safer ground. They did so by spending hours on the phone and on social media platforms talking with friends, boyfriends, brokers and others with valuable information. They would also have visitors at the house or go to other houses to meet and catch up with fellow (often female) migrants and get the latest information.

126 

A. Simonsen

On the day I had arrived in Greece, Riyaan took me from house to house to catch up with all the women that I knew from previous fieldwork in Somaliland and Turkey. At the end of the tour, Riyaan, Nadifa and I ended up in a small room along with Riyaan’s roommates, who, like Riyaan and Nadisa, were all waiting for the opportunity to migrate further into Europe. The room was sparsely decorated and had a big closet and mattresses covering the floor. Riyaan introduced me to the other women. Many had come to this room to visit a woman who had fallen ill during her journey. Many of them knew each other, either through family relations or from difficult encounters en route like imprisonment. They were speaking fast and in Somali. Riyaan translated into English for me. ‘Everyone is looking for a passport where the face is similar to your own’, she told me. Borrowing another woman’s passport and thus getting into Europe by airplane was one of the safest ways for the women to move. Travelling this way meant, in most cases, that you could avoid the risk of rape, imprisonment or dying along the more dangerous routes. Various types of ID cards were circulated among the women in the small room. One woman held up one of the ID cards and asked, ‘Is this the passport?’ Everyone laughed at her, and Riyaan turned to me and said, ‘She thinks this is the passport, she is stupid’. We laughed. Making it on tahriib did not only require money. It also demanded an understanding of the different documents and where and how to use them. The ID cards circulated had been sent by family members to one of the women who had recently attempted to leave Greece through the airport but had been caught and denied boarding. ‘They told her it was not her face’, Riyaan explained. One of the younger women present wanted to try to leave by air the following day. She had just come back from buying clothes that were very different from the long, colourful shiid worn by most of the Somali women. She had bought clothes that she considered to be Western looking in order to look more like a European citizen travelling as a tourist. After greeting all of us, she left the room. A few minutes later another Somali woman entered wearing trousers with a skirt on top and a jacket. I greeted her with the usual ‘Salaam aleikum’. The other women in the room laughed. It turned out that the joke was on me. ‘Is it good?’, the

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

127

newly arrived woman asked and looked at me. I realised that it was the same woman who had just left the room, now practising her role as a tourist. All I could say was, ‘yes, this is very good’, as I had just been part of a rehearsal without knowing it, and it had gone exactly as they all hoped it would go at the airport. The preparations continued as the woman beautified herself with facial masks, packed her bags, etc., as we sat in this small, overcrowded room. Gatherings like this were safe spaces for the women to get information on how to move ahead. It was during such gatherings that the women could collect xog, the clues, hints and pieces of information ‘about specific know-where’ (Olsen and Thuen 2013, 274). In addition to searching for xog through these gatherings, the women searched for suitable passports on the streets.

The Search for a Similar Face Spending my days among Somalis in Greece, I quickly realised that if I was to learn the latest news of the day, I would have to go to Somaali Istaag, ‘the street where Somalis stand’. This was where negotiations would take place between hopeful young people and brokers regarding onward travel. It was also where the latest information on other people’s travels, deaths, fortunes and misfortunes would be shared. Somaali Istaag was at the very centre of where to find the information needed to make a decision. On the day I arrived in Greece, I decided to visit Somaali Istaag. When I arrived, I saw a group of Somali women on the other side of the street standing next to a group of young Somali men. Suddenly, Riyaan stood in front of the taxi. I had come to know her in Turkey and cared for her like a sister. Meeting her like this was overwhelming, and I found myself shaking. Riyaan had been through a long journey of walking, sailing, being confined first in a camp and later in prison since we last met. I, by contrast, had spent 2 months at home and at the university before taking a flight to Greece. We hugged each other and Riyaan said, ‘This is Somaali Istaag; you can see the Somalis are standing here’. As I looked across the street, a young man waved to me. Riyaan said, ‘Do you know this boy?’

128 

A. Simonsen

To my great surprise it was Farhan, also known as Wiilka Nolosha. He was a young Somali that I had spent much time with in Turkey, and we will hear his story in Chap. 5. I said ‘yes’ and went straight over to greet him. Another young man also recognised me and said, ‘It’s like in Turkey, there is a restaurant with Somali food’. He continued, ‘You know Subeer from the restaurant? He left, he is in Serbia now, he is safe. I talked with him on Facebook and Skype’. I told him to greet Subeer from me. Being at Somaali Istaag in Greece for just 5 minutes, I had met two people that I knew from Turkey and had been updated on a third. The young man had seen me spending time with Subeer in Turkey, so he knew that information about him would be relevant for me. And he assumed that Subeer would agree to his whereabouts being shared with me. Generally, information on where someone was now would not be considered sensitive and would be shared frequently with me and with other Somalis. I would spend much of my time at Somaali Istaag during my stay in Greece. The young women would be sitting at the bus stops, but they were not waiting to get on one of the local Greek buses. Rather, their aim was to depart on a far longer journey. They knew they wanted to leave Greece, but their destinations were not always certain and they had no certainty of ever reaching them. Sitting at a bus stop or on a curb or standing around Somaali Istaag was essential to be able to leave Greece. Information was shared and as Riyaan described it, ‘This is where people are looking for their passports, this is where the ones from Europe they come to make business’. Spending my days mostly sitting on the curb with the young Somali women, I could see how sitting there day in and day out was a practice of searching for solutions. One hot afternoon, I was sitting on the usual curb with Ladan, a young woman I had gotten to know in Greece. Ladan tells me that a boy she has just talked to is from another European country. Others from the same country join us. Ladan is showing them the picture she has on her phone of a Somali girl who, she explains to me, has a passport. She shows me the picture from the passport, telling me that the nose is different. According to Ladan, her own nose is small, while this woman’s nose is big. We laugh. One of the young men shows Ladan a ­picture of another girl. They discuss whether her face is a better likeness for

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

129

Ladan, so that she can borrow the passport for a considerable amount of money. At the same time, a woman walks by with three other women. They are wearing big, beautiful Somali hijabs. Ladan calls out to them, and they all step aside to look at a third passport.

Within half an hour, Ladan was introduced to no less than three potential passports to take her out of Greece. She was being very alert and proactive in her search for information and solutions. Along with the other women, she would constantly try to negotiate the price of leaving and assess whether the information and solutions presented to her would improve her chances of making it. Spending time at Somaali Istaag was a way of continuously being en route, even while being stuck for shorter or longer periods of time in Greece. Just like in Somaliland, gathering information was a way to cope with uncertain futures and prepare for journeys to come. Only, in Greece the stakes were higher. So was the intensity of the search and the density of available information. So, the constant need to be alert was related specifically to the Greek context. ‘Greece is not Europe’, Somali women and men would often tell me, and the risk of imprisonment seemed higher in Greece than in Turkey. The Greek police were known to be brutal, and the length of imprisonment was significant. According to a new law, implemented in 2014, migrants attempting to leave Greece without valid travel documents could be imprisoned for up to one and a half years. This form of negative potentiality led to ‘a social hyper-vigilance’, meaning ‘a constant awareness and preparedness towards the negative potentialities of social figures and forces’ (Vigh 2011, 98–99). Living in a context where every decision is a matter of life and death, the perceived insecurity of the world can lead to desperate attempts to seek knowledge and take control of the future. Ladan and the other Somali women were constantly alert, looking for new possibilities of leaving Greece, noticing increasing numbers of police officers on the street or reacting to the imprisonment or other misfortunes of fellow Somalis. For the women on the move, the search for information at Somaali Istaag reflected their attempts to comply with socio-cultural expectations of the routes that were acceptable for women. While they had already broken with traditional gender practices by travelling alone, they were looking

130 

A. Simonsen

for specific forms of information that could minimise any further risks, like opportunities to leave Greece by plane or in the company of a trusted male. While kutiri kuteen was free of charge, information [xog] on how to move in the geopolitical landscape was often treated as a form of capital, and it was exchanged en route enveloped in a web of secrecy and relations of trust.

 rust, Secrecy and the Unequal Distribution T of Information One day, Nadifa told me that she had encountered problems. She had met a Somali broker in Greece, who was from her own clan. He had told her that if she gave him the passport that her family in Europe had sent her, he would take her out of Greece to the country where she wanted to go. After giving him the passport, thinking it would be her ticket out of Greece, the man was nowhere to be found. She explained how she had asked people around Somaali Istaag if they had seen him. But no one had. Her brother in Europe started to ask around and found a friend of the broker in another European country. This friend and Nadifa’s brother put pressure on him. ‘He said that he went to Europe because he had some family who was sick’, Nadifa said, so now the passport was supposedly in Europe on its way back to her. ‘He was a liar’, she stated, as she had still not received anything. So, the question is what made these young women, and so many other young migrants, trust the mukhalas (the Somali brokers) on matters of life and death? What information about the mukhalas was available to them, and how did they try to verify this information? Sitting one day in the house with Nadifa and her friend Hogol, they talked about their experiences of gaining access to or being excluded from certain kinds of information. Their conversation also centred on the validity of the information available to them. Nadifa and Hogol had travelled in the same boat from Turkey to Greece, and Nadifa introduced Hogol to me as her best friend in Greece. She also told me that ‘Hogol,

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

131

she knows a lot of mukhalas’. Therefore, she was the right person to seek advice from when it came to using mukhalas. As the two young women were discussing Nadifa’s current situation, Hogol did not agree with Nadifa’s idea of leaving Greece without using a mukhalas. Hogol explained to me that Nadifa thought that travelling from Greece to other European countries would be easy, ‘but it is not’. ‘Me, myself, I went to the airport two times when some of my friends were leaving. Some leave, some come back’, she added. I asked her whether she had tried to go herself. Hogol explained that she just went there to see what the airport was like. She continued: This is not an airport. First when you come, there is check in. If you make it to that one, where you buy the ticket, then there is the security, and then there is the boarding, so three times checking. In the boarding, they might come and ask you. I know. Nadifa thinks it is easy. It is not.

At this point, Ubah joined the conversation and took Hogol’s side. They told Nadifa, while translating to me, ‘she does not know anything in the airport, she does not know where to go, what to do, anything, so she needs the mukhalas’. Nadifa went on to explain that the mukhalas would take €2000 and then it would cost Nadifa an additional €1000 for someone to go with her, since the girl on her passport was young, and such a young girl would never travel alone. Nadifa said that she would call her family that night and then make the final decision. I asked Hogol if there were any mukhalas they could trust. Hogol replied that she did not trust anyone here but herself. ‘No one can be trusted’, she said, explaining that the mukhalas would never go to the airport: ‘They will just call you and tell you what to do. They will not risk being caught themselves’. Familiarity with spaces and processes involved in the constant attempts to move forward could not be taken for granted. Hogol did not trust other people’s experiences (or the parts of their experiences that they were willing to share with her). Going to the airport to see and hear for herself was a way to use sensory experiences as preparatory information. The girls continued to talk in Somali. I heard them mention Norway3 a couple of times, and I asked Hogol what they were discussing about

132 

A. Simonsen

Norway. Hogol laughed and replied that ‘Norway is a nickname for one of the mukhalas. It is not his real name, but a nickname. They don’t want anybody to know their real names’. This discussion points to three interesting aspects of the sharing of information among young people en route. First, it poses the question as to what or who a trusted source is. Nadifa sought information from someone she trusted, her best friend, who also happened to be very well-­ connected. Hogol’s information was treated as accurate due to her connections with the mukhalas. Thus, managing the uncertainties of the journey into unknown terrain was a matter of seeking information from sources that could be trusted, or at least partly trusted. Second, the conversation draws attention to the fact that information has turned into a form of commodity to be sold and bought. Hogol’s advice was based on an acknowledgement that they were excluded from specific information related to the experience of tahriib. It turned out that certain people had access to certain information. And some specific information was so valuable that it could be turned into economic capital (cf. Bourdieu 1987), as it was bought and sold for money. In this way, ‘information is administered like a valuable, potential commodity for further exchange’ (Møhl 1997, 119). The youth were attempting to buy themselves a more secure future through the exchange of information and documents. There was, however, an understanding that no information was guaranteed to be good, as intentional lies, misunderstandings or changes in practices or policies could easily turn it bad. Like with financial investments, there was always a risk when exchanging information. Hogol verified her information by going to the airport and getting her own experiences, something Nadifa did not have. The information came from her own eyes, and thus, she positioned herself as someone who knew more than Nadifa. Finally, there was some ambivalence about trusting a mukhalas to provide valid information, despite paying him to do just that. Hogol and Ubah argued that the mukhalas could not be trusted, but they still needed to seek advice from him in order to continue their journey. Information on how to pass through the advanced security at the airport was defined as being out of reach; only the mukhalas had that type of information. Thus, the unequal distribution of information led to this ambiguity. The

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

133

mukhalas was in a position to decide to keep certain types of information secret, while other types could potentially be shared for a fee. The young women, on the other hand, needed the information, and thus, many chose to trust the mukhalas despite knowing that he might turn out to be untrustworthy. Thus, the relationship between the mukhalas and young women like Ubah, Hogol and Nadifa was based on a rough and unfinished understanding of each other, which, Simmel argues, is a general precondition when human beings interact with one another (1906, 441). Despite the ‘intensity and shading in the degree in which each unit reveals himself to the other through word and deed’, the knowledge one has about another ‘still attains that degree of truth which is essential for the life and progress of our species’ (Simmel 1906, 441). In the case of the mukhalas, there was a precondition of information about him—his nickname and the kind of information he could provide—but there were parts of his knowledge that he did not reveal to the youth en route (cf. Simmel 1906, 442). Thus, the exchange of information took place in the space between truth and nescience, acknowledging one’s own lack of knowledge. And the foundation of this relationship was a kind of unequal but reciprocal knowledge (Simmel 1906, 442–444; Korsby 2013, 140). As Simmel argued, ‘Secrecy secures, so to speak, the possibility of a second world alongside the obvious world, and the latter is most strenuously affected by the former’ (1906, 462). Secrecy was an integral part of tahriib, a part that made tahriib itself a possibility. In this chapter, I have mostly discussed the secrecy between the mukhalas and the young Somalis en route and the secrecy among the youths themselves. Secrecy was a necessity in these relationships, where information was a commodity, traded and viewed as a potentiality. But secrecy was equally important in other aspects of tahriib. First of all, most of the young Somalis kept their plans of tahriib secret from their families, and perhaps most importantly of all, secrecy was essential in the relationship between the youth en route and the European authorities, which will be discussed further in Chap. 7. Thus, echoing the work of Carey (2017), I seek to provide more ethnographic and theoretical attention to secrecy, doubt and uncertainty as organising practices of society. Lack of trust, or mistrust, is as important in organising human society as trust (Carey 2017).

134 

A. Simonsen

(Mis)Trusting in Unknown Terrain Information provided to men and women was different, but the aspects of secrecy and (mis)trust related to both. Tahriib for men and women alike was a constant oscillation between gathering information and making decisions to move (or to stay) based on that information. In the process of coming to know—acting on the information gathered and creating your own experience by moving along in the unknown terrain—the young men and women constantly made decisions on who and how much to trust. With secrecy being so integral to life en route, it was known and accepted by all the young Somalis I encountered. Many had kept their own plans of tahriib secret from their families, and they were all keeping certain information secret along the journey. But as they moved along, the stakes involved when choosing to (mis)trust people and information were getting higher. One day, I was talking to Subeer on the phone and he told me how he had negotiated the issue of trust with a broker in Serbia: It was a Sudanese smuggler. I asked him, ‘how can I trust you?’ I called a lot of friends, they said he is the best smuggler, then I tell him, ‘So maybe you were good before, but how can I know you are good now?’ He [the Sudanese smuggler] said, ‘Okay, if you have someone you trust here, then give this person the money, then you call when you arrive [in Europe] then I will get the money’. So, there was one woman, she was good, she was from Hargeisa, but she was good [Subeer was from South Somalia], so we say ‘Hooyo [mother], please keep this money’, so she keeps the money.

Being ‘good’ referred to being trustworthy and honest. Subeer decided to trust that this woman would help the young Somalis on their next steps of tahriib. He was manoeuvring between ‘knowing and not knowing another person’, in this case both the Sudanese smuggler and the woman from Hargeisa, and between ‘having full knowledge and a lack of any knowledge’ (Simmel 1906, 450). Subeer depended on the information that other Somalis could contribute and what the Sudanese broker wanted to reveal to him. He chose to invest a kind of ‘presupposed confidence’ (Simmel 1906, 446) partly in the Sudanese broker (with his life)

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

135

and partly in a fellow Somali (with his money). Subeer later made it to Europe and was granted asylum. Nadifa, despite trusting Hogol personally and for her knowledge and connections, decided not to take the advice provided by her friend. She postponed her final decision and consulted her family members, who were paying for the journey. Eventually, she left Greece without the help and expenses of a mukhalas. Instead, she used the information gained through the conversation with Hogol on how to get through the airport. She successfully made it out of Greece. Ubah did the opposite of Nadifa and invested her trust and money in the advice of a mukhalas in her attempt to leave Greece. Based on the information received, she went to a Greek island to create a narrative of being a regular tourist on holiday in mid-July. After a few days on the island, she tried to leave Greece through the airport on a borrowed passport, but she was arrested and put in prison. Contacting me from prison, Ubah wanted me to seek information about the potential consequences of her arrest. For many of the young Somalis, I had become a trusted source to seek information from, and my European background and legal presence in Greece allowed me to contact the Greek authorities on their behalf. As I introduced myself on the phone as Ubah’s friend, a police officer decided to share information about Ubah’s arrest with me. She explained that Ubah had been arrested at the airport, as she was trying to leave illegally with a passport that was not her own. The female officer said, ‘she has no paper to stay in Greece’ and added that ‘in Greece, the law says that we can keep them [referring to people without legal documents] for up to 18 months’. She went on to explain that the police would now try to contact the relevant embassy and get a passport from the embassy to send Ubah home. ‘If we can, we will deport her’, she said. But she went on to explain: ‘If after 3 months, we have not got the passport, we will free her’. Fortunately for Ubah, the possibility of keeping migrants in prison for 18 months was rarely used, as it was a bureaucratic and economic burden on the local police. Nonetheless, Ubah called me from prison later the same day. She was crying, as she had already been informed that she might have to spend a long time in prison.

136 

A. Simonsen

Ubah’s story illustrates how changes in policies and practices could render all the gathered information obsolete. When she borrowed a document, like so many young Somalis before her, and tried to match her actions to the narrative of a tourist on vacation in the middle of July, she did so on the basis of good and trustworthy information. But the terrain changed under her feet, as the law was changed and the punishment for attempting to leave Greece without legal documents was increased from 3 to 18 months in prison. This seriously heightened the risk of her mode of travel, and she was not prepared to spend a year and a half in prison. Eventually, Ubah was released after 3  months, as the authorities were unable to obtain verification of her identity from the embassy. I travelled to see her on the island upon her release, bringing some money that her family had sent her and making sure she was safe and sound. After her release, Ubah was now preparing for a new round of gathering information on how to safely and successfully leave Greece. (Mis)trusting people and information en route was probably one of the most important decisions faced by the young Somalis as they moved along the unknown and unpredictable terrain of tahriib. Sometimes trust was put in a mukhalas or another stranger. Other times even information provided by your closest friend was not trusted completely. And even when the information and the people providing it were all good and trustworthy, the terrain—practices and policies—could shift and change the situation. Spending time in prison was not the only way to lose time while on tahriib. In the next chapter, I engage with the concept of time and examine how time is spent or wasted en route.

Notes 1. Another term used for this type of information is war [talk, speech, news] suuqeed [market], ‘the talk/news of/at the market’. Kutiri kuteen and war suuqeed both indicate news or information that is not to be trusted. 2. I have heard no other stories, where the brokers suggested that turning back was an option, so I do not believe that this was standard practice. 3. Norway is a pseudonym.

5  Uncertainty of Information in Unknown Terrain 

137

References Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. [1986]. Rom rules to strategies. In In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology, ed. Pierre Bourdieu, 59–75. Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1987. ‘What Makes a Social Class? On The Theoretical and Practical Existence Of Groups’ in Berkeley Journal of Sociology. 32, pp. 1–17. Bourdieu, P. 2000. Social being, time and the sense of existence. In Pascalian meditations, 206–245. Cambridge: Polity Press. Carey, Matthew. 2017. Mistrust: An ethnographic theory. University of Chicago Press. Cook, Kealani R. 2005. The fragile masculinity of Jack tar: Gender and English-­ speaking sailors, 1750–1850.’ Thesis, Master of Arts in History. University of Hawaii. De León, Jason. 2015. The land of the open graves: Living and dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland, California: University of California Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1999. Risk and responsibility. The Modern Law Review 62 (1): 1–10. Jackson, Michael. 2002. The politics of storytelling. Violence, transgression and Intersubjectivty. Denmark: Museum Tusculanum Press. Korsby, Trine Mygind. 2013. Hemmeligheder, Distance og Kontrol af Viden: Menneskehandel i Italien og Rumænien. In Familie og Slægtskab, Antropologiske Perspektiver, ed. Karen Fog Olwig and Hanne Overgaard Mogensen, 131–146. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Møhl, Perle. 1997. Village voices: Coexistence and communication in a rural Community in Central France. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Olsen, Bror, and Trond Thuen. 2013. Secret places: On the Management of Knowledge and Information about landscape and yields in northern Norway. Human Ecology 41 (2): 273–283. Povinelli, Elizabeth A. 2011. Economies of abandonment: Social belonging and endurance in late liberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Simmel, Georg. 1906. The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. The American Journal of Sociology 11 (4): 441–498. Spradley, James P. 1980. Participant observation. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Vigh, Henrik. 2011. Vigilance. On conflict, social invisibility, and negative potentiality. Social Analysis 55 (3): 93–114.

6 Tempo(S) of Time En Route

Somali proverb: ‘Wakhti iyo mawjad toona kuma sugo’. (Time and tide wait for no one.) Like everyone I encountered en route, the young Somalis in Greece spent just as much time online as offline in their search for information. When scrolling on social media they would be exposed to kutiri kuteen while actively searching for xog, as they engaged with friends or acquaintances online. Social media, in other words, was essential in turning experiences of ‘social death’ into ‘social hope’. When in Somaliland, I would frequently hear about Facebook and Skype as mediators of information, and I would participate in the sharing of news myself. During an interview with the general director for higher education and two employees from the interior ministry in Somaliland, I was told that ‘technology is a big problem, they [the youth] go to the Facebook and see the pictures and say, “What are you doing in Somalia? Come to Europe” … people leave for jobs and the Facebook opportunities’. Facebook opportunities in a Somali context were a product of the 1990s when technological advances were made in a rapid expansion of the money transfer and telecommunication sectors. These two sectors depended heavily on each other, and the money transfer companies,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_6

139

140 

A. Simonsen

xawilaad, have ‘invested heavily in telephones, mobile radio systems, computer networks and even satellite telecommunication facilities’ throughout the years (Horst 2007, 146).1 These technological advances have also given rise to mobile money solutions, like Zaad in Somaliland, which allow direct transfers of money between mobile phones. These solutions became popular in Somalia even before they were widely available in Europe and have long been used to pay for everything, including everyday groceries in local markets (Hagmann and Stepputat 2016, 10). In addition, the global Somali diaspora has made it essential for local Somalis to have means of contact, like mobile phones and internet. In 2015, the number of mobile connections in Somalia was estimated to reach more than five million, or roughly half of the Somali population (Hagmann and Stepputat 2016, 10). Though the government had benefitted from this development, as had the rest of society, they emphasised how the technological advances had had a negative impact on the youth, as the ‘Facebook opportunities’ were encouraging them to do tahriib. The government was partly right. Taban, for example, who was introduced in Chap. 3, highlighted the negative effects of chatting with his peers in Europe. Taban argued that the recent increase in youth migration was due to communication between friends living in Europe and those still in Somaliland, primarily through Facebook. The young Somalis located in Europe would ask, ‘Are you still there?’ referring to Somaliland, encouraging young people like Taban to migrate. Taban’s friends would ask him whether he was still drinking tea in the same spot, where they used to drink tea together before they left Somaliland—inferring that Taban was losing his time. Taban quoted an expression to me that his friends in Europe would tell him: ‘Baddii iminka mar mar ayay noqotay oo durduro ayaad kaga tallaabaysaa ee soo bax oo iska soo dul mar’ (‘The sea has turned into trails. Why don’t you just walk on it?’). This meant that the sea was so easy to cross that there was no excuse not to do it, he explained. And then he added, ‘At this time I don’t feel anything, but before sometimes when I heard from them, I used to pass sleepless nights nagging myself, why are you here [in Somaliland]?’ Taban pointed out that life in Somaliland was tough, but that this had been the case for many years. What had caused the increase in migration was the way young people influenced each other.2

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

141

Taban’s view of the future was one of both hope and fear, of anticipation and anxiety, characteristic of young people all over the world, who are often impatient and perceive time as slow (cf. Flaherty 2014, 175). The integration of time and emotion was felt even stronger when Taban and many others like him would have to defend themselves against peer pressure from across the sea, which was not uncommon (Ali 2016, 30–33). Thus, while spending time online was practised with the intention of creating hope, it also generated a feeling of losing time. As a result, the young Somalis were occupied with minimising what they defined as wakhti lumis (‘losing time’).3 This expression speaks to a present time, which is not used properly according to social norms—a general loss of time that can refer to everything from watching too much TV to being imprisoned. Time, in other words, materialised and was measured against their social surroundings (cf. Frederiksen and Dalsgård 2014, 1). Thus, ‘losing time’ was not necessarily tied to a specific geographical location. Instead, it materialised as conditions that decreased the chances for young women and men to move up the social ladder towards a desired future. This view upon and practice of time relies on a linear approach, meaning the assumption that the future will be better than the present. With that follows a focus on planning the future and taking action to turn the planned future into reality (Flaherty 2014, 175). This is what Flaherty (2002, 2003, 2011) has conceptualised as ‘time work’. The young women and men actively made ‘time happen’ (Flaherty et al. 2020, 4) before and during tahriib in order to minimise the loss of time and make the future better than the present. In the following, we will see how, for Aadan and Feysal, tahriib was an important part of socially constructing time by seeking to gain time (Simonsen 2018). In addition, before venturing out on tahriib and upon their return to Somaliland, they also sought to practise time in a meaningful way in accordance with the future they were hoping for. They were always careful not to engage in activities that could lead to a loss of time.

142 

A. Simonsen

Engaging Time in the Right Way Spending the afternoon at Aadan’s brother’s house with Feysal, Aadan and Abdirahman, I was puzzled by the amount of free time the young men chose to spend together rather than finding work. I knew that the work available was not the type of work they were hoping for, but I questioned their characterisation of Somaliland as a place with no jobs available to the youth. The three of them were students at the time, but constantly worried about the unemployment they imagined waiting at the end of their studies. Their worries were not unfounded. According to the Somaliland National Youth Organisation (SONYO) and Oxfam-­ Novib, unemployment among the youth in Somaliland amounted to 75%, as noted in Chap. 3. For the young men, however, unemployment was not only related to the lack of jobs available but also to a consideration of not engaging in just any kind of work, Aadan explained: The main jobs that are available here are to construct toilets, do you understand? To construct a building like this one [pointing towards the wall of the house, we are sitting in], to be a wheelbarrow porter. The job is not bad, but you have to ask yourself how much will you earn, so the job you are doing and the money you are expecting to earn are totally different, for example when you try to construct this building, you will get five dollars per day, so at that five dollars per day there is three that needs to be satisfied, the family, yourself and the country. So for example when you enter the restaurant and you try to eat the food, that will be 1.5 dollars: 1.5 dollars for lunch, 1.5 dollars for dinner, that is three dollars. You will try to sit at a tea shop having a cup of tea so for example, you sit together with five persons, so the five cups of tea will be 5000 Somaliland schilling, it means 85 cents, so how much will remain for me? […] When you sit with your friends at the small tea shop, your friends will say to you, ‘my friend, you are working today so you will pay the tea’.

Aadan, in other words, would rather remain unemployed than spend his time on a job that would earn him a meagre wage while increasing the social expectations of his surroundings. At the same time, as discussed in-depth in Chap. 3, taking a blue-collar job as a young university

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

143

graduate was seen as a social degradation, déclassement. Thus, rather than being a step up the social ladder from unemployed to employed, a blue-­ collar job would mean further marginality for the young men. Such déclassement would lead to what Vigh has called ‘nullification’: ‘An experience of being reduced to a body without worth, one characterized by its social “hollowness”’ (2016, 230). This, I assume, was the reason why Abdirahman did not reveal to the other young men that he in fact was working on construction sites whenever possible during the weekends to earn money for food and transportation while studying. Abdirahman belonged to the less privileged section of my interlocutors, who generally came from middle-class backgrounds. While he was a student like many of the young people I encountered in Hargeisa, his family did not have enough money to cover his daily expenses, like food and transportation. Therefore, his situation was different when it came to work. He did not have the privilege to choose not to. He worked whatever job he could get and then chose to keep it a secret from his peers to avoid the social shaming of working blue-collar jobs. He did, however, have family members living abroad, and he would turn to them for sponsorship when it came to bigger expenses like tuition fees, etc. Like so many times before, our discussion that day centred on the wish that the young men had of socially moving up in the world. Through reflections on past and present disappointments, they discussed and imagined how best to spend their present and future time. In Chap. 3 I have elaborated on the phenomenon that I call ‘social death’, which refers to the inability to move into proper adulthood, uphold the intergenerational contract and provide for yourself and your family. There is an important time aspect to ‘social death’, namely the feeling of running out of time: the discrepancy between the feeling of the world moving fast around you, while you feel stuck and unable to move. As Durkheim reminds us: With globalization, problematic temporal issues increasingly afflict the youth of diverse nations in parallel ways. At home and abroad, this parallelism in temporal experience is an artifact of the dialectical relationship between two great social forces: structure and agency. Structure is ­implicated

144 

A. Simonsen

because time is, always and everywhere, a ‘social institution’ (Durkheim [1915]1965:, 23).

Therefore, time is ‘capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint’ (Durkheim [1895]1966, 13). This constraint of the social institution of time was felt acutely by the youth of Somaliland, as they were waiting to socially move ahead. This waiting was characterised by drinking tea with friends, searching for jobs, attending school, sleeping, playing football, etc., while they were constantly considering various strategies for how to spend their time in ways that would bring them closer to their hopes of ‘a good life’ in the future. Following scholars like Bourdieu, who has contributed extensively to the exploration of time, we would assume that employment would be a solution to the friction between expectations and possibilities of the future. Bourdieu argues that ‘empty time … has to be “killed”’ in order to avoid a discrepancy between one’s present and one’s future time, which stands in contrast ‘to the full (or well-filled) time of the “busy” person who, as we say, does not notice time passing’ (Bourdieu 2000, 224). Bourdieu approaches empty time as a disruption that needs to be occupied by employment in order to restore a balance between one’s present expectations and one’s future possibilities. But to Aadan, Feysal and many others in similar situations this was not the case. They kept time ‘empty’ or without employment rather than spending it on a job that would take them in the wrong direction. The choice of the young Somali generation was a way to ‘oppose or change the structural arrangements’ that they stood to ‘inherit from their predecessors’ (Flaherty 2014, 176). As discussed earlier, Somali society was highly influenced by clan relations and gerontocratic structures. Thus, to gain influence in society, the young men had to grow up and fully enter adult life. This ideally meant getting married and getting a job. Their reluctance to take just any job was keeping them in a situation where they, like children, were fully dependent on their families, even while they were in other ways eager to enter adulthood. The young men’s actions and experiences of time and age were very much related to an imagined future time. As Johnson-Hanks argues, ‘imagined futures may be idiosyncratic, but the forms of imagination

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

145

belong to the social field’ (2002, 878). The young men illustrated this when I asked them whether it would not be better to have five dollars than no dollars. Feysal said: That will totally separate me from the family’s economy, my family will say, ‘now you have a job, so you have to satisfy your own needs’. This job will not be every day. I might have a full-time salary for ten days and experience ten days of not working or working less than full time, so you cannot survive with this salary.

Abdirahman agreed and added that the family would only provide food for a young man in this situation, nothing else. Getting a job, even if it was sporadic and underpaid, would in some ways send the young men into adulthood, as their families would no longer feel obliged to provide anything but mere necessities. On the other hand, however, the young men would still need food from their families and they would still be unmarried—and unable to afford a wedding or to provide for a family, thus being kept firmly in the category of youth. Thus, instead of providing the much-wanted upward social mobility, a job on a construction site would create an even larger gulf between the potentiality and hopes for the future and the way present time was being spent.

The ‘time work’ of Leisure Choosing not to work meant that many of the young men had a lot of leisure time. As discussed in Chap. 3, they had more time on their hands than their female counterparts, who would often be engaging in house chores and other responsibilities at home. But as we shall see in the following, leisure time was not considered purely wasted time. For the youth in Somaliland, the choice to kill time by keeping it ‘empty’ was a meaningful endeavour (Ralph 2008). As explained above, time spent wrongly was ‘potentially dangerous’ (Mains 2007, 659) as it could ruin ‘the expectation that the future will not be like one’s past and that, instead, it will be qualitatively better’ (Mains 2007, 665).

146 

A. Simonsen

Besides spending time online, leisure time was spent going to the mosque for prayers, applying for jobs that they found attractive, returning home for lunch and then sleeping until the afternoon. Some would also go to the university for classes during the day or in the evening. But large amount of time was spent in the tea shops, where the young men would meet their friends and discuss the news of the day and their overall concerns. They would talk about the current political issues, tribalism, and the job market and alarming rates of unemployment. While drinking tea in teashops or under a tree was embedded in the social habits of Somali men, the social norms of earlier generations were to some extent broken by the youth, as too many of them spent too much time like this, not just the limited time after work. However, drinking tea was not just a waste of time, as ‘teatime provides opportunities for hope to be nest and for dreams of a good life to be nurtured’ (Masquelier 2020, 177). It was a way of making the best of the present time by planning for the future. Mahad, a friend of Abdirahman’s, told me how the dreams of a good life—and the means to achieve it— were an important part of the daily tea discussions: ‘Some say we must migrate, some say we might stay and struggle for our lives’. During the many tea sessions, ideas, hopes and anxieties for the future were developed and shared, thus illustrating how ‘leisure (…) also affords people who aren’t otherwise consumed with the burden of employment a creative capacity that can be used to rework social networks …’ (Ralph 2008, 23). Even more importantly, information—both kutiri kuteen (rumours) and xog (news with a lot of information)—was shared through these social gatherings. The young men would exchange news of their peers doing tahriib: who had left the country and how far they had made it; who had gotten caught and who had died. As discussed in Chap. 5 this was one of the most important practices for the youth en route, before and during tahriib. Therefore, the choice to spend time at tea shops or on the internet chatting with friends and family abroad provided more meaning to the young Somalis I encountered in Somaliland, and thus felt like a better way to spend their time, than the available blue-collar jobs. These jobs were linked to two sets of losses, namely losing time and losing social status. In contrast, being en route without physically moving—that is

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

147

gathering information and making plans—was a way of navigating the stuckness or simply making the best of time.

‘We live together, we die together’: Wasting Precious Time When engaging with the young Somalis en route, it was important to remember that tahriib was not just about getting away from something. It was very much about gaining time—or avoid losing any more—by moving towards something. Towards a future full of hope and potentialities, where the young men could move into able and responsible adulthood and take care of their families, and where the young women could fulfil their dreams of ‘a good life, a good husband and a good job’. The direction of tahriib was not necessarily towards a specific geographical location, but rather a location of dreams where chances of success were seen as higher than at home. At first glance, Turkey could have been such a location. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had invested millions of dollars in the development of Somalia, was greatly respected by many Somalis.4 The Turks were often spoken about as ‘Muslim brothers’, for instance when the young Somalis shared stories of Turkish police officers encountered at border sites. For the same reason, the young Somalis were more free to move around in the city of Istanbul than in Athens and other European cities. During my fieldwork, we would visit tourist sights together and move around in the city relatively unhindered. In Greece and Italy, in contrast, we would constantly be hiding from police and we would often stay within certain neighbourhoods to avoid bringing attention to our presence. Similar experiences of belonging to the umma, a global community of believers, have also been described by Somalis living in places like the UAE (Abdi 2015). Being part of the umma, however, was not enough to make Turkey a desirable destination. Not having regular documents, and thus being illegal in the eyes of the Turkish state, meant paying $100 per month for sleeping on a mattress in a room with 10–15 other people. It also meant

148 

A. Simonsen

that they would be in constant fear of being arrested, despite feelings of brotherhood with the Turkish people. Finally, finding a job without regular documents was difficult and left them without any sort of protection against abuse from employers. This was not the life that they had risked their lives for, and this was not a place where they saw their hopes and dreams coming true. The Somalis encountered, in other words, two forces: that of the Turkish state and of the Muslim umma, both shaping their everyday lives and informing their plans for the future (cf. Abdi 2015). For the youth that had left Somaliland on tahriib, the fear of losing time did not disappear. Like Somaliland, Turkey was considered a time trap by many of the young Somalis. Thus, for many of them, the worries about how to spend their time in this new location were similar to the worries at home. The successful ‘time work’ (Flaherty  et  al. 2020) in Turkey consisted of gathering information and raising the money to continue their journey. Thus, the amount of time spent in Turkey depended on how fast they could get the money but was also contingent on the geopolitical landscape occupied by border police and technological equipment meant to detect and hinder their movements (Olwig et  al. 2020). Many of the young Somalis initially wanted to simply leave Turkey as fast as possible. But as we shall see, other factors than a fast pace were important for successful movement. During my first visit to Somaali Istaag [the street where Somalis stand] in Turkey, three young Somali men from Mogadishu directed my attention to the factors of tempo and power relations. They had all set out to leave Turkey as fast as they could, but now had several failed attempts behind them. They explained how, during one of their attempts, they had been caught on a boat floating in the water for four days. When they were finally found by the Greek police, they were arrested, stripped naked and punished. Then they were returned to Turkey, where they spent their days sleeping, eating in their room and strolling over to the Somali restaurant. Now they found themselves confined to the Somaali Istaag, where they were waiting for the brokers to tell them it was time to move. They had to be ready at any time. This story illustrated the oscillation between different tempos: from being stuck to moving fast, only to be stuck again waiting for the next spurt of movement. It also showed how the brokers

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

149

held a lot of power, as only they knew when and exactly where to move. This left the young people en route at their mercy and in a constant waiting position. Concomitantly, the young Somalis found themselves in what Andersson (2014, 9) has defined as ‘a peculiar landscape of time’, where they risked getting stuck due to migration authorities’ tactics of making migrants wait (Andersson 2014, 12–13). Border control agencies were increasing their tempo and control by applying biometric technologies at border sites, the sole focus of which was to regulate migration practices and put an end to irregular movement (Olwig et al. 2020). As a result, the young Somali men and women, along with migrants from all over the world, were getting pushed back, redirected or incarcerated, thus constantly being set back in time. Thus, on several levels, the practices of tahriib were ‘both the product of ever higher speeds and connectivity, yet also … a migratory experience characterized by slowness and stasis’ (Andersson 2014, 9). For the youth who had finally ventured out on tahriib, often after many years of contemplation and planning, the experience of getting stuck in Turkey, sometimes over and over again, could be highly frustrating. Subeer, whom we met in Chap. 5, had been illegally pushed back by the Greek authorities and was still in Turkey in January 2014, living a difficult life without regular documents. In 2006, Subeer fled from Mogadishu, and since then he had been in Somaliland and Kenya before coming to Turkey in the autumn of 2013. He had left behind a wife and six children in Nairobi, because ‘In Nairobi it is difficult to find work, and the problem is that even if you find work, the costs of living in Nairobi are too high’. Subeer had registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kenya, who had granted him refugee status and approved him for resettlement 4 years ago. But Subeer and his family were not resettled: ‘Every time I go there [to the UNHCR office] and nothing [no decision had been made on their resettlement case], it is fucking hard’. After spending several years like this, Subeer had taken matters into his own hands and had embarked on tahriib. Many of the Somalis I encountered in Turkey told similar stories of waiting for years in locations like Kenya or Turkey either for replies to asylum cases or for

150 

A. Simonsen

resettlement. Now, Subeer was trying to find work in Turkey to provide for his family and eventually make the journey to Europe to improve their lives. He told me that when speaking to his family, ‘hearing the little baby screaming, and you don’t have anything’ was what kept him moving forward. For Subeer his family was the force driving him forward, but being away from them also made him hesitate: Then I just give up [in Kenya] and I come here [Turkey]. When I come here, I was really’ [he lifted his hands forming them into fists implying that he was ready] but now, I think so much. Sometimes I go crazy, then I even try to play some video games to not think.

When I asked Subeer about the chances of finding a job in Turkey, he replied that no one spoke English, ‘so everywhere I ask, they say, “Do you speak Turkish?” I say no, then they reject me. I even went to McDonald’s over there’. He pointed across the road. Subeer had applied for jobs at the restaurants in the area, willing to do everything from cooking to holding up signs in the street to attract new customers, but he was rejected everywhere due to his inability to speak Turkish. Subeer added, ‘Dude, did I come here to learn the fucking language? No’. Time in Turkey was running out for Subeer. His wife had given him a time limit: if he could not settle everything within the next 2 months, meaning either move on or get a job, he would have to come back to Kenya. ‘She told me, “we live together, we die together”’, Subeer explained. Tears were welling up in his eyes. He excused himself and blamed the sun. While being stuck in a time trap in Turkey, Subeer was spending precious time away from his family. His situation illustrated how the importance of time was embedded in very intimate relations. Similarly, a young Somali woman emphasised how certain aspects of time were also very personal and intimate to her. As a young unmarried woman, she could not wait for years and years for the UN system to resettle her. Her biological clock was telling her that she could not afford to lose anymore time if she wanted the chance to have children and make a family of her own. She thus explained how choices on how to travel and how to spend

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

151

time en route for her and many other women had to be understood from the perspective of their lifecycle. Similarly, to the young men in Hargeisa, who saw tahriib as a way to achieve responsible adulthood, the young women saw the movement in time and space as a progression in life and in social age. But losing time, in Turkey or elsewhere en route, was felt more acutely by the young women, as getting stuck for too long meant an increasing fear of losing the chance to have children. For Subeer, who already had a family, embarking on tahriib had been an attempt to improve the quality of life for his children. But rather than moving towards his goal, he was now stuck in Turkey and was realising that hard times spent together as a family in Kenya would be better than hard times spent apart. Thus, perceptions of the quality of time spent sometimes required abandoning the notion of movement through time and space as a linear progression towards social mobility. Subeer eventually managed to get a job working for another Somali. Although his working hours were sporadic, he was able to send a little money to his family, and most importantly, he could start saving money to continue his journey towards Europe where he believed he could make a better living. Thus, the tempo of Subeer’s life was changing. Before, when I asked if he would be around to have tea with me the next day, he would say, ‘Okay, I’m always here, there is nothing else to do’. Now, he had things to do and places to go.

 hanging Tempos: Getting Stuck C and Moving Fast Turkey was an unpredictable place. As shown above, it was considered a time trap. Many young Somalis felt stuck and waited for months and years, while trying to collect enough money and information to move on. For most, Turkey was considered a temporary place, a transit station. As such, it was unpredictable. The stuckness and waiting—while trying to engage time in some sort of meaningful way—could change from one moment to the next into rapid movement, and back again. My last meeting with Habaane, whom I had spent much time with in Istanbul,

152 

A. Simonsen

illustrated the changes of tempo that were so typical for the tahriib experience: I am standing outside a café in Istanbul, where Habaane and I have agreed to meet. At exactly five o’clock he comes walking down the main street. We greet each other and enter the café. ‘I’m leaving tonight’, he says, meaning that he will attempt to reach the land of Europe. ‘What, which time?’ I reply. ‘At 6 pm. You can see that I’m wearing different shoes, I’m wearing two pairs of trousers, my jacket … Everyone is preparing themselves right now exchanging money because you need to have some Euros’, he explains. A group of seven people are leaving together, four girls and three boys. When the waiter asks if we want tea, I look at Habaane and ask ‘Do you have time, or should we leave?’ ‘Yes, should we talk on the way?’ he replies. We get up and leave.

From one minute to the next, Habaane was busy preparing for the trip across the sea. He no longer had time to drink tea with me, which had otherwise been a way for him to kill time. He had to wear the right clothes, exchange money and be ready to leave Turkey right away. Like Subeer, Habaanes time started to move towards the future, only it was accelerating much faster. All of a sudden, his time was redirected and changed from empty time to be killed to busy time full of hope and anticipation. This change of tempo took place in a landscape of insecurity and unknowns. He did not know exactly when to move or for how long. He was unable to predict the tempos and directions of border patrols or the trustworthiness of the brokers and fellow travellers. Thus, his experiences of movement, both physical, social and temporal, were shaped by his surroundings. While the structural surroundings, in the form of border guards and actual physical borders, had a major impact on his ability to move so did his socio-economic conditions. Time, or rather movement through time, in many ways reflected the social hierarchies that the young Somalis were positioned in. The amount of time spent waiting for money or looking for work to earn money to move on and the amount of money spent on different means of transport was an indication of differences in wealth.

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

153

The inflatable boats were the cheapest way to cross the sea and the most dangerous. Habaane was able to travel on a more expensive boat, which, however, was packed with more than double the number of people it was designed for. Habaane made it to Greece safely, and he left to move further into Europe, before I arrived there. So that day in Istanbul was our last meeting face to face. Money could make the journey slightly safer and minimise the loss of time in Turkey, as you would not have to work or wait until family, relatives, friends or other acquaintances could collect the thousands of dollars needed to continue the journey. Money, however, was not enough. The young women and men also needed to master the social networks and relations around them, as trusting the wrong person could have fatal consequences. Money or passports might be stolen, or you might risk your life. (Mis)trust was an important element of successful tahriib, and young people who had lost their important assets through direct theft or by paying brokers for unsuccessful attempts, often found themselves stuck or forced to venture out on cheaper and less safe journeys. The changing tempos of time, constantly moving in and out of stuckness and movement, added to the uncertainty of the hopeful young people en route. Moving through the precarious landscapes of tahriib was a way to manage the fear of losing time, but there was often no way of knowing whether one’s time work was successful or failing. As the Somali proverb states, ‘Time and tide wait for no one’. Thus, in the hope of catching up with time or even gaining time, the young Somalis experienced what Rosa calls the ‘slippery slope phenomenon’ (2003, 11). This refers to experiences of time in the (post)modern era where ‘society with accelerated rates of social change in all spheres of life’ makes individuals feel that they always stand on ‘slippery slopes’: ‘people feel pressed to keep up with the speed of change they experience in their social and technological world in order to avoid the loss of potentially valuable options and connections’ (ibid., 11). Many of the fluctuations in tempo stemmed from the biometric border control and other policies and technologies implemented at border sites (Olwig et  al. 2020). Sometimes border controls would cause the stuckness by confining the migrants, and other times quick movements and changes of direction were means of outrunning or avoiding the

154 

A. Simonsen

border guards. All in all, ‘time work’ was not about moving from A to B as fast as possible. It was about losing as little time as possible by making the most of time. Even waiting time could be productive, and getting stuck or stepping back at the right time could open up new opportunities for gaining time and moving forward.

Negotiating the Future Events that entailed losing time, for instance being forcibly confined—in jail or simply stuck somewhere against their will—compelled my friends to reflect on the potentialities of the future. Farhan, who first introduced himself to me as Wiilka Nolosha (‘the boy of life’) because of his many close encounters with death, was in his mid-20s and originated from south-central Somalia. He was a father of two, and his children and his pregnant wife were still in Somalia. His extended family back in Somalia was divided between government supporters and al-Shabaab fighters, and it was the latter who had approached him and told him to fight for them. Wiilka Nolosha was left with the choice ‘to kill or be killed’, as he explained. He did not like either of the two options and decided to leave the country. In early February 2014, in an outdoor restaurant in Istanbul, he told me of his two attempts to cross the sea to Greece. Once, he was stuck in a small house by the sea for 3 days waiting to leave: They [the brokers] said maybe we will leave on Friday or Saturday. I said I cannot wait until Friday. Too much police was patrolling the sea, so that is why we were waiting for three days […] When I was there, I called the smugglers and said that we are suffering here, we get no food, no space and it is cold.

Rather than waiting and suffering hunger and cold, Wiilka Nolosha had asked to be taken back to Istanbul. This decision surprised me at first, as he had already endured a lot of physical and emotional pain to make it to Turkey in the first place.

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

155

On another attempt to cross the sea, he had almost lost his life on board the small inflatable boat. He had survived but was taken back to Turkey and put in jail. After this experience, he had asked for the $4000 back from the broker, whom he blamed for the failure. To get the money back would mean the chance to try once more to cross the sea with another broker. He told me that his family, who had given him the money in the first place, were telling him to take action, to do something. ‘If I don’t do anything, they will be angry with me, I wasted the money. They say that I’m a man now, I should do something’. At first, the broker refused to give him the money back, saying that she had already spent it. ‘Every day she is saying to wait, that she is taking me to Greece’, he said. Wiilka Nolosha wanted to take the case to the police and show them the proof that she tried to kill him at sea. He took out his registration letter from the jail showing that he had been imprisoned in the border area of Turkey. He said that he would take the papers to the police the next day, but he was afraid that he might be sent back to Somalia if he turned the broker in. In many cases, people did not pay the brokers until they arrived at their destination. Wiilka Nolosha told me that he had paid the Somali woman before his journey because ‘She is in my close clan, so I trusted her to arrange the travel before any other’. But now with all the problems, he had talked to his family in Somalia. They had approached her family living in the same area to put pressure on them to return the money. Then Wiilka Nolosha had approached the broker again: She said that she will give me the money but to relax. I say to her that I will not relax, so she said, ‘Okay, tomorrow’. The mother of the smuggler heard that there were problems, so she sent the money to my family in Somalia. She took the money for sending [the fee to the hawala] which was $200, so in all my family in Somalia received $3800. I now found a new Somali smuggler whose family is living in Somalia and mine also, so this money will now only be given when I call and say that I arrived.

Wiilka Nolosha had, against all odds, gotten his money back through harsh negotiations and important family ties with the broker. His case

156 

A. Simonsen

illustrated clearly how ‘the realization of time work requires proper motivation, necessary skill, and other resources’ (Flaherty et al. 2020, 6). Very few people would have been able to succeed in these negotiations; in fact, I never heard of anyone else who got their money from a broker. Wiilka Nolosha’s clan relations and social status were his most important resources, while his will for life and communicative skills also contributed to the negotiations. His story illustrated again the important factors of tempo, power relations and engaging time in the right way to make it through tahriib. The fact that he had willingly given up his first attempt rather than enduring the waiting, the freezing and the hunger, showed that a fast tempo was not everything. Sometimes a step backwards could allow for redirection and better engagement with time. While his decision had initially surprised me, I later understood that the suffering seemed like a waste of time, as the presence of ‘too much police’ made the crossing more insecure and increased the risk of failure. After the second attempt, Wiilka Nolosha managed to engage the power of his family relations and social status to at least minimise the loss of time. He did not need to wait for more money or find work in Istanbul to pay for his next attempt like so many others. The stories related in this chapter show us how the movements through time and space are in no way linear or predictable. Tempo (oscillating between moving fast and getting stuck—moving at a moment’s notice) and power (the power of brokers to decide when and where to move, the power of authorities to stop or redirect movements, and the power of wealth and social status to engage time more strategically) both play important roles in how every individual en route navigates the potentiality of time.

Notes 1. Hagmann and Stepputat (2016, 10) describe how, after the US government banned a former remittance company, Al-Barakaat in 2001 because of suspicion of terror-related links, it developed into three telecommuni-

6  Tempo(S) of Time En Route 

157

cation companies in Somaliland, Puntland and south-central Somalia by making use of the previous technical set-up. 2. See Geeldoon (2016, 45–46), who, through an autobiography, illuminates how his friends started doing tahriib when their family members abroad failed to sponsor them. Then his friends would post beautiful pictures on the internet depicting a better life in Europe, which made him think of all the things he was missing at home, like education, and how he was wasting his time there. 3. Wakhti/waqti comes from Arabic and has been incorporated into the Somali vocabulary used by the younger generation (Simonsen 2018). 4. This became very clear during the coup attempt against Erdoğan in July 2016, when many Somalis, including my young friends en route, posted pictures on social media in sympathy with the president.

References Abdi, Cawo M. 2015. Elusive Jannah: The Somali diaspora and a borderless Muslim identity. University of Minnesota Press. Ali, Nimo-Ilhan. 2016. Going on Tahriib. The causes and consequences of Somali youth migration to Europe. Rift Valley Institute Research Paper 5. United Kingdom. Kenya. Andersson, Ruben. 2014. Illegality Inc. Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe. Oakland, California, Berkeley: University of California Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2000. Social being, time and the sense of existence. In Pascalian meditations, ed. Pierre Bourdieu, 206–245. Cambridge: Polity Press. Durkheim, Emile. [1895]1966. The rules of sociological method. New  York: Free Press. Durkheim, Emilie. [1915]1965. The elementary forms of the religious life. New York: Free Press. Flaherty, Michael G. 2002. Making time: Agency and the construction of temporal experience. Symbolic Interaction 25 (3): 379–388. ———. 2003. Time work: Customizing temporal experience. Social Psychology Quarterly 66 (1): 17–33. ———. 2014. Afterwords. In Ethnographies of youth and temporality: Time objectified, ed. Anne Line Dalsgard, Martin Frederiksen, Susanne Hojlund, Michael G. Flaherty, and Lotte Meinert.

158 

A. Simonsen

———. 2011. The textures of time: Agency and temporal experience. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Flaherty, Michael & Meinert, Lotte & Dalsgård, Anne. 2020. Time Work: Studies of Temporal Agency. New York, Oxford. Berghahn. Frederiksen, Martin Demant, and Anne Line Dalsgård. 2014. Introduction: Time objectified. In Ethnographies of youth and temporality: Time Objectifi, ed. Martin Demant Frederiksen, Anne Line Dalsgård, Susanne Højlund, and Lotte Meinert, 1–22. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Geeldoon, Mohamed Hussein. 2016. We Kissed the Ground. A migrant’s journey from Somaliland to the Mediterranean. Kenya: Rift Valley Institute. Hagmann, Tobias and Finn Stepputat. 2016. ‘Corridors of trade and power: Economy and state formation in Somali East Africa’. DIIS-GOVSEA Working Paper 8: 1–44. Horst, Cindy. 2007. Transnational nomads. How Somalis cope with refugee life in Dadaab camps of Kenya. New York, Ny: Berghahn Books. Johnson-Hanks, Jennifer. 2002. On the limits of life stages in ethnography: Toward a theory of vital conjunctures. American Anthropologist 104 (3): 865–880. Mains, Daniel. 2007. Neoliberal times: Progress, boredom, and shame among young men in urban Ethiopia. American Ethnologist 34 (4): 659–673. Masquelier, Adeline. 2020. The work of waiting. Boredom, teatime, and future-­ making in Niger. In Time work: Studies of temporal agency, ed. Michael G. Flaherty, Lotte Meinert, and Anne Line Dalsgård, 175–192. New York: Berghahn Books, Incorporated. Olwig, Karen Fog, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl, and Anja Simonsen. 2020. The biometric border world: Technologies, bodies and identities on the move. London & New York: Routledge. Ralph, Michael. 2008. Killing Time. Social Text 26 (4 (97)): 1–29. Rosa, Hartmut. 2003. Social acceleration: Ethical and political consequences of a desynchronized high-speed society. Constellations 10 (1): 3–33. Simonsen, Anja. 2018. Migrating for a better future: “Lost time” and its social consequences among young Somali migrants. In Migration, temporality and capitalism: Entangled Mobilities across global spaces, ed. Pauline Gardiner Barber and Winnie Lem, 103–121. Palgrave Macmillan. Vigh, Henrik. 2016. Life’s trampoline: On nullification and cocaine migration in Bissau. In Affective circuits and African migration, ed. Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes-Green, 223–244. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

7 Biometric Ambiguities

Somali proverb: Nin daad qaaday, xumbo cuskay. (A man caught in a strong current will grab any bobble) In Europe, (irregular) migration has long been framed as a security issue and has been linked to risks of terrorism and other crimes  (Bourbeau 2011). This has created a general feeling of uncertainty and insecurity within parts of European populations and given rise to xenophobic sentiments. The increase in the number of people crossing the Mediterranean without regular travel documents has been called a ‘migrant crisis’ by politicians and policymakers on EU and national levels  (Agustín and Jørgensen 2018; Lucassen 2018). Thus, in dealing with this ‘crisis’, various migration management tools have been introduced on the external borders of the EU with the intention of (a) registering and securing certain identification of the migrants and (b) limiting or ideally putting an end to irregular movements (Olwig et al. 2020). Concomitantly, border controls have been (temporarily) re-established between several of the member states within the EU. As I will show in this chapter, all these security measures—as they were seen from within the EU—added to an already unsafe and uncertain situation for the young Somalis en route. Biometric registration, designed to provide absolute certainty of the migrants’ identity and whereabouts, was © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_7

159

160 

A. Simonsen

fraught with technological and existential ambiguities. For my Somali friends, ‘having your fingers taken’—having your fingerprints registered—was like Judgement Day on earth where you had no choice but to tell the truth because your body would witness against you. Thus, fingerprint registration could limit the chances of a successful tahriib and the achievement of dreams. For some, however, biometric technologies represented an opportunity to achieve a more existential certainty as well as the social mobility they longed for. My Somali friends were not alone in risking their lives by crossing the ocean to reach Europe. In 2015, at the height of the so-called crisis, over 1 million people crossed the Mediterranean without regular travel documents, and another 4000 men, women and children tragically lost their lives in the attempt to reach Europe (Clayton et  al. 2015). Out of the estimated total of 65.6 million displaced people in the world, largely as a result of civil war (e.g. in Syria and South Sudan) and continuing conflicts and instability (e.g. in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa; UNHCR 2019), these are relatively small numbers. But as mentioned above, Europe went into crisis mode. This was a result of a process of securitisation, where a political discourse of insecurity and crisis was used to frame the issue of irregular migration flows (Agustín and Jørgensen 2018). In Buur et al.’s words, preventing migration was presented in a manner that made it ‘into a question of survival’ (Buur et al. 2007, 12). Such securitisation discourse allowed extraordinary security measures to be implemented to manage the influx of people from the Global South (Rajaram 2015, cf. Agamben 2005). One of the early security initiatives taken by the Schengen member states was to enforce border controls through the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX). FRONTEX was established in 2004 to ‘safeguard internal security from organized crime networks who do not respect borders’.1 FRONTEX later became a central player in managing Europe’s external borders and its annual budget amounted to €320,198,000 (FRONTEX 2018).2 In addition, a new hotspot approach was formulated by the European Commission in April 2015 (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA] 2018) as part of an overarching strategy to end irregular migration flows into the EU. The purpose of the hotspots is to identify, screen and filter all new arrivals—men, women and children—through

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

161

pre-identification, registration, photo and fingerprinting operations. In addition, drones are used at the hotspots to ensure that all refugees are detected upon arrival and thus kept under control. The hotspots are established in areas on the EU’s frontier of ‘disproportionate migratory pressures’ with ‘large inward mixed migration flows’ (European Commission 2015). In Italy and Greece, the two European countries that receive the vast majority of migrants due to their location along the Mediterranean, five hotspots have been established. Four different EU agencies are involved in implementing the hotspot approach: the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), the European Agency for Asylum Support (EASO), the European Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (EUROJUST) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (EUROPOL). Run by these four agencies, the hotspots constitute ‘a new form of a multilateral migration management which turns particular border regions into special zones of governance, jurisdiction and enforcement’ (Ayata et al. 2021, 4). As a result of investments in technologies like fingerprint registration and drones, the hotspots are fulfilling their purpose as a safety measure in the eyes of the EU by identifying and registering people arriving at the borders without regular travel documents. In Italy, the percentage of migrants registered upon arrival increased from 36% to 87% from September 2015 to January 2016, in Greece from 8% to 78% in the same period, and by the summer of 2016, the registration reached close to 100% in both Italy and Greece (European Court of Auditors 2017). In addition, the number of new arrivals declined during the time of implementation, leading the EU to evaluate the hotspot approach as a success, as it was helping to ‘stabilise’ migration flows (Ayata et  al. 2021, 5). Thus, the implementation of the hotspots as a form of increased border control has allowed the EU to secure biometric identification of incoming asylum seekers. This in turn has helped to uphold the otherwise criticised and outdated Dublin Regulation of 19973—a European law that defines which member state must process a specific asylum application. This regulation means that refugees registered in Italy must apply for asylum in Italy and cannot seek asylum elsewhere in the EU. The only way to legally relocate to another member state is through the EU

162 

A. Simonsen

relocation schemes, which, however, have been highly unsuccessful as most member states are reluctant to receive refugees through the scheme. The hotspot approach is one of many examples of how the EU ascribes trust, certainty and objectivity to the biometric technologies as they are being implemented at border sites or in other migration contexts (see Scheel 2021).

(Un)Certainty of Biometric Technologies As we saw in Chap. 5, identity cards and passports with ID photos were widely circulated among Somalis en route, and there was an ongoing search for someone with a ‘similar face’ from whom you could buy or borrow a passport to cross the European borders by plane. Such practices must be understood as a way for people without regular documents to negotiate their position as ‘irregular’ migrants or security threats—positions that do not allow them to move freely in the world in search of more secure livelihood opportunities. Concomitantly, it is of course a good illustration of why European authorities mistrusted not only the migrants but also the available means of registration and recognition. As a result, the European Union has invested heavily in the development of biometric technologies as a safety measure against the perceived uncertainty of unknown individuals trespassing at its borders. Some of the most used biometric technologies in the context of migration are fingerprint registration, facial recognition (as well as iris scans) and DNA testing. What characterises all these technologies is that they attempt to measure, register and recognise the individual characteristic of a specific part of a body, thus measuring and quantifying biological life. What makes a fingerprint unique is the patterns on the finger surface known as ridges, valleys or furrows. At the hotspots and other border sites, ‘the fingerprints are usually “live scanned” into digital images through the sensing of the finger surface with an electronic scanner’ (Olwig et al. 2020, 10). In cases of facial recognition, which is used by the UNHCR in some of the larger refugee camps in the Middle East and Africa,

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

163

the particularity of the face for use in biometric facial recognition is established by detecting and abstracting faces from image backgrounds with the help of detection algorithms and what are known as facial ‘landmarks’ (e.g. ears, eyes, eyebrows, nose, facial shape). Subsequently, features defined as salient to a particular face are extracted and stored as a template for later comparison (ibid, 14).

Finally, DNA has mainly been used within migration contexts to confirm biological relations between individuals in cases of family reunification (ibid, 11). Using this technology, ‘The available DNA is sequenced to determine the exact order of the molecules in the DNA strand, and the two sets of DNA profiles are compared’ (ibid). Thus, through biometric technologies, authorities try to reduce human bodies to quantifiable, measurable and easily identifiable entities. However, as will be discussed in this chapter, the reality of biometrics is more ambiguous. The most widely used biometric technology in European border control is fingerprint registration, which is implemented through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the  European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database (EURODAC). EURODAC was launched on 15 January 2003 as the first multinational biometric registration system. In 2003, EURODAC could contain up to 1.6 million fingerprint records, but with increased instability in the world and thus increased numbers of refugees, EURODAC was expanded in 2009 to a capacity of 2.8 million records, and again in 2015 to 5 million. Today, EURODAC can contain up to 7 million records. Each record includes an individual’s ten rolled fingerprints, the person’s gender, country of origin, the member state of registration, the place and date of the asylum application, and a reference number—all information necessary for the Dublin Regulation to take effect. In the initial roll-out of EURODAC, access was restricted to migration authorities, but with the EURODAC Regulation No 603/2013 implemented in July 2015, national police forces and Europol can access the system and the fingerprint database. The argument for increased access has been to prevent, detect and investigate crimes like terrorism and ensure certain identifications of suspects (Thales 2022). For the European migration authorities, the development of fingerprint registration enables them to register and/or identify migrants and

164 

A. Simonsen

their previous whereabouts faster and with more accuracy. When the European migration authorities scan the tip of a finger and run it through EURODAC, answers in most cases appear very fast: does the migrant have a record in EURODAC and if so, where was the migrant first registered and fingerprinted? This makes it easy for the recipient country to quickly return asylum seekers to their first country of registration according to the Dublin Regulation, while committing to provide temporary protection for new asylum seekers while their cases are being assessed. Previous records may also hold information that identifies an asylum application as manifestly unfounded based on, for instance, a safe country of origin, attempts at fraud or deception of the authorities or serious suspicions of being a threat to national security. This group also includes what is often referred to as economic migrants.4 If an application for international protection (asylum) is found manifestly unfounded, the individual is detained and is supposed to be returned to their country of origin. In many cases, however, this does not happen due to a lack of cooperation from the country of origin or a lack of financial means to effectuate the deportation. Despite the EU’s overall general trust in and use of biometric technologies as objective and certain, the information obtained from biometric technologies is far from neutral and certain  (Magnet 2011, Scheel 2021, Olwig et al. 2020). New technology give rise not just to ‘success stories’ as in the EU’s understanding of the hotspot approach but also to failures (Jacobsen 2015, 4). Not knowing everything about the way the technologies work is in fact what motivates tech-developers in labs all around Europe to invest themselves in such work—the uncertainties and the fun of researching and continuing to improve and learn about the functions and effects of biometric technologies (Grünenberg and Simonsen 2023). One of the dangers of not knowing the full effects of biometric technologies, however, is greater risk of false matches. Black female migrants, for an example, are in greater risk of false matches of facial recognition at border sites or in refugee camps because the databases which tech-developers use to develop and test the algorithms of facial recognition consist mostly of white males. In fact, ‘dark-skinned females are the most misclassified group, with errors up to 34.7%’ versus ‘a maximum rate for lighter-skinned males of 0.8%’ (Boulamwini and

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

165

Gebru 2018, 1). This means that biometric technologies implemented at border sites constitute a risk of making errors and misidentifying dark-­ skinned people crossing the borders (Grother et al. 2019).5 Such biases show how ‘tech fixes often hide, speed up, and even deepen discrimination, while appearing to be neutral or benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era’ (Benjamin 2019, 4). While the EU is aware of the failures of biometric technologies, ‘biometric failures are often treated as aberrations, as exceptions, or as caused by a few incompetent scientists who did not fully refine their technological products before releasing them onto the market’. This happens despite the fact that ‘biometric errors are endemic to their technological functioning’ (Magnet 2011, 6–7). Such endemic errors mean that we might ‘need to think beyond the “few bad apples” theory of failure and think about structural failures related to systemic inequalities more broadly’ (Magnet 2011, 7) when discussing biometric technologies. Despite such technological ambiguities, the EU continues to invest in biometric technologies in the hope of erasing any uncertainties of who crosses which external and national borders. As a result, biometric technologies have been established as a kind of ‘ID tag’, a coded body in which ‘biometrics are turning the human body into the universal ID card of the future’ (van der Ploeg 1999, 301). Elsewhere, I have argued that biometric registration turns the bodies of people migrating without regular documents into borders of their own (Simonsen 2020, see also Amoore 2006, Rygiel 2011, Scheel 2021)—a ‘body border’ that my Somali friends and their fellow migrants carries with them as they move (Simonsen 2020). By Somali asylum seekers, this ‘body border’ and the uncertainties and restrictions associated with it are experienced as an earthly Day of Judgement.

The Day of Judgement On a busy day in the buzzling centre of Copenhagen, I was at a popular coffee shop with Abroon, a friend of mine and a Somali refugee. I had recently embarked on a new research project ‘The Biometric Border World’ as a postdoctoral researcher, and I was interested in the human

166 

A. Simonsen

consequences of the increased use of fingerprint registration. Abroon and I discussed the current situation in Denmark, where the government had decided not to extend the temporary resident permits for a large number of Somalis but instead to reopen their asylum cases. This had caused a number of Somali families to leave Denmark in fear of having their cases rejected and being deported. One case made headlines in the media in 2018, as a Somali family of nine fled to Germany. They feared that six out of seven children and the father would be forcibly returned to Somalia and separated from the two family members allowed to stay (Andersen 2018).6 Curious as to why people en route would believe that another European country could help them when they were already biometrically registered as asylum seekers in Denmark, I put the question to Abroon. He responded by citing the Somali proverb, ‘A man caught in a strong current will grab any bobble’. In other words, people in desperate situations would often put their final hopes in very uncertain solutions. As shown in Chap. 4, the uncertainty itself could even create the hope of success. Conducting secondary migration within the EU was not based on ignorance of biometric registration, the Dublin Regulation or their consequences. Abroon assured me that Somalis were very much aware of the ‘body border’ they carried with them. In fact, many Somalis compared it to the Day of Judgement, he said: Since the technologies were implemented, the opportunities have decreased … The Quran prescribes how, when you die one day, and you stand in front of God on the Day of Judgement, and you will be told whether you are going to Heaven or Hell, you cannot lie in front of God. Your feet, hands, eyes and ears have done this and that [your body will tell your story]. ‘What should we do now?’ is what many people ask themselves. Our fingers testify for us while we are still alive.

Much later in my fieldwork, Abroon’s comparison was stuck in my mind begging to be explored. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic I could not meet up with Abroon, but I called him, and we had a long conversation on the phone. I asked him to describe how Muslims like himself understood the Day of Judgement:

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

167

When people die and God has achieved his goal in the world, then our world as we know it today will be folded together except for one place, which is a big piece of land that is completely flat. This flat piece of land is a court where all humans go, from the day the first human was created until the Day of Judgement. They have to be made accountable for what they have done, the ones who have done good deeds they will go to Heaven, the others will go to Hell. To confirm that God knows everything and that nothing can be hidden from God, you will be asked what you have done, and if you try to lie and you don’t tell the truth then you will go directly to Hell. When you are standing in that court you will be able to see what Hell looks like and what Heaven looks like, so some might be tempted to lie. But our religion says that if you try to lie, then for an example your eyes will say, ‘This person looked at some stuff which she or he should not’, the fingers will say, ‘We have stolen’, the legs will say: ‘We have been used to commit a crime’. Every body part will say what we have done, so you cannot lie. There is nothing that God does not know about. This is why we use the metaphor about the [biometric] fingerprint registration, saying that before we experienced the real Day of Judgement, the Day of Judgement also came to us while still being alive.

Understanding the comparison between the biometric registration of fingerprints and the Day of Judgement gave me a new perspective on Somalis’ descriptions of having their fingerprints taken, whenever they were registered. The data that was constantly collected about their identity and whereabouts without their consent stripped them of any form of privacy. Their bodies were bearing witness against themselves, and the evidence was permanent, as Abroon elaborated: The technologies are playing a very, very important role together with the state because they have achieved a form of power, which is comparable with the power of God because you cannot get away. Even though Denmark took my fingerprints almost 10 years ago I cannot just go to Sweden and say that I want to live there and have a new asylum case there. The authorities will know that I have been in Denmark, no matter if 5 months have passed or if 15 years have passed.

168 

A. Simonsen

But being faced with the reopening of asylum cases, which for many would almost certainly result in incarceration in a so-called udrejsecenter (departure centre) in Denmark and eventual deportation,7 the uncertainty of a new destination once again became preferable to the certainty of hardship. So, the families in Denmark were in the same situation as many Somalis had initially been in when they first arrived in Europe. Abroon explained how the inescapable truth of the fingerprint encouraged Somalis to tell the truth about their routes and intentions: The metaphor is comparable because the truth is revealed – you cannot lie. If you, for example, have been in Italy and come to Denmark and tell the authorities when being asked: ‘I came directly from the flight in Somalia or Africa and directly to Denmark’ – Denmark might be Heaven – and then afterwards the authorities find out that you have fingerprints in Italy, the fingers again tell the authorities that you have been in Italy [and you will be returned], but if you tell the authorities from the beginning that you were actually in Italy, then there is an opportunity that this might end up differently than if you lie. Just like when you stand in front of God, and you will end directly in Hell if you try to lie. If you are honest, then you will have a chance to go to Heaven, in this case Denmark.

Thus, by telling the truth about previous locations, the Somalis en route would put their hopes and trust in the mercy of the authorities of the European nation states. As God might have mercy on the person telling the truth on the Day of Judgement, they hoped for mercy among human beings. The belief in telling the truth thus originated from their religious ‘moral landscape’.8 This moral landscape, Abroon explained, also entailed a strong belief in destiny, in the benevolence of God and in the need for the human being to take action: If you are religious and you do not get asylum, or you become sick and get cancer, then you can comfort yourself and say that this is my destiny, which I have to go through. Similarly, in the context of migration then maybe God knows that it was not good for me to get asylum. God knows what is best for me, and it is this thought that you transfer to yourself – instead of saying that in Italy, I was unlucky, then I can say that maybe it was my destiny, and if my destiny is to get asylum in another place, if my finger-

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

169

prints are not found [do not appear in the database of EURODAC] when I arrive in Germany, then this is my destiny, but also if the opposite happens. At the same time, you constantly challenge your destiny to see whether something good can come out of it, because even though everything is written beforehand you have to try to do something about your life. You cannot just sit at home in your room and starve and say that this is my destiny. You cannot just expect that the angels will come.

This final aspect of taking action in your life and making your own destiny happen permeates all aspects of tahriib and all chapters of this book. As illustrated in the Somali proverb ‘happiness is two feet’ that opened Chap. 2, if your happiness and your desired destiny is not found in your current location, then you have to keep moving. Therefore, quite contrary to EU policies and the intentions behind the implementations of systems like EURODAC, Somalis and refugees from other countries often sought to continue their journeys into the unknown, across national borders of the EU. This was also the case for the Somalis who had already been registered in EURODAC when applying for asylum in Denmark. Their registration would significantly increase the risk of being returned to Denmark, which was the country responsible for their asylum case according to the Dublin Regulation. Yet, they still ‘grabbed any bobble’ in the hope of making it somewhere else. The awareness among Somalis of the safety measures taken against them by the European authorities becomes very apparent in Nafiso’s story. Her story also shows how the natural border between Africa and Europe, the Mediterranean, is doing the dirty work for the EU and the European nation states by getting rid of countless unwanted migrants (cf. Albahari 2015; De León 2015).

Securing Survival in the Land of No Life Nafiso, a Somali woman in her 30s, had fled Somalia due to threats to her life made by al-Shabaab. When leaving Somalia, she had decided that she did not want to have her fingerprints taken upon arrival in Italy. This reluctance to be registered in Italy originated from the information she

170 

A. Simonsen

had gathered and the stories she had heard about life in Italy, while she was still in Somalia. Many Somalis described life in Italy as ‘no life’. Inhabiting a social, political and economic landscape like Italy, a country that faced severe economic insecurity, led to a fear of being permanently confined there and facing different types of insecurity in everyday life. Experiences such as unemployment and a lack of educational possibilities were broadly similar to the insecurities experienced in Somaliland, Turkey and Greece. But in Italy these insecurities were augmented by homelessness, the fear of violent attacks and of ‘becoming crazy’, referring to Somalis who had given up on ever making a sustainable living for themselves and had become mentally ill. The people who were found to have grounds for seeking asylum in Italy would be housed in the centres for asylum seekers (Centro di Accoglienza per Richiedenti-Asilo [CAS]). When asylum was granted, they would be relocated to the SPRAR centres (Sistema di Protezione per Richiedenti Asilo e Refugati; ‘Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees’) for 6 months. During these 6 months, they would get a place to sleep and food, they would be given Italian language classes, and some would be offered internships with Italian companies. However, relocation to the SPRAR centres was often delayed, which resulted in refugees searching the parks for places to sleep at night. And after 6 months at the SPRAR centres, many refugees found themselves back on the streets and in abandoned buildings when they were left to provide for themselves. On the streets, you would also find many of the people whose application for asylum was considered manifestly unfounded, and who were therefore eligible for incarceration and deportation if caught by the police (Figs. 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3). The difficulties faced by migrants in Italy thus resulted from local challenges to the Italian economy. But they were also a result of the global legal context: the combination of border control, technologies and unequal patterns of mobility that Besteman (2019) has called a ‘militarized global apartheid’. Another important factor is the large discrepancies between and even within EU member states in the way asylum seekers are received and processed (Düvell and Vollmer 2011/01, Riedel and Schneider 2017). Such discrepancies persist despite the attempts to

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

171

Fig. 7.1  Abandoned building occupied by refugees and undocumented migrants, Italy, March 2018 (photo by the author)

standardise procedures ‘through common supranational legislation that binds national legislators’ (Brekke and Brochmann 2014, 147). Since the introduction of the first common migration policies in 1999, progress has been made, but the EU is still far away from a fair and equal distribution of asylum seekers, which was the original intention behind the Dublin Regulation. But the continued implementation of the rules of the regulation without the subsequent redistribution means that the pressure on the hotspots of Greece and Italy continues to rise. In mid-July 2022, for example, potential asylum seekers were evacuated from the hotspot in Lampedusa to other locations in Italy, as the hotspot was only built to host 350 people but saw the arrival of approximately 2000 (EUROMEDRIGHTS). This, however, should not have come as a surprise to the authorities, as it was similar to the number of arrivals the year before. For all these reasons, Nafiso had decided that Italy was no place to stay. But when Nafiso and her fellow travellers had left Libya and made it into

172 

A. Simonsen

Fig. 7.2  Abandoned building occupied by refugees and undocumented migrants, Italy, March 2018 (photo by the author)

European waters, their boats came into trouble. Nafiso described how all the boats had been overcrowded, making it difficult to breathe. Two of the six boats sank, while the last four were rescued by the Italian authorities. The survivors had been clambering over one another to make it on to the Italian ship, and when I interviewed Nafiso in Milan in the spring of 2018, she described herself as being the happiest woman in the world when she finally boarded the ship safely. She described a friendly reception by the Italians on the ship and in Sicily, where they were initially taken: When they tried to rescue me, they said, ‘try to be careful, don’t run away’. They welcomed us …when we gave the interview after arriving, they gave us something to protect ourselves with, water, everything, and some people received medicine, they tried to check my health … when we came to the seaport, they took us to a place near the sea, they collected everyone in that place, and then they started to make the fingerprint.

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

173

Fig. 7.3  Abandoned building occupied by refugees and undocumented migrants, Italy, March 2018 (photo by the author)

Despite her initial decision to not have her fingerprints taken and registered in Italy, Nafiso’s relief of making it across the Mediterranean safely made her change her mind: I believed that in Italia it was a hard life if they register your fingerprint, also that fingerprint is part of the Dublin agreement, but when we are comparing with being in the boats in the sea… and when we are rescued by the Italians, I decided the Italians could also take my head.

One of Nafiso’s friends was on one of the two boats that sank and Nafiso had felt the frailty of life up-close. Thus, when she stated that the Italians could also take her head, she meant that the feelings of relief to have survived had swept away her initial fear of having her fingerprints registered. Nafiso’s Day of Judgement had turned into a celebration of life, a life that she now owed to the Italians. Thus, she believed that accepting the warm welcome and the registration of her fingerprints would provide her the security she had been searching for.

174 

A. Simonsen

But not everyone felt the same. Nafiso explained how two young men, whom she had travelled with, had sought to escape the registration by jumping the wall surrounding the camp they had been brought to. They were caught by soldiers and brought back to the camp. Nafiso said, ‘When I asked the boys, why they ran away, they said “we cannot stay in Italia. Between Italia and Somalia, Somalia is better”’. With a smile on her face, Nafiso said that they wanted to escape the fingerprints, ‘They told me before they jumped the wall, “you have to jump this wall. If you are ready, then come with us”’. Nafiso had replied, ‘I don’t want to jump, I don’t want to risk my life. In here, they take my fingerprint, my chest, my everything, I’m ready’. The discussion between Nafiso and the two young men summarises the options faced by potential asylum seekers when they first arrived in Italy—attempt to avoid biometric registration or surrender and stay. For the two young men, the fear of losing time had not disappeared as they embarked on tahriib and made it across the Mediterranean. In fact, leaving Somalia had only increased their fears of getting stuck or returned, as they tried to make it past the increasingly strict and efficient border controls and registration systems. The fear of getting registered in locations like Italy, where chances of achieving your dreams and providing for yourself and your family at home were minimal, was always present. This was obvious when one of the first questions my friends would always ask each other was, ‘did you have your fingers taken?’ In the story above, Nafiso felt that she had just gained time by surviving the horrendous voyage across the Mediterranean. But as time went by, her euphoric feelings decreased. Nafiso had been in Italy for 2 years when I met her and was currently living at a SPRAR centre for refugees. She, like many others, was not content with her current situation. The day before our interview, one of her roommates, another Somali woman, had tried to commit suicide twice after an argument over the phone with her boyfriend. Nafiso was very upset, and the attempted suicide highlighted the hopelessness and desperation felt by many young Somalis stuck in Italy due to biometric registration. Thus, their situation illustrates how harmful effects like psychological and physiological distress can result from the use of ‘successful technology’ (Jacobsen 2015, 4).

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

175

Being registered in Italy temporarily provided food and shelter for Nafiso and other young Somalis during the processing of their asylum application and for another 6 months, if they were granted asylum. But due to the economic challenges and high unemployment rates in Italy, the registration also meant that the risks of ending up with ‘no life’ on the streets were high. This increased the feeling of insecurity and thus the incentive to engage in secondary migration within the EU. Many of the young Somalis en route experienced such insecurities in their encounters with Italy and the prospects of being registered there. A few stories however were different and presented a new take on biometric ambiguities. Iman’s story is such an example. Rather than being anxious and unwilling to accept biometric registration in Italy, Iman made a decision to actively use the biometric technologies in the pursuit of securing legal and cultural rights for herself and her child.

Securing a Future Iman saw an opportunity to secure her and her oldest son’s long-term future through biometric registration. Iman was a Somali woman in her early 30s, a mother of five originating from Somalia. I met her in Italy in March 2018. In contrast to Nafiso, Iman had deliberately chosen to come to Italy to have her fingerprints taken. She told me that she had left Somalia and her five children to seek justice and obtain rights by using biometric technologies. In Somalia, when Iman was a young woman, she had become romantically involved with a man. As a result, Iman fell pregnant, but the man did not acknowledge the paternity of the child and left her. Being an unmarried, pregnant woman in Somalia is socio-culturally and legally unacceptable. Iman’s father told her that she had broken the law and should leave the home. He referred to the general view in Somalia where ‘sex outside of marriage is a sin, unlawful and something that corrupts morality in society’ (Lifos. 2017, 9). Iman experienced insults, discrimination and isolation in Somalia. Consequently, she migrated to Saudi Arabia with her son to escape the role of a social outcast. Here, she married a Somali man and had four children by him. Migrating to Saudi

176 

A. Simonsen

Arabia was a way for her and her child to survive, she explained, but her oldest son kept asking about his father. Iman decided to provide an answer for him by finding out where his father was. She found out that her son’s father had left for Italy at the time when she had migrated to Saudi Arabia. Therefore, she decided to go to Italy to find him and ‘get her right’, she told me, and thus, she arrived in Italy in the Summer of 2016. Upon arrival, she was planning to go to the police and report the man who had made her pregnant. But first, she tracked him down and informed him, ‘If you say this is not your baby, you have to make a DNA test. If it’s not your baby, fine, if it’s your baby, you have to care for it’. Iman was thus using the biometric technology of DNA testing to claim her rights as a mother as well as legal and social justice for her child. This was the dream that she believed she could fulfil in Europe. As mentioned earlier, the EU had used DNA testing in cases of family reunification, where there had been doubts about parentage (See Olwig 2020). Iman now wanted to use this technology in her own way. She was trying to get the father to care for his biological child, financially and socially, by getting a certain and indisputable proof of the family ties. However, after confronting her son’s father he left Italy and went to the USA. She managed to get in touch with him there, but then he disconnected his phone and deleted his Facebook account, thus making it impossible for Iman to reach him. After a while she gave up her fight for the truth. It was very painful for her to talk about, and she was crying at the end of our interview, as she concluded: When I came here, I was expecting to get my right from the government when I told them my story. But when I saw that they did not do anything and that I cannot do anything about that guy, I’m now planning to have the kid come here and get a good life, because here, it does not matter whether the kid has a father or the kid does not have a father, it’s the same here. Also, they respect the one with no father here, they provide more help.

For Iman it was the hope that the DNA test would bear witness for her rather than against her. It was going to help her tell the objective truth, so the father of her child could no longer deny his economic, social and moral responsibility of being a father. She aligned herself with the authorities’

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

177

view of biometric technologies as the source of objective truth and an indisputable ‘identity tag’ (See also the work of Møhl 2020). The man’s ‘coded body’ would testify and the certainty of its ‘natural patterns’ (Aas 2006, 153) would help restore rights and secure the future for her and her son. Iman thus trusted the EU’s system of biometric technology rather than the family network, which in her cultural landscape would have been the natural source to seek protection and support from. And even when her first strategy failed, she believed that being a single mother in Europe would prove to be a resource rather than the obstacle that it had been in Somalia. In Italy, she imagined she would receive more support due to her status as a single mother, and she believed that she could secure the future for her son by bringing him to Europe, where he would not be a social outcast on the grounds of not having a father. Certainty looks different depending on your perspective and the cultural landscape that shapes your perception. For the populations and policymakers of Europe, certainty and security, in a migration context, centre around knowing who is crossing the border, why they are crossing the border and where they go after crossing the border. Biometric registration and other technological security measures are from this perspective seen as objective tools that can help regulate and manage an uncertain and insecure situation. For the migrants, on the other hand, the increasing tempos and technological advances of border controls lead to increased uncertainty and biometric ambiguities. Being exposed to the earthly Judgement Day of fingerprint registration for some means getting stuck in an undesirable location (figuratively going to Hell). Others may still try their luck and move on towards the European Heaven they have been dreaming of, but the risk of getting returned to the Hell of Italy or Greece is high. In the negotiation of international borders and the right to move across them, policymakers, border guards and migrants take up very different positions. However, in their attempts to challenge and negotiate the laws and regulations through secondary migration within the borders of the EU, the migrants seem to approach biometric technologies in a very similar way to the approach of the European authorities. Both sides seem to treat biometric registration as an objective tool that functions as an unquestionable ID tag that reveals the truth about the physical

178 

A. Simonsen

whereabouts of people without regular documents. Some stories were shared among the Somalis of the possibility of someone’s fingerprints not showing up in EURODAC despite being registered in Italy upon arrival. But the belief in the earthly Judgement Day of fingerprint registration was still strong. Ironically, as mentioned previously, research shows that these technologies are far from objective and indisputable (see also Gates 2011; Scheel 2021). Despite these biometric ambiguities, it is the common perception of biometrics as objective truth that shapes the negotiations between the cultural landscapes of (un)certainty that meet at the borders of the EU. Interestingly, the perception of your fingers bearing witness against you introduces a moral obligation to tell the truth about your previous physical steps, according to Abroon. In the cultural landscape of the Somalis, formed around their Muslim beliefs, the biometric Judgement Day creates new uncertainties but also encourages a specific approach to cross-border movement—an approach of telling the truth about your physical footsteps and putting your trust in the mercy of the gatekeepers of your dream destination. Thus, despite the innate ambiguities of biometric registration, they may introduce new perspectives on the relations of mutual (mis)trust between European authorities and young Somalis en route. Finally, it is the perception of biometric certainty that allows Iman to put her hopes of upward social mobility for herself and her son in the technologies of registration. For Iman the destination of tahriib is not the Heaven of Europe, her destination is in the judgement of biometric truth and certainty. For many of my friends, the dream of tahriib included the hope of a homecoming as qurbajoog, as part of the diaspora, who had achieved something with their life. By recasting ‘home’ as the ultimate ‘destination’ through the dream of homecoming, the following chapter emphasises the point I have made throughout this book that ‘home’, ‘transit’ and ‘destination’ constitute not a linear pathway but a single entangled site of ongoing physical and social movement.

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

179

Notes 1. http://www.frontex.europa.eu/about-­frontex/origin. 2. In addition to the increased border control by agencies like FRONTEX, agreements have been made with countries that have served as points of entry into Europe, like Turkey, Libya and Morocco, aiming to stop the flow of migrants. 3. For criticism and a display of the (un)intentional effects of the Dublin Regulation, see the work of Fratzke (2015), AIDA (2021). 4. See https://hsome-­affairs.ec.europa.eu/pages/glossary/manifestly­unfounded-­application-­international-­protection_en. 5. See also the work of Scheel (2021), who highlights the ambiguity of the authorities’ goals of securing national borders through ‘bullet-proof ’ biometric technologies while also wanting a system that makes migration flows and border control smooth. 6. The same is seen among Syrians today where at least 421 are known to have left Denmark for other European countries since Danish authorities declared Damascus a safe place for Syrians to return to in 2019 (Lighthousereports, Jan. 2022). 7. See the Danish government’s descriptions of what a ‘udrejsecenter’ is and who will be sent there: https://www.nyidanmark.dk/da/Words%20 and%20Concepts%20Front%20Page/US/Housing/udrejsecenter. 8. See the work of Karen Fog Olwig (2011) on ‘moral landscapes’.

References Aas, Katja Franko. 2006. “The Body Does Not Lie”: Identity, Risk and Trust in Technoculture. Crime, Media, Culture 2 (2): 143–158. AIDA, Asylum Information Database. 2021. The Implementation of the Dublin III Regulation in 2020. https://asylumineurope.org/wp-­content/ uploads/2021/09/AIDA_Dublin-­Update-­2020.pdf. Accessed 6 Nov 2022. Agustín, Óscar García, and Martin Bak Jørgensen. 2018. Solidarity and the“Refugee Crisis” in Europe. Springer International Publishing. Albahari, Maurizio. 2015. Crimes of peace: Mediterranean migrations at the World’s deadliest border. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: Chicago UP.

180 

A. Simonsen

Amoore, Louise. 2006. Biometric Borders: Governing Mobilities in the War on Terror. Political Geography 25 (3): 336–351. Andersen, Marie-Louise. 2018. Somalisk Familie, Der Gik under Jorden, Er Tilbage i Odder. Jyllands Posten. 13 December 2018. https://jyllands-­posten. dk/jpaarhus/odder/ECE11071098/somalisk-­familie-­der-­gik-­under-­jorden-­ er-­tilbage-­i-­odder/. Accessed 7 Feb 2022. Ayata, Bilgin, Cupers, Kenny, Pagano, Chiara, Fyssa, Artemis & Alaa Dia. 2021. “The Implementation of the EU Hotspot Approach in Greece and Italy: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Analysis”. Working Paper, the Swiss Network for International Studies, pp. 1–68. Benjamin, Ruha. 2019. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, 1. Medford, MA: Polity. Besteman, Catherine. 2019. Militarized Global Apartheid. Current Anthropology 60 (S19): S26–S38. Boulamwini, Joy, and Timnit Gebru. 2018. Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification. Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81: 1–15. Bourbeau, Philippe. 2011. The Securitization of Migration. London : Routledge. Brekke, Jan-Paul, and Grete Brochmann. 2014. Stuck in Transit: Secondary Migration of Asylum Seekers in Europe, National Differences, and the Dublin Regulation. Journal of Refugee Studies 28 (2): 145–162. Buur, Lars, Steffen Jensen and Finn Stepputat (eds.) 2007. Introduction. The Security-Development Nexus In The Security-Development Nexus: Expressions of Sovereignty in Southern India. 9–33. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstittutet Clayton, Jonathan, Hereward Holland and Tim Gaynor. 2015. Over one million sea arrivals reach Europe in 2015. UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/ news/latest/2015/12/5683d0b56/million-­sea-­arrivals-­reach-­europe-­2015. html. Accessed 6 Nov 2022. De León, Jason. 2015. The Land of the open Graves: Living and dying on the migrant trail. Oakland, California: University of California Press. Düvell, Franck and Bastian Vollmer. 2011. Improving US and EU Immigration Systems: European Security Challenges. EU-US Immigration Systems. Robert Schuman, Centre for Advanced Studies, San Dominico di Fiesole (FI): European University Institute. January. http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/ handle/1814/16212/EU-­U S%20Immigration%20Systems2011_01. pdf?sequence=1. Accessed 19 June 2018. European Commission. 2015. A European Agenda on Migration. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2015) 240 final. Brussels.

7  Biometric Ambiguities 

181

European Court of Auditors. 2017. EU response to the Refugee Crisis: The ‘Hotspot’ Approach. Special Report 06. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). 2018. FRA work in the ‘hotspots’. https://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/asylum-­migration-­borders/ fra-­work-­hotspots. Accessed 3 Feb 2019. Fratzke, Susan. 2015. Not adding up. The fading promise of Europe’s Dublin system. EU asylum: Towards 2020 project. Migration Policy Institute. FRONTEX. 2018. Budget 2018. https://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Key_ Documents/Budget/Budget_2018.pdf. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Gates, Kelly. 2011. Our Biometric Future: Facial Recognition Technology and the Culture of Surveillance. Critical Cultural Communication. New  York: NYU Press. Grother, Patrick, Mei Ngan, and Kayee Hanaoka. 2019. ‘Face Recognition Vendor Test Part 3: Demographic Effects’. NIST IR 8280. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8280. Grünenberg, Kristina and Simonsen, Anja. 2023. ‘Securing the Future? IDentity and Security among Migrants, Policymakers, and Tech Developers.’ Papeles del CEIC, 1(280), 1–17. (http://doi.org/10.1387/pceic.23103) Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov. 2015. The Politics of Humanitarian Technology: Good Intentions, Unintended Consequences and Insecurity. 1st ed. Routledge Studies in Conflict, Security and Technology. London: Routledge. Lifos. 2017. Women in Somalia – Pregnancies and Children out of Wedlock. Thematic Report version 1.0. Centre for Country of Origin Information and Analysis. Lucassen, Leo. 2018. ‘Peeling an Onion: The “Refugee Crisis” from a Historical Perspective’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41 (3): 383–410. http://doi.org/ 10.1080/01419870.2017.1355975. Magnet, Soshana Amielle. 2011. When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Møhl, Perle. 2020. ‘Biometric Technologies, Data and the Sensory Work of Border Control’. Ethnos, 87(2): 241–256. Olwig, Karen Fog. 2011. The Moral Landscape of Caribbean Migration in Mobile Bodies, Mobile Souls. In Family, Religion and Migration in a Global World, ed. M. Rytter and K.F. Olwig, 75–94. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Olwig, Karen Fog. 2020. ‘Mouth swabs and other techiques of verification: determining refugees’ rights to a family life’. In The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move, (Eds.) Karen Fog Olwig, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl and Anja Simonsen, pp. 190-203. London, New York: Routledge.

182 

A. Simonsen

Olwig, Karen Fog, Grünenberg, Kristina, Møhl, Perle and Simonsen, Anja. 2020. The Biometric Border World: Technology, Bodies and Identities on the Move. London & New York: Routledge. Rajaram, Prem Kumar. 2015. “Beyond crisis: Rethinking the population movements at Europe’s border.” FocaalBlog. 19 October. www.focaalblog. com/2015/10/19/prem-kumar-rajaram-beyond-crisis. Riedel, Lisa, and Gerald Schneider. 2017. Dezentraler Asylvollzug Diskriminiert: Anerkennungsquoten von Flüchtlingen im Bundesdeutschen Vergleich, 2010-2015. PVS Politische Vierteljahresschrift 58 (1): 21–48. Rygiel, Kim. 2011. Governing Borderzones of Mobility through E-borders: The Politics of Embodied Mobility. In The Contested Poitics of Mobility: Borderzones and irregularity, ed. Viviki Squire, 143–168. London and New  York: Routledge. Scheel, Stephan. 2021. Autonomy of Migration: Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes. Taylor and Francis Group: Routledge. Simonsen, Anja. 2020. En Route: Introducing the Site. In The Biometric Border World: Technology, Bodies and Identities on the Move, ed. Karen Fog Olwig, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl, and Anja Simonsen, 119–129. London & New York: Routledge. UNHCR 2019. Global Trends: Forced displacement in 2016. http://www. unhcr.org/globaltrends2016/. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. van der Ploeg, Irma. 1999. The Illegal Body: ‘Eurodac’ and the Politics of Biometric Identification. Ethics and Information Technology 1: 295–302.

Websites EUROMEDRIGHTS. https://euromedrights.org/migrants-­and-­refugees-­in-­ italy-­2/. Accessed 15 Nov 2022 Frontex.europa.eu. http://www.frontex.europa.eu/about-­frontex/origin. Accessed 15 Nov 2022

8 Making Home

Somali proverb: ‘Tahriibka mantay waa qurbajooga berito’ (Today’s tahriib is tomorrow’s diaspora) Zoom: the only place to meet and communicate during a pandemic. Maqale and I had stayed in contact via social media since we first met in Istanbul in 2013. Back then, we were both young and unmarried, without families of our own. Seeing each other on Zoom 8 years later was a reminder for both of us of how much life had changed. Maqale was sitting on a mattress in the middle of his living room with a blanket wrapped around him. His children were around, clearly fond of their father and constantly trying to get his attention. My own children were with my husband in the living room, occasionally crying and trying to find me, as I was on the computer in the bedroom. As a result of all this, our conversation unfolded as most adult conversations do for parents around the world: noisy, interrupted and short. However, the circumstances made it easy to turn the conversation to the topic I wanted to discuss, namely experiences of ‘being at [and making] home in the world’ (Jackson 1995). Maqale grew up in a family of 12, including his mother, father and grandmother. He lived most of his life in Ethiopia, where he attended the most renowned schools and did not have to worry about his or his family’s future. This changed, however, when his parents divorced, as his © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_8

183

184 

A. Simonsen

father left for Somalia, remarried and stopped sending money to the household. For Maqale’s family, home turned into a contested place, ‘an arena where differing interests struggled’ (Olwig 1998, 226). Being the oldest son, the economic burden of his mother’s household fell on Maqale. He applied for a scholarship to study in Turkey, which he was granted. Thus, he left Ethiopia behind with the plan of returning with a better education and thus better opportunities of getting a well-paid job and providing for his entire family. We met in the streets of Istanbul through a mutual friend. Our friend had brought me to Somaali Istaag, the area where Somalis doing tahriib would spend their time. Maqale initially scolded him for bringing me there, as he thought, like many others in his situation, that I would go directly to the police. On our Zoom call in 2020, we laughed about his initial suspicions and mistrust in me, as we had now developed a friendship based on trust and mutual respect. Initially, when he left Ethiopia, Maqale had not intended to do tahriib at all. But he realised that before entering university, he had to take a full year of Turkish language classes. He felt that would be a waste of time, because Turkish would not benefit him in the future; therefore, he decided to do tahriib. While preparing to leave, he had befriended a young Somali woman who was also planning to do tahriib. In mid-May 2014, a boat was ready for departure and Maqale asked the young woman to leave with him. Recalling the story, Maqale told me that he was uncertain if he was doing the right thing by leaving and by asking her to join him on the dangerous journey. To settle his doubts, he went to his room and prayed. When his prayer ended, there was a knock on the door. It was the young woman, who said, ‘We will go tonight’. Maqale replied with ‘Alhamdulillah’ (‘praise be to God’), as he believed that God had just given him an answer. They started their journey together, but when water started flooding into the boat, Maqale began to feel very guilty, ‘I forced her to go with me. She just held my hand and looked at me as water started coming into the boat’. The two young Somalis, and the rest of the group they were travelling with, were rescued at sea and were brought to a camp in Greece. In the camp, Maqale and his friend were separated, as the camp was

8  Making Home 

185

divided between men and women. At night, the young woman would come looking for him: ‘She used to come to our window, and she would always ask for me. When she came, I would not be able to look at her, because I was so shy. I was telling myself “come on man”’. When the two young Somalis were released from the camp, they got on a bus, where she came and sat next to him. ‘We were talking on the way’, he explained. ‘Then we arrived in Greece, and we became a couple’. Maqale and his girlfriend managed to leave Greece and settle in another European country, where they were now married and had started their own family. The children were in day care and Maqale was working. He had started working in the asylum centre as soon as he applied for asylum. Thus, he managed to save $200 each month, which he sent back to his family in Ethiopia. As shown earlier in this book, the motivations for young Somalis to undertake tahriib were usually intertwined with notions of social responsibility, care and accountability (Vigh 2017, 495). Now, Maqale had obtained legal residence allowing him to work full-time, and he was working 12-hour shifts, earning him enough to support his wife and children and remit $500 every month—money that was divided between his mother, his brother and his father. Securing the livelihood of his parents and siblings left behind in Ethiopia and his newly established family in Europe allowed Maqale to enter full responsible adulthood by upholding his end of the intergenerational contract. This in turn gave him the social visibility and respect within his community of Somalis in Ethiopia that so many of his peers were dreaming of. The fact that young Somalis—whether from Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya or Somaliland—chose to use transnational movement to socially position themselves within their communities at home points towards an understanding of ‘place as a process of socio-affective attachment, as a point of valued or tenable being’ (Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 13). This is the process that Bjarnesen and Vigh, inspired by Englund, have called ‘emplacement’: ‘Emplacement … is as such not a question of physical localization but a striving toward being positively situated in a relational landscape’ (Englund 2002: 263 in Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 10).

186 

A. Simonsen

 mplacement: New Opportunities E and Existential Life-Making Seeing Maqale’s transition from being a single young man doing tahriib with a focus on returning home to provide for his mother and siblings to now being a husband and a father settled in Europe made me curious as to whether his initial dream of returning ‘home’ had changed. It made me want to explore the questions of: ‘How did aspirations and expectations change during the course of a move—including a longer or shorter period of settlement?’ (Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 12). And how were notions of what or where home was, including perceptions of his birth home, impacted by the actual practices of obtaining and sustaining a proper home at home by travelling (Olwig 1999, 73). Maqale’s story turned my attention to how young people make home after reaching Europe and how they continue to be en route in the socially, emotionally and imaginatively entangled field of ‘home’, ‘transit’ and ‘destination’. This includes day-to-day practices as well as the role that ‘values, traditions, memories, and subjective feelings of home’ play in such practices (Brun and Fabos 2015, 12–13). At the same time, his story drew attention to questions of how the EU perceived and received such attempts at making home. The EU’s creation of FRONTEX, the implementation of the hotspot approach and the use of biometric technologies illustrate an understanding of home, which refers to ‘the geopolitics of nation and homeland’ (Brun and Fabos 2015, 13). This understanding of home represents a sedentary perspective, where home is naturalised and institutionalised in terms of the nation state, and migrants and refugees as a result are viewed as being in exile, uprooted and out of place (Brun and Fabos 2015, 12–13, see also Malkki 1992). As shown in Chap. 7, the way that the EU understood and practised home made it difficult for migrants who travelled iregurlarly from all over the world to enter European territory. It was particularly difficult for those of my friends who originated in Somaliland, Kenya and Ethiopia, as these areas were all considered peaceful. Thus, to obtain asylum they needed to prove that they were in fear of individual persecution ‘for

8  Making Home 

187

reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’ as stated in the UN Refugee Convention of 1951.1 In contrast, many of the Somalis originating from south-central Somalia were often given legal residence in Europe because their country of origin was considered too dangerous to return to. This, however, has changed. In 2015, Denmark, for example, changed its laws and practices of granting asylum and started to differentiate between Somalis granted protection through UN’s refugee status and through the European human rights convention. The latter only protects a refugee from being deported to their country of origin if there is a real risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. According to the Danish authorities, who sent their own fact-finding mission to the country, the peaceful election in Somalia in 2017 and the 20,000 soldiers from the African Union putting pressure on al-Shabaab were sufficient reason to no longer consider Somalia generally insecure and thus reopen Somali asylum cases. As a result, approximately 1000 Somalis lost their grounds for protection between 2017 and 2018 (Lindquist 2018). In policy and public debates, making home in an EU context is often presented as ‘mobility and estrangement on the one hand, and rootedness and belonging on the other’ (Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 12). This means that refugees and other mobile populations are seen as only belonging in their original home countries. However, such approaches to home miss out on the value of exploring displacement as ‘a subjective experience and existential life-making’ (ibid, 11). Through such analytical exploration, we can see how ‘a trajectory that may have been initiated involuntarily may result in new opportunities of empowerment in or liberation from suppressive social hierarchies’ (ibid, 12). By shifting the focus from displacement and estrangement to emplacement, it becomes clear how movement, whether undertaken voluntarily or under coercion, can give rise to ways of making home in the world that are not tied to a particular geographical location: Emplacement directs our attention to people’s struggle to gain and move toward positions of valued presence with respect to life conditions and recognition of one’s important others; that is, to the desire to inhabit a

188 

A. Simonsen

position of relational worth from which people may engage in a positive sociality (Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 10).

Taking emplacement as a vantage point for exploring how young Somalis make home as they reach Europe emphasises the many different forms of understanding, materiality and practice involved in making home.

Returning Home Maqale’s initial hope of returning to his family and his country of origin is a wish that many young Africans residing in Europe share—to return home, either permanently (Åkesson and Baaz 2015, 1) or as ‘part-time diaspora’ (Hammond 2015, 44 in Hammond et al. 2011, Hansen 2007). However, returning from Europe as a diaspora is made difficult by the EU’s perceptions and practices of home that only allow migrants temporary documents, most of which are invalid for international travel. Thus, the only return allowed is permanent and irrevocable. Some Somalis returned to their country of origin involuntarily as ‘deportees’ because of EU’s practices of home. They were often left in economic debt and socially stigmatised, as they arrived with nothing. This meant that they often had an urge to make another attempt of tahriib (See also the work of  Kleist 2020; Plambech 2016; Vigh 2015a, 2015b on this topic in other contexts). The kind of return that most of the young Somalis en route were dreaming about was the homecoming represented by the presidents and ministers of the Somali federal- and member state governments: the return of the proud (and rich) ‘transnational nomads’ (Horst 2006). As discussed in Chap. 4, it was the fancy cars, big investments and political influence of diaspora Somalis that showed the youth how tahriib could turn them into ‘global citizens with a high level of mobility, and a strong social network that spans the globe’ (Hammond 2015, 45). But as we shall see in the following, return ‘should not be seen as the end result of a migratory story, but as the further development of the transnationally connected post-war society that Somaliland [and Somalia

8  Making Home 

189

in general] has become’ (Hammond 2015, 45). In other words, return— just like home before leaving—was an integral part of being en route. Sometimes return was a permanent ‘destination’, and other times it was simply another point of ‘transit’. In addition, return—like tahriib itself— was not simply about physical movement but about staying in touch, fulfilling your responsibilities and ultimately gaining social mobility and respect from people back home. In short, the value of return depended on its contribution to the young Somalis’ ability to ‘lead fulfilling lives’ (Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 11). For Maqale, returning home symbolised a hope of reconnecting with the emotions connected to childhood memories. Maqale explained, ‘every young man and woman goes through a stage of life where everything is connected back to home. We will say to each other, “do you remember when you were 16 and 17 years old”. These memories create some amazing feeling’. This sense of missing should be understood as ‘expressions of nostalgic longing for times and places that are no longer, for the true home of “respite and no longing”’ (Grünenberg 2006, 142). Such nostalgic longings provided the Somalis in Europe with a ‘functional fiction’ (Chambers 1994, 25), which convinced them that returning home would be the answer to all their troubles. Maqale stated that 90% of the diaspora Somalis were unhappy in Europe. And he explained how some, from the more peaceful areas of the Horn of Africa, would take their spouses and children with them to their country of origin for a year or two based on the memories of the home they left years ago. They, in other words, felt like exiles in an unfriendly space and were making home through ‘values, traditions, memories, and subjective feelings of home’ (Brun and Fabos 2015, 12). However, according to Maqale, most of them would soon start missing Europe, as they had adapted to life there, and they were used to more things and good health facilities, and so they would ‘run back’ after a while.2 So as the sense of longing felt during exile was often built around nostalgic memories, the meeting with the homeland rarely lived up to the expectations of returning home (cf. Stefansson 2003, 85, Hammond 2015). Physically returning did not result in a reconnection with the emotions from their childhood. Homes do not stay the same over time (Grünenberg 2006, 176), and ‘we cannot reverse time, cannot retrace our

190 

A. Simonsen

steps along a certain road and expect to experience ourselves as we were when we first walked down it’ (Wolfe in Jackson 1995, 4). While returning home was often part of the dream of tahriib, it was also an expectation from many of the families left behind—if one had documents that is. As Maqale explained, When a young woman or man located in Europe says she/he does not have documents, people understand. People at home connect documents with money, but if you have documents and say you don’t have money, they don’t understand. I normally reply to people at home that in Europe the money does not grow on the trees.

In other words, there was very little understanding from the family back home for the economic difficulties that Somalis in Europe might be facing. To uphold the respect of your family, you needed to visit them and bring along money for the household. Maqale, in fact, with a touch of humour, compared the family unit with an insurance company to which he needed to pay his premium to secure good relations: It is always good to come back home, the insurance company is calling you and telling you that ‘we still have a track on you’. When the kid is coming home, they [the family] feel happy and secure. It is always a disappointment if the person does not come. The neighbours will gossip asking, ‘did he end up losing his identity?’

Losing one’s identity referred to the fear that living in Europe would impact the young Somalis to the extent that they lost the sense of responsibility to the family and the clan that was understood as an integral part of Muslim and Somali identity.3 Maqale had, as one of only a few of my young Somali friends, succeeded in obtaining European residence documents, not just an asylum seeker card, which allowed him to travel. This meant that he was considered a success story to most young Somalis as well as his family and that he had achieved some level of social mobility. But still, his first trip back to visit his mother and siblings turned out to be an ambiguous experience. In the early spring of 2019, Maqale had bought a ticket to Ethiopia

8  Making Home 

191

to visit his family. He had taken time off from work to be able to travel. But this visit did not only revolve around childhood memories or showing respect to his family. His return was due to family problems, which he as the oldest male of the household was expected to attend too. His brother had become addicted to drugs. Arriving in the airport, Maqale hugged and kissed his mother whom he had not seen for over 6 years. He then turned to his sister and finally his brother. As Maqale’s eyes turned to his brother, he was shocked. ‘I could not believe my eyes, he looked like someone who was mentally sick, I choked up, deep down I was shocked but I did not say a word’. Maqale went on to greet the rest of the family and they all went back to his mother’s house. In addition to the shock of seeing his brother, Maqale had several experiences that made him realise that Ethiopia was no longer the home that he used to know. During his visit he fell ill. Going to the hospital, the staff, in Maqale’s words, ‘ripped his money’. As a diaspora, he was viewed as rich and therefore a potential source of money, and thus, the doctor kept Maqale at the hospital diagnosing him with ‘an illness of the weather’. As a result of what he felt was unsatisfactory treatment, Maqale moved to another hospital. Here, they provided him with an injection and told him not to drink the local water, which was now too heavy for him, and instead drink highland water. Thus, Maqale’s body was no longer adjusted to home, and as if he had been a tourist, local food and water was affecting his well-being. These and other experiences made Maqale feel a partial estrangement from his birth home: It was more disappointing for me to go back because of my brother. I felt the urge to come home, but it did not feel the way it used to feel. I was not comfortable, I was really getting fed up and tired of it. I got adapted to Europe, I felt the urge to come back to Europe. It was like I was a foreigner in my own country. I thought I would feel amazing coming back to Ethiopia, meeting with friends, but I ended up not wanting to meet friends at all […] Before coming to Europe, home is where your parents are, where you are born. After I got married, home is honestly where my kids are, my family. My kids are the priority of my life.

192 

A. Simonsen

Despite the disappointments, Maqale stated that ‘My homeland will always have a special place’ and he was of course happy to see his family. He also recalled the happiness in his mothers’ eyes, thus recognising the gratefulness of his mother and closest family members, as they realised that ‘They had someone who was really there for them’. So, in this sense, he felt that he had lived up to his family’s expectations by coming home and taking responsibility. Maqale’s first ‘homecoming’ to his country of origin was thus a partial fulfilment of his dreams of return. But it also made him realise that the home he had left behind, the place of his nostalgia, was no longer there. Making home and the meanings and feelings that he associated with it had changed, and this had to some extent turned him into a stranger in his country of origin. His journey into the unknown had opened opportunities that he had only dared to dream of—the opportunity to provide for his parents and siblings, but most importantly to have a family of his own. As a result, he was perhaps left with an outlook less pervaded by nostalgia and more imbedded in making home with his new family in the present. Exploring ethnographically the ongoing lives and movements of people, and reconnecting with the same people over a number of years, thus gives a unique insight into how engagement and entanglement with changing lived environments influence the way people see and manoeuvre in the world (Bjarnesen and Vigh 2016, 13).

When Home Is Where the Heart Is The way Ladan moved in the world was very much the result of engagements and entanglements with changing and continuously uncertain life circumstances. Her day-to-day practices of making home in Europe and the values attached to them were focused on sentiments rather than a specific geographical location. Ladan and I met in the summer of 2014 in the streets of Greece. Soon after our first introduction, a mutual friend of ours—Ubah—got arrested, and as a result, I came to spend a lot of time with Ladan, and she became a close friend. Ladan had grown up in Saudi Arabia with her family, and

8  Making Home 

193

she had worked as a hairdresser and with cosmetics there. But, she explained, times had changed and after Saudi women started to enter the job market, it became increasingly difficult for Somali women like herself to find work. Additionally, Ladan described how in Saudi Arabia she could not go anywhere without being accompanied by her brother. Such restrictions did not fit the independent woman that I knew Ladan to be. I never heard Ladan express any form of sentiments towards Saudi Arabia. She did not, like Maqale and his friends, talk about fond childhood memories or the need to return to her birth home. As I spent time with Ladan in Greece, I came to know that she had a boyfriend—the kind of steady boyfriend who had visited her every single day when she was hospitalised due to physical injuries from her tahriib experiences. As will be shown below, Ladan’s thoughts were occupied with making home where her heart was. Such an endeavour ‘constitutes a symbol of recognized being, fixity and continuity’ (Grünenberg 2006, 205). And for Ladan, her heart—and thus her point of fixity and continuity—was with her boyfriend, not in a specific location. It was in Greece that Ladan and her boyfriend had come to know each other, but as Greece was struggling to cope with the increased influx of people en route, they saw no other option than continuing tahriib further into Europe. They were unable to leave Greece together and Ladan’s boyfriend left before her. Due to the increased border controls, he was caught in another European country where he had his fingerprints registered, and as a result he had to stay there and apply for asylum. However, his request for asylum got rejected. In the meantime, Ladan had come to the same country, but as his asylum case was rejected, they both decided that she should continue her journey to secure a future for them somewhere else. Ladan applied for asylum in a northern European country while her boyfriend left his country of registration in the hope of having his case reopened elsewhere in Europe. The separation of families and relationships, like the one between Ladan and her partner, due to biometric registration was not uncommon. This further accentuates the ambiguous role of biometric registration discussed in the previous chapter. While the registration of fingerprints was a way for the EU to make home, that is make their

194 

A. Simonsen

populations feel safe and secure within their borders, the same technology was a constant source of insecurity in lives and families en route. Being involuntarily separated, Ladan and her boyfriend of course missed each other, and they spent most of their waking hours trying to think of ways to spend time together and preferably reunite permanently. It was not important where, as long as they were together. There were two obstacles to their dream of settling in a European country together: the lack of legal documents allowing them to travel and settle across national borders and the fact that they had not had the opportunity to get married. They took care of the latter by getting married in absentia. Representatives of their families met and conducted the meher ceremony required for them to be married under Islamic law. As for overcoming the obstacle of travel documents, Ladan once decided to ignore this problem and go visit her (now) husband. She was living at an asylum centre at the time, and when Christmas holidays started, and the staff and asylum seekers from the centre had left to visit friends and family, Ladan decided to do the same and left the country to spend the holidays with her husband. As the holidays were coming to an end, Ladan boarded a train that was passing through Denmark, so she met up with me for a couple of hours. I took her out for dinner and we talked about everything and everyone. Then I took her to the bus that would take her back to the country where she was seeking asylum. After getting her luggage onto the bus, the bus driver asked for her ID. As she showed it to him, she was then denied entry to the bus. The bus driver explained that she was not allowed to travel on her asylum seeker card and that he risked a fine of around DK 50,000, equivalent to around $7500, if he were to let her on the bus. In addition to not fully understanding the legal rights of asylum seekers in Europe, Ladan had not taken into account that border control, including ID checks on any cross-border travel, had been implemented in most of northern Europe over the Christmas holidays of 2015. On 4 January 2016, these border controls were extended for an initial period of 4 months, and in May 2016 for another 6 months.4 This border and ID control affected every part of the travel industry: trains, buses, ferries and flights, and all companies were forced to implement the new, increased levels of securitisation to avoid fines like that mentioned by the bus

8  Making Home 

195

driver.5 Along with migrants from all over the world, the young Somali women and men en route were moving through a world where their presence was considered a security threat (Besteman 2017). Not only was their home country, Somalia, continuously associated with pirates, bombs and terrorists in the media, they were also seen as trespassers, as they entered European territory without valid travel documents. As she was denied entry to the bus, Ladan cried. I tried to stay calm but I was panicking inside. Where could we go, and who would help someone in Ladan’s situation? We were both scared that she would not be able to return and that her asylum case would be adversely affected by this unauthorised movement. As she realised that she would be unable to go back to see her husband another time, Ladan was inconsolable. She felt that she would now be in a form of prison as she was not free to move. This severely threatened the illusion she had previously carried that reaching Europe would be the answer to all her problems. The bus driver advised us to contact the embassy of the country where she was seeking asylum or to go to the police station. But as it was 10 pm, we had no choice but to go back home to my house. As we came home, Ladan started to call everyone in her network. This continued for the next 2 weeks that she ended up spending at my house. She would talk throughout the night, hearing stories of other Somalis who had been in a similar situation and how they had managed. As discussed in Chap. 5, gathering information was an important way for Somalis and other people en route to manage the existential uncertainties of their irregular movements. Information was constantly needed to find possible solutions, verify their applicability and make decisions on where and how to move next. Once again, this was what Ladan had to do. Several times a day, she would suggest a new way of getting out of Denmark based on the stories related to her by other Somalis. I would attempt to verify the information from legal sources, and we would discuss the various options she was presented with. Though the bits and pieces of information she was able to gather gave her new hope, it also made her more confused. Some people suggested trying to board a train or bus again with her current documents hoping for a different outcome; others suggested buying a fake ID and taking her chance with that. Not believing in any of those options, Ladan finally

196 

A. Simonsen

decided to go to the embassy. We went together, and the embassy asked her to fill out a form, where among other things she had to state why she had left the country where she was seeking asylum. After a week of consulting with the authorities of that country, and much scolding (not only by the embassy but her family as well), Ladan obtained a travel document to go back. A few months after returning to the asylum centre, Ladan found out she was pregnant. She gave birth at the hospital alone and then returned to the asylum centre. In the meantime, she was granted asylum, but the state wanted her to verify her identity. The authorities wanted her to get hold of documents that could provide evidence of who she was, before changing her asylum seeker card to a longer-term residence permit. Unfortunately, Ladan was unable to obtain such documents. She was born into a mobile family in the Horn of Africa and had moved to Saudi Arabia when she was very young. Thus, she had no connection to the Horn of Africa and had no idea of how to get a hold of such documents, or if they even existed. Ladan was therefore stuck at the asylum centre, where she was moved to a family unit along with other women in similar situations. However, somehow Ladan managed to obtain documents valid for travel in Europe, which enabled her to visit her husband, so he could see their child. This also resulted in another addition to the family. Ladan and her husband continued to make home in the world across national borders, while hoping that one day they would be able to live within the same household. While they managed to make home—in this case where their hearts were—through social media and occasional visits, it proved difficult to physically reunite on a permanent basis. Ladan’s husband was still without regular documents, and this made home-­making difficult for the young couple. Similarly, some of the young people en route that I encountered in 2013 are to this day searching for a place to make home. Wiilka Nolosha, whom I introduced in Chap. 6, is one of them, and in the following section, I will reconnect with his story.

8  Making Home 

197

‘In-between’: The Search for a Place to Make Home Wiilka Nolosha was a married man, and he had two children and another on the way when he left Somalia. Despite having a family, he found it impossible to continue to make home in his country of origin. Due to the continued conflicts between the government and al-Shabaab, the latter continuously needed to recruit new fighters. They sought to forcibly recruit Wiilka Nolosha because he was a likeable person who was trusted and listened to by the younger generation and al-Shabaab believed that they could recruit more soldiers through him. They offered to pay him $200 per day, but Wiilka Nolosha refused: ‘I don’t want to kill anyone or die. I want to be educated. I’m a happy man and a social man’. Wiilka Nolosha went to his father (his mother died when he was young) who advised him, ‘If you refuse, they might try to kill you. Run away, […] go to Europe instead of dying here, go to Turkey – live or die’. Some of Wiilka Nolosha’s friends had already gotten killed or badly injured because they refused to work for al-Shabaab, so he saw no other option than to leave the country. After he left, his wife, who was still in Somalia with the children, had to keep moving around due to the threats from al-Shabaab. Reflecting upon his reasons for seeking to make home elsewhere, he said, The important thing is to go to Europe to start a new living, me and my family. I have a daughter and a son, I want to give them the opportunity to enter high school, I want a peaceful place, a good life, I don’t want to be a rich man, I just want a good life, I ran from Africa without any food. Maybe my clan has power in Africa, but the aim is to be killed or kill. If you want to be a rich man, you will have to kill or you will be killed. I’m hoping to get a good life and now I’m searching for a new life. The one who is feeling hungry in Somalia will take a gun and kill a person, but if you have a good life, you will never want to die.

Wiilka Nolosha expresses the ambiguous experiences of making home that Jackson eloquently captured, when reminding us that when Freud argued that ‘the dwelling-house was a substitute for the mother’s womb’,

198 

A. Simonsen

he ‘forgot to mention that it can also be a tomb’ (Jackson 1995, 3). For Wiilka Nolosha, making home was to take his family to a safe place—a place where he believed he could fulfil his dream of not dying and not killing but making a good life. This good life was not only about safety and money. It was about ‘walking the road of hope’ towards a future where he and his children could be educated and move up the social ladder. The search for a place to make home was not an easy one for Wiilka Nolosha. As previously described, after several failed attempts to leave Turkey, he had made it to Greece. In Greece, however, he was arrested in the attempt to board a flight with a fake document. Unlike the young women mentioned in Chap. 5, who borrowed passports from other young women with similar faces, a fake document fabricated with his own picture made him liable to accusations of document forgery. This was a serious felony carrying the risk of a harsh prison sentence. When he was released after months in prison, Wiilka Nolosha made it out of Greece and further into Europe where we managed to meet again for a couple of days. The dream to make home suddenly seemed closer than ever, and he was so relieved to be out of prison and once again moving towards the future. We spent a couple of days together enjoying the warm temperature and the pulse of the city, listening to music, cooking food and visiting tourist sights—activities that I often took for granted but that he so desperately wanted another chance to do, ideally with his family. Having a brief taste of what a normal life could look like made his hopes high. We hugged as he left, jumping on a train to catch the opportunities of the unknown terrain. Months and months passed by while Wiilka Nolosha waited for his asylum case to be processed. But his case was rejected, not once, but three times, and he was told that he would be deported to Somalia. He was running out of options and decided to keep moving in the hope that another country would show mercy. His fingerprints, however, revealed his previous whereabouts and he was returned to his country of registration. Wiilka Nolosha did not sit there and wait for deportation. He left again, and for the past 8 years he has been travelling restlessly from country to country searching for a place to make home. Despite his constant setbacks in time and space, Wiilka Nolosha embraced the nomadic consciousness of continuing to search for greener

8  Making Home 

199

pastures because the uncertain terrain is believed to represent an opportunity to make home. This can make the en route space of travelling ‘comforting, not because one has arrived but because one has the security of ’ going somewhere (Ahmed 1999, 330). The mobile practices of making home in Europe that Wiilka Nolosha and Ladan both engaged in can thus be conceptualised as ‘the in-between space’ (Ahmed 1999, 330): Home is here, not a particular place that one simply inhabits, but more than one place: there are too many homes to allow place to secure the roots or routes of one’s destination. It is not simply that the subject does not belong anywhere. The journey between homes provides the subject with the contours of a space of belonging, but a space which expresses the very logic of an interval, the passing through of the subject between apparently fixed moments of departure and arrival.

The ‘in-between’ is the place that allows Wiilka Nolosha to negotiate and continue the process of making home. In October 2021, I reconnected with him after not hearing from him for a long time. He had neither had a steady place to stay nor time and energy to communicate. But now he finally had hopeful news. The country where he was now located had decided not to return him to his initial country of registration. This meant that he could now seek asylum again and potentially get another chance to make home. Or so he thought. Months later, when I heard from him again, he was once again on the move searching for greener pastures. His application for asylum had been rejected, and thus, the EU’s practices of home had again obstructed his own.

Qurbajoog: Ascriptions of Success The struggles of making home in Europe, depicted through the stories of Ladan and Wiilka Nolosha above, were not uncommon. So many of the young people en route, who managed to get into Europe at all, had similar stories. But despite such struggles, the fact that they were now physically located in Europe was perceived as a success among the youth in

200 

A. Simonsen

Somaliland that I encountered during fieldwork. Ironically, their physical absence provided them with social visibility among their peers. Being identified as qurbajoog—a diaspora—had very real and positive social effects on the lives of many Somalis, as they stayed in touch with their social networks in Somaliland and upon their return (whether they returned permanently or on occasional visits). Somali women and men experienced these positive effects despite not succeeding in ‘getting the passport’ and all the other goals that they hoped would follow from that. Being given the label of qurbajoog was sometimes enough to move up the social ladder in Somaliland. Halaane was in his late 20s and had completed a bachelor’s degree in Turkey. He had recently returned full-time to Somaliland and explained to me how he had experienced his reunification with friends: For example, my friends say, ‘He is qurbajoog’, giving me more respect than I had before … I don’t know if it is because I am from abroad or I am older than before, but I feel that my friends listen to me when I am talking. Sometimes they invite me for coffee or dinner – every place that they are going, I am first. And they always call me qurbajoog – it means the person who comes from another country.

The fact that Halaane’s friends now listened to him, took him seriously and made him the centre of attention, illustrated the emplacement argument made above: that mobility was about navigating oneself into a socio-economic position at home from where to gain respect, positive attention and social weight. The added status and social weight of the qurbajoog is what I have elsewhere called ‘gravity’ (Simonsen 2020). The label of qurbajoog and the gravity it carried increased the chances of the young Somalis finding a spouse. As described in Chap. 3, many young Somali women and some men in Somaliland sought a way out of the country and out of economic insecurity by marrying someone from the diaspora. Abdirahman, on the other hand, who struggled to find a job in Hargeisa, learned the hard way that Somali men identified as qurbajoog had better chances not only of landing a good job but also of getting married. Abdirahman was dumped by his girlfriend after a four-year relationship, when she chose to marry a man from the diaspora. Her explanation

8  Making Home 

201

for ending the relationship with Abdirahman was that ‘a man without money is not a real man’. Such experiences created rather ambiguous feelings towards the Somali diaspora among the local youth in Somaliland. For some, the qurbajoog were viewed as ‘heroes of development’, while for others they were the people who stole all the good jobs and the beautiful women (Hammond 2015). The statement ‘a man without money is not a real man’ exemplifies the general belief among locals in Somaliland, also expressed by Maqale above, that everyone in the Somali diaspora is well off. This belief did not come out of nowhere. As discussed in Chap. 4, the investments and education of the diaspora and their political influence and important role in rebuilding the country were very visible in Somaliland. In addition, TV series portray the wealth of Europe, the USA and Canada, as do the diaspora’s pictures and stories depicting their successful lives abroad on social media. Even though it was well known in Somaliland that many Somalis in Italy lived on the streets and depended on food from the churches to survive, Europe was still believed to be a place of opportunity and wealth. In addition to fuelling the desire for tahriib in the young generation at home, these beliefs created new challenges for the young diaspora Somalis, who could not live up to the images of wealth and success. Amadayo, a Somali man in his late 20s, described how he had had a discussion with an old classmate about who was better off. Amadayo was living in Spain at the time, where he had applied for asylum and was awaiting the outcome. He had already been granted asylum in another EU country, but his residence permit had been withdrawn due to a fight at a bar. As a result, he had decided to continue his tahriib, and his days were spent worrying about his fingerprints turning up in EURODAC. His old classmate, on the other hand, was studying medicine in Somaliland, but she was convinced that Amadayo was better off than she was. In fact, whenever Amadayo tried to emphasise the hardships of living in Europe, she—and the rest of his social network—would accuse him of lying. It was generally believed that the Somalis living in Europe were rich, but that they were trying to exclude others from sharing in their wealth by lying about their living conditions.

202 

A. Simonsen

Whether or not Amadayo identified with the category of qurbajoog and the meanings ascribed to it, like being rich and successful, it was imposed on him. As the Somali proverb states, ‘tahriibta manta waa qurbajoog berito’ (today’s tahriib is tomorrow’s diaspora). That meant that despite the many hardships in Italy, Spain or other European countries, the label of qurbajoog gave access to the social mobility sought after by so many. As Amadayo explained, the diaspora Somalis who were now governing Somaliland might have led completely ordinary, or even in many cases less than ordinary, lives, far from the glamour and wealth that the locals in Somaliland imagined. But upon their return to Somaliland, they were given the ‘title’ of qurbajoog, and all the prestige and privileges that came with it. ‘Even the president is from Europe’, Amadayo added, thus echoing the young dreamers in Chap. 4, who all wanted to ‘become president’ by going to Europe and coming back.

The Ultimate Homecoming As illustrated throughout this book, tahriib is a process of insecure and potentially deadly movement across multiple borders. But it is also very much a process of emplacement, that is of making home in a new location with the ultimate aim of achieving social mobility at home—in one’s country of birth. In some ways, the understandings of home practised by populations and policymakers in the EU are thus mirrored in the dreams of the young Somalis: their country of origin in many ways continues to be their emotional home, as they dream of returning. Where their understandings and practices differ from the institutionalised practices of home is in the fact that they also seek to create a home in Europe. They create emotional and cultural attachments to their new home countries to the extent that quite a few have ‘run back’—as Maqale put it—after attempts to return to their country of origin. So, while of course very few of the young men and women, who venture out on tahriib with a bag full of dreams and aspirations, return to Somalia, Somaliland, Kenya or Ethiopia to become the president or a minister, some manage to return with the increased gravity of the

8  Making Home 

203

qurbajoog. The feeling of being taken seriously, of finally becoming a proper adult able to uphold intergenerational contracts, and thus also being allegeable for marriage, was usually the real destination of tahriib. And this gravity was granted to many of the young Somalis who made it physically into Europe, even if they had not yet made it in Europe in terms of getting an education and a well-paid job. As long as they were physically there, opportunities were open, and the dream was alive. This once again illustrates that tahriib is far from a linear and predictable journey with a fixed ‘home’, ‘transit’ and ‘destination’, as institutionalised understandings of home would have us believe. Rather, tahriib represents a process of emplacement, where physically moving to new locations is used to increase your gravity at home. Thus, the stories presented in this chapter echo the stories of social death and how the youth are already dreaming of ‘coming home’ as the president before they leave (Chap. 3). They also show how the homecomings of others—and the title of qurbajoog—keeps the young people in Somaliland and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa continuously en route, with or without physically moving. Finally, the stories of making home in Europe and of returning as a partial stranger to your country of origin testify to how significant changes take place in the process of leaving home and making a new one—aspirations and expectations of life, of the future and of home change. While the majority initially dreamt of leaving to improve their conditions and sustain a proper home at their birth home, along the journey of tahriib and in the process of making home anew, relations to the people and places of home changed. Paradoxically, the most homeless or restless Somalis, kept in the in-­ between space of constant movement, were unable to return to Somalia, as this return would be a permanent and disgraceful one, similar to the deportees. Return for them would be to face the expectations of families and friends with nothing—no money and no education, only a bag full of broken dreams. They would not have achieved the opportunity of future physical and social mobility, represented by ‘getting the passport’ and being able to travel legally between old and new homes. Thus, their tahriib would have failed. All the hardships and dangers they had faced, and the money that many of their families had paid for travel expenses or

204 

A. Simonsen

ransoms en route, would have been for nothing. Therefore, rather than returning, they kept moving in search of a place to legally settle down and make a proper home. Meanwhile, the journey in-between and the relations built en route provided the contours of a space of belonging. For many of the Somalis who were allowed to make a new home in Europe, the dream of coming home as qurbajoog was still intact. However, the realities of homecoming could prove disappointing. The nostalgic memories of home and childhood that they had longed for were nowhere to be found. Realities at home—and the person returning—had changed. Met by overwhelming expectations of wealth and confronted with their own changes in standards and expectations, many felt out of place when visiting their birth home. Home, as defined through perceptions and practices of EU border control and as dreamt by so many of the young Somalis embarking on tahriib, was a static and unambiguous place. But movement across borders and making home in new ways and new places challenged and shifted the perceptions of home. For most of the young Somalis en route, home was no longer in one place, but was both where they hung their hat and where their hearts were (Grünenberg 2006).

Notes 1. https://www.unhcr.org/what-­is-­a-­refugee.html. 2. See also the work of Laura Hammond on Somali returnees. 3. ‘Some diaspora parents are sending their teenage children to go to school in Somaliland in order, they say, to learn about their heritage and to instill in them a stronger respect for cultural and religious ideals. Many of these young people have run into trouble with gangs, substance abuse or poor performance at school in their diaspora homes. They are referred to as dhaqan ceelis, or young people who have lost their culture and are sent back to Somaliland to live with their extended family or to attend boarding school’ (Hammond 2015, 51). 4. European Commission (2016). 5. Travel companies in both Denmark and Germany opposed the new role of checking IDs imposed on them, stating that they were not trained to take on the role of the police and that it was destroying their business by complicating travel across borders (The Local 2015).

8  Making Home 

205

References Ahmed, Sara. 1999. Home and away: Narratives of migration and estrangement. International Journal of Cultural Studies 2 (3): 329–347. Åkesson, Lisa, and Maria Eriksson Baaz. 2015. Introduction. In Africa’s return migrants: The new developers? ed. L. Åkesson and M.E. Baaz, 1–22. Bloomsbury Academic & Professional. Besteman, Catherine. 2017. Experimenting in Somalia: The new security empire. Anthropological Theory 17 (3): 404–420. Bjarnesen, Jesper, and Henrik Vigh. 2016. Introduction: The dialectics of displacement and emplacement. Conflict and Society 2: 9–15. Brun, Cathrine, and Anita Fabos. 2015. Making homes in limbo? A conceptual framework. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 31 (1): 5–17. Chambers, Iain. 1994. Migrancy, culture and identity. London and New York: Routledge. Grünenberg, Kristina. 2006. Is home where the heart is or where I hang my hat? Constructing senses of belonging among Bosnian refugees in Denmark. PhD. Thesis, University of Copenhagen. Hammond, Laura. 2015. Diaspora returnees to Somaliland: Heroes of development or job-stealing scoundrels? In Africa’s return migrants: The new developers? ed. L. Åkesson and M.E. Baaz, 44–63. Bloomsbury Academic & Professional. Hansen, Peter. 2007. Revolving returnees: Meanings and practices of transnational return among Somalilanders. PhD thesis, University of Copenhagen. Jackson, Michael. 1995. At home in the world. Durham: Duke University Press. Kleist, Nauja. 2020. Trajectories of involuntary return migration to Ghana: Forced relocation processes and post-return life. Geoforum 116: 272–281. Lindquist, Andreas. 2018. Forstå sagen: Derfor kan somaliere pludselig sendes hjem. DR. https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/forstaa-­sagen-­derfor-­kan-­ somaliere-­pludselig-­sendes-­hjem. Malkki, Liisa. 1992. National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees. Cultural Anthropology 7 (1): 24–44. Olwig, Karen Fog. 1998. Contested Homes: Homemaking and the Making of Anthropology. In Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World in Movement, ed. Nigel Rapport and Andrew Dawson, 225–236. Oxford: Berg. ———. 1999. Travelling Makes a Home: Mobility and Identity Among West Indians. In Ideal Homes? Social Change and the Experience of the Home, ed. Tony Chapman and Jenny Hockey, 73–83. London: Taylor & Francis Group.

206 

A. Simonsen

Plambech, Sine. 2016. Sex, Deportation and Rescue: Economies of Migration among Nigerian Sex Workers. Feminist Economics 23: 134. Simonsen, Anja. 2020. Crossing (Biometric) Borders: Turning “Gravity” Upside Down. Ethnos: 1–15. Stefansson, Anders H. 2003. Under My own Sky? The Cultural Dynamics of Refugee Return and (Re)integration in Post-war Sarajevo. PhD.  Thesis, University of Copenhagen. Vigh, Henrik. 2015a. Mobile Misfortune. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research 7: 233–253. ———. 2015b. Militantly well. HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5 (3): 93–110. ———. 2017. Caring through crime: Ethical ambivalence and the cocaine trade in Bissau. Africa 87 (3): 479–495.

Internet Sources European Commission. 2016. ‘Questions & Answers: A Coordinated EU Approach for Temporary Internal Border Controls’. 4 May 2016. https:// ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/MEMO_16_1628. Accessed 8 Feb 2022. The Local. 2015. ‘Denmark sets stage for border controls’. Refugee crisis. 11 December 2015 https://www.thelocal.dk/20151211/denmark-­sets-­stage-­for-­ border-­controls/. Accessed 8 Feb 2022.

9 Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties

Every step faces both ways: it is both the ending, or tip, of a trail that leads back through our past life, and a new beginning that moves us forward towards future destinations unknown (Ingold and Vergunst 2008, 1).

The friendships I had developed with young women and men from the Horn of Africa since 2013 did not come to an end just because I left Somaliland, Turkey, Greece and Italy at the end of my fieldwork. While our steps forward were all different, the stories we shared from our past experiences of being on or following tahriib connected us in the new beginnings we were embarking on. That was why I had a very emotional reaction when I first heard that Amran had decided to do tahriib. It had been 8 years since I had left the house of her grandparents in Somaliland, whom I referred to as Hooyo and Aabo. In that house, Amran and I had spent endless hours together during the time of my fieldwork. She was a young, intelligent and beautiful woman, who was studying to become a teacher back in 2013, just like her aunt Salaado before her. Amran had invited me into her life, involving me in the news of friends, boyfriends and her dreams for the future. One day in late 2020, Amran sent me a voice message telling me that she was travelling to Turkey and that she would reach out to me when she got there. It was unclear to me what she would be doing in Turkey, and I asked if she © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1_9

207

208 

A. Simonsen

would be studying there. She never replied, but 6 months later, as I was scrolling through my social media, I saw that Amran had posted a picture of her and her mother, Zeynab, with a beautiful cake with the letters ‘goodbye and good luck’ on it. I reached out to Amran to ask about the picture, and she wrote that she was going to Qubros [Cyprus] the next day. Excited on her behalf that she got to travel, I asked her what she would be doing there. Via a voicemail from the airport, she greeted me and said that first, she would visit the university, and then she would go and see the ‘UNHCR camp’. This was the moment I realised that she was not simply visiting Cyprus but doing tahriib. To this day, I am unsure whether writing that she would visit the university was a way to soften the blow of the message that she knew would break my heart. I had spent the last 8 years studying, sharing stories and conducting interviews on the many difficulties that this journey could entail: from rape to torture and death. Amran had seen the way I would sometimes have nightmares, dreaming that my brothers had decided to do tahriib and after spending all night trying to find them, I would wake up feeling mentally exhausted. Amran was with me on the day we went swimming in the ocean in Berbera and met the two young women who were practising their swimming skills as a way to increase their chances of surviving tahriib. She had, I felt, been part of my journey of collecting data on tahriib, and despite the many horrific stories we had heard, she had decided to leave. Her reaction had been the opposite of Abdirahman’s. His story was introduced in Chap. 2, and we initially met because he had wanted to leave on tahriib. But as the research process progressed and he turned into more of a research assistant than an interlocutor, he changed his mind. Not because I had tried to convince him not to go but because he realised the harshness of doing tahriib. So why would Amran do this? I initially felt worried and angry: why would this loving, intelligent, beautiful human being put herself in such a difficult situation? Had she not learned anything from the journey I felt was not only mine but ours? Why was her solution so different to mine and Abdirahman’s despite being confronted with the same information?

9  Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties 

209

I later found out that she had heard about available jobs in Cyprus. During one of our many exchanges after her departure, she told me that she would only have to stay at the UNHCR camp for 3 months: ‘After that I’m going to find a job outside the camp, I know many Somali people who work with market sales in South Cyprus’. ‘So is that why you did tahriib? To get that job?’ I asked. ‘Yeah, my first plan is to get a job and more money … I need to change my life, sister, but first step is hard but after it will be nice, insha Allah’, she replied followed by a smiley emoji. Like so many young Somalis before her, Amran had taken the consequence of the insecure future she was certain of facing if she stayed in Somaliland. Tahriib was not simply an uncertain and dangerous endeavour, but it was essentially a way to respond to and seek to manage the more existential uncertainties of life. As shown in Chap. 2, mobility in general, and particularly in response to hardship, was an integral part of Somali history and heritage. As proud reer guuraa, generations of Somalis before Amran had moved through the world: engaging in suudaal to escape social exclusion, crossing the Red Sea as taber trying to improve the economic situation of their families and society, and now on tahriib seeking to move up the social ladder, become responsible adults and fulfil their dreams of a better future. Using these emic notions of movement is ‘not just an attempt to romanticize difficult journeys and hard times’, as Kleinman (2019, 1) reminds us. She uses the term ‘adventure’ among young West African men, who travel across great distances in unknown terrain to get to France. For these young men, like the Somalis, the emic notion of travel ‘is not just another word for migration: it contained a whole world of West African migrant histories’ (Kleinman 2019, 12). For Amran and the young Somalis of this book, movement was a way of taking action in their lives, a way of taking responsibility for themselves and their families. When they did not find their happiness, or what they considered to be their best future, in one location, the Somali heritage of seeking greener pastures convinced them that ‘happiness is two feet’ and moving on to somewhere else. As I have shown in this book, Amran’s attempt to leave Somaliland and seek new opportunities took place at a time when European populations and policymakers considered such migration a major source of negative uncertainty. During a

210 

A. Simonsen

conversation in 2018 at the office of a humanitarian organisation working on migration issues, I was told that the cases of criminal activities in Italy statistically had decreased but that Italians felt an increased fear of being victims of crime. This was partly due to the increasing numbers of refugees arriving at the shore and the way this was continually framed as a security threat. This illustrates the success that politicians throughout the EU have had in connecting the influx of migrants with existential feelings of uncertainty through securitisation. Despite the ideal of a borderless Europe expressed in the Schengen Agreement, several of the signatory countries re-installed temporary border controls in response to what was called the ‘migration crisis’ in 2015. It was argued that the migration flows were ‘constituting a serious threat to internal order and public policy’ (European Commission 2015). As discussed in Chap. 7, the insecurity and existential uncertainty felt by populations and policymakers in the EU resulted in the implementation of the hotspot approach and biometric technologies at the external and internal borders (Olwig et al. 2020). Thus, people travelling without regular documents were, as shown in Chap. 7, highly policed. They were also ‘used as political capital and made the unwilling pawns of large-scale geopolitical negotiations’ (Richter and Vigh 2022, 1). For instance, the death of more than 400 people in two major shipwrecks in October 2013 convinced Italy to launch the rescue-at-sea programme Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). Mare Nostrum cost approximately €11 million per month and was run by the Italian navy, receiving very little funding from the EU. Italy approached the EU for help with the response to the increasing number of people dying in the attempt to cross the Mediterranean. The EU responded to Italy’s request for help in October 2014 by replacing Mare Nostrum with Operation Triton, implemented by Frontex. In practice, this meant downscaling the search-and-rescue operations to focus on protecting European borders (Agustín and Jørgensen 2018). The EU believed that implementing search-and-rescue operations at sea would function as a pull-factor, attracting more refugees to the routes across the Mediterranean. The implementation of Operation Triton ‘emptied the sea’, as active NGO members involved in search-and-rescue operations told me during recent interviews. By this, they meant that

9  Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties 

211

very few search-and-rescue ships were now on the water, which led to more people being left in distress at sea and thus to more human lives lost (Agnew 2015).1 Operation Triton was in many ways an attempt to align Italy’s management of the border with European policies. The same can be said for the hotspot approach presented in Chap. 7, which was introduced in April 2015 as a way to strengthen the external EU borders and assist in the control and management of the increased numbers of refugees. Italy and Greece had requested emergency aid from the EU, due to the so-called migrant crisis, but were confronted with the demand for them to implement the hotspot approach. Thus, rather than aiding the two countries in funding and managing existing approaches to migration, the EU pressured them into implementing the new approaches in order for them to receive any help at all. As I conducted fieldwork around a hotspot—the Italian island of Lampedusa—in July 2022, it was obvious how the management of European insecurities linked to unidentified individuals crossing their borders far outweighed the right to life for men, women and children on the move. The hotspot was in place to register every single individual arriving in Lampedusa. This meant that after being escorted off the boats, men, women and children would be taken to the hotspot centre in small minibuses. Here, they would be fingerprinted and registered, and no one was allowed to leave before officially being transferred to Sicily and to the mainland of Italy. Drones were used to surveil the coastline to make sure that no one could arrive undetected. In mid-July 2022, approximately 600 potential asylum seekers were evacuated from Lampedusa to Sicily from an overcrowded hotspot where inhuman conditions had prevailed for too long. While in Lampedusa, I discussed the evacuations with an employee of one of the organisations working with refugees on the island. He explained that no one could pretend to be surprised by the number of arrivals and the resulting lack of space and resources: Arrivals like these are to be expected. We know that when the weather is good, then people will arrive by boat. So, this is not an emergency because we know that people are arriving, because we have the opportunity to act. An emergency is something that cannot be hindered.

212 

A. Simonsen

In other words, the EU should have predicted the number of arrivals and they should have been better prepared. There was no reasonable explanation for the horrible conditions and the need for emergency evacuation. He said this while looking up the numbers of arrivals from the previous year (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2). ‘Last year [2021] in July 6.000 people

Fig. 9.1  A boat used by migrants to cross the Mediterranean Sea confiscated by Italian authorities in Lampedusa, July 2022 (photo by the author)

9  Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties 

213

Fig. 9.2  A boat used by men, women and children to reach Lampedusa without regular documents, Italy, July 2022 (photo by the author)

arrived, while from 1–12 July this year 2.192 people have survived the journey to Lampedusa’. The political responses to irregular migration as outlined above illuminate how the idea of the nation state as the institutionalised home of one nation and one people is still at the basis of the understanding and practices of (un)certainty and (in)security of the EU. In response to human bodies on the move from the Global South, borders are being armed with materials, technologies and people. The consequence of such practices is an increase in uncertainty and precariousness of the people en route, seen clearly in the higher number of deaths in the Mediterranean Sea (Reliefweb 2021), and in the way people have been held back at border sites dying from cold and hunger, while authorities of different countries have discussed who should take responsibility for them (Infomigrants 2021). In Chap. 7, Abroon shared how young Somalis en route experienced the encounters with biometric registration as a major uncertainty—an earthly Day of Judgement. His detailed account illustrates the

214 

A. Simonsen

importance of understanding the religious and cultural life-worlds of the people moving through the world. The experiences and perceptions of trust and truth have real-life importance for decisions of how, when and where to move. The responses of the EU populations and policymakers, as well as the Somalis and other people en route, all speak to universal human feelings of (un)certainty and (in)security, and how they are intimately linked to ideas of home and hopes for a good future. As a result of the way home is understood and practised by the EU, making home in Europe entailed great risk for the many people arriving from elsewhere. When I first learned of Amran’s decision to do tahriib, I spent my time desperately trying to get in touch with her to make sure she had arrived safely. After a week and a half, I got a voicemail. With an excited voice, Amran told me that she had arrived and that the next day she would travel from north Cyprus to south Cyprus: ‘You know, the neighbour to Greece, the camp of the United Nations, you understand me, camp, United Nations …?’ I replied and repeated: ‘Please take care of yourself dear Amran, in Greece it’s not an easy situation, please take care dear!’ Two days later, Amran’s voice had changed. She was no longer excited but said with a low, monotone voice, ‘I’m now in the camp, wallahi, the camp it’s not a good life, it’s so bad life, bad life, it’s so disgusting, it’s not good, still they did not accept me, but I’m waiting. I’m waiting but don’t worry, insha Allah everything will be good’. Even under the difficult circumstances of the camp, Amran was keeping up the hope that was so characteristic of tahriib. Through the uncertainties of tahriib and the constantly changing tempos of getting stuck and suddenly moving fast, hope was ‘the last of human freedoms’ (Frankl [1959] Frankl 1984) that carried the young Somalis forward. Tahriib itself thus represented a practice of ‘social hope’—a hope of challenging the status quo and making it to a better future. However, Amran did not tell her mother about conditions in the camp. She did not want her mother to lose hope and feel bad about her daughter’s situation, so she kept it a secret. Eight days after arriving, Amran had finally been registered at the camp, but she had still not received any food. Thus, she was surviving on her own and relying on the charity of her new acquaintances. She sent me two pictures of the tent where she was living (Figs. 9.3 and 9.4):

9  Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties 

215

Fig. 9.3  Pictures of Amran’s tent in a refugee camp in Cyprus (photos by Amran, spring 2021)

There were many Somali women and children sleeping in the tent, and it was ‘too cold’ in the early spring, Amran said. The cold weather was visible in the pictures as the tent was full of blankets and Amran’s arm showed that she was wearing a warm winter jacket. Despite the harsh conditions, Amran was still hopeful. One day she wrote, ‘I’m good now, before, every day I am crying because life is hard, now I am good and stronger’. Even when being stuck in difficult circumstances, the young women and men en route were conscious of not wasting time. Seeing the time spent freezing and crying as a time that had made her stronger was a way for Amran to engage her time in a constructive way. She also engaged in

216 

A. Simonsen

Fig. 9.4  Pictures of Amran’s tent in a refugee camp in Cyprus (photos by Amran, spring 2021)

new social and economic relations in the camp as part of her attempt to move forward and upward in life. Amran was travelling alone, but had already made new acquaintances among the Somalis, Nigerians, Cameroonians and other Africans in the camp. These social networks would help her gather the all-important information on which she would base her future decisions on how and where to move. Like for most of the young Somalis, who have allowed us into their lives through this book, Amran’s journey into the unknown was far from over at the time of writing. Whether she will be able to make a permanent home in Europe, make a successful homecoming to Somaliland or obtain any of her other dreams for the future remains to be seen. Throughout

9  Conclusion: Universal Uncertainties 

217

this book, I have sought to capture the many complex practices—of searching for (reliable) information, creating and reviving hopes and dreams, and constantly engaging in making the most of time—that make up the social space of tahriib, before, during and after physical movement across borders. Hence, to understand why young Somalis are willing to risk their lives en route despite living in relative peace, we should remind ourselves of what Gacal told us at the beginning of this book: ‘Everybody in the world will die one day. If I die, I die; if I succeed, I succeed, but mostly I wish that I succeed’. Thus, the hope of and belief in success through migration was greater than the fear of dying. By exploring the many questions and intimate details of the lives of young Somalis that have chosen to embark on dangerous journeys into the unknown, we have gained a unique insight into lives en route. Although specific historic and contemporary patterns of movement may be distinctly Somali, the attempt to manage the uncertainty of life is human and global in nature. Thus, the practices of hope that tahriib represents are universally relatable. Therefore, it is my hope and my dream for the future to be able to contribute to an increased understanding of the human emotions involved and the very human lives at stake in migration policy.

Notes 1. Today, more private search and rescue organsations have returned to the sea but are expericing new political restrictions on where and how they can conduct rescue operations (Cusumano and Villa 2021, Mainwaring and DeBono 2021).

References Agnew, Paddy. 2015. Triton Project Shortcomings Seen in Mediterranean Death Toll. Irish Times, February 12. Agustín, Óscar Garcia, and Martin Bak Jørgensen. 2018. Solidarity and the ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe. Palgrave.

218 

A. Simonsen

Frankl, Viktor. [1959] 1984. Man’s search for meaning, an introduction to Logotherapy. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Ingold, Tim, and Jo Lee Vergunst. 2008. Introduction. In Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on foot, ed. Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst, 1–20. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate. Kleinman, Julie. 2019. Adventure Capital. Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris. Berkeley: University of California Press. Olwig, Karen Fog, Kristina Grünenberg, Perle Møhl, and Anja Simonsen. 2020. The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move. London & New York: Routledge. Richter, Line, and Henrik Vigh. 2022. Tangier heat: On migrant vulnerability and social thermology. Ethnography 10 (0): 1–19.

Websites European Commission 2015. ‘Temporary reintroduction of internal border controls by Sweden at selected harbours in the South and West and the Öresund bridge’. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-­affairs/what-­is-­new/news/ news/2015/20151113_2_en.htm. Accessed 25 Nov 2016 Infomigrants. 2021. ‘UN Requests “immediate Access” to European Borders after Migrant Deaths’. 22 September 2021. https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/ post/35223/un-­r equests-­i mmediate-­a ccess-­t o-­e uropean-­b orders-­a fter-­ migrant-­deaths. Accessed 29 Oct 2021 Reliefweb. 2021. ‘Migrant deaths on maritime routes to Europe in 2021’. 14 July 2021. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/migrant-­deaths-­maritime-­ routes-­europe-­2021. Accessed 29 Oct 2021

Index1

A

B

Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), 78, 117, 118, 121 Aden (Yemen), 8, 35 AFIS, see Automated Fingerprint Identification System Ali, Nimo-Ilhan, 100 Andersson, Ruben, 149 Arendt, Hannah, 29 Association for the Study of the World Refugee Problem (1950), 28 Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), 163

Barre, Siyad, 10–11, 39, 40, 59 Berbera (Somaliland), 85–86, 88, 95, 107n1, 208 Besteman, Catherine, 170 Biometric Border World, 15, 165–166 Biometric registration AFIS, 163 body border, 165, 166, 177 Day of Judgement, 165–169, 173, 177–178, 213–214 DNA, 162, 163, 176–177 EURODAC, 163–164, 169, 178, 201

 Note: End note page references are in the form pgn#. For example, 107n1 is end note 1 on page 107. End notes are numbered individually by chapter.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Simonsen, Tahriib – Journeys into the Unknown, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27821-1

219

220 Index

Biometric registration (cont.) facial recognition, 162–164 false matches, 164–165, 179n5 family reunification, 176–177 fingerprinting, 1, 7–8, 159–160, 162–164, 167–169, 177, 178, 193–194 involuntary separation, 193–194 iris scans, 1, 162 perception of, 177–178, 193–194 police access to fingerprints, 163 registration percentages, 161 restriction of movement, 7–8, 15, 149, 162, 165, 174–175, 177 securing rights, 175–178 Bjarnesen, Jesper, 185 Block, Ernst, 89 Border control detection, 120, 121, 148, 149 drone surveillance, 161, 211 EASO, 161 EU borders, 159–162, 169, 210–211 EUROJUST, 161 EUROPOL, 161, 163 FRONTEX, 160, 161, 179n2, 186, 210 guards, 103, 104, 119, 120, 153–154 hotspots (border control), 160–162, 171, 211–213 Mare Nostrum, 210 Operation Triton, 210–211 repatriation, 30, 121, 155, 164, 168, 169, 174, 177 See also Biometric registration; Brokers Bourdieu, Pierre, 121, 144 Brokers

documents, 38 Ethiopia, 117 exploitation of migrants, 130 Greece, 127, 130 information control, 117–119 Libya, 98 local connections, 120 Magafe, 31, 48n6, 56, 96–97 (mis)trust under uncertainty, 134–135, 152, 153 mukhalas, 130–133, 135, 136 payment, 155–156 safe houses, 17, 124, 125, 154 Serbia, 134 Sudan, 119, 120, 134–135 Turkey, 102–103, 148–149, 154–155 Burao (Somaliland), 11, 40 Buur, Lars, 5, 160 C

Colonialism, 8–10, 35 Copenhagen (Denmark), 165–166 Crapanzano, Vincent, 89, 91 Cyprus, 208, 209, 214–216 D

Denmark asylum, 30, 166, 168, 169, 179n6, 187, 195 biometric registration, 167 border control, 204n5 Diaspora economic difficulty, 190 economic success, 80, 98, 99, 106, 185, 188, 201 exiles in Europe, 189–190

 Index 

global connectivity, 140 homecoming, 95–96, 178, 188, 189, 191–192 loss of identity, 190, 204n3 monetary support of family, 14, 185 qurbajoog, 178, 199–204 scale of movement, 11 socio-political success, 100, 101, 188, 200–202 success in Somaliland, 98 transnational marriage, 45, 77–79, 200–201 See also Home Diiriye, Axmed Cali Magafe, Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiqdhaqaaqday, 34 Djibouti, 9, 36, 43, 47, 74, 75 Dubai, 46, 75 Dublin Regulation (1997), 161, 163, 164, 166, 169, 171, 173 Durkheim, Emilie, 143–144 E

EASO, see European Agency for Asylum Support En route awaiting opportunity, 86, 146–147 death in transit, 75, 98, 113–114, 118 documents, 104, 126, 128–129 (mis)trust, 178 movement, 2, 169, 198–199, 209 multi-sited ethnography, 12–14 politicised landscapes, 17 public life, 124

221

safe houses, 17, 124, 125, 154 sexual assault, 122–124, 126 similar faces, 128–129, 162, 198 uncertainty, 1–2, 89, 91, 116–117, 119, 121–122, 128, 153, 166, 214 See also Brokers; Information; Time Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip (President, Turkey), 147 Ethiopia Berbera, 85 brokers, 117 colonial borders, 9 migrations, 32, 40 scramble for Africa, 9 SNM, 40 Somalia, blue-collar jobs, 69 Somalia, peace treaty with, 40 Somalia, war with, 10, 59 Somali refugees, 11, 13, 40, 42–43, 185 tahriib, 33, 45, 48n6, 116–121, 183–185 visits home, 190–192 EURODAC, see European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database EUROJUST, see European Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation European Agency for Asylum Support (EASO), 161 European Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (EUROJUST), 161 European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database (EURODAC), 163–164, 169, 178, 201

222 Index

European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), 160, 161, 179n2, 186, 210 European Union (EU) asylum, 161–162, 164–166, 170–171, 174, 193–196, 198, 201, 211–213 biometric failures, 164–165 deportation, 135, 164, 166, 168, 170, 187, 188, 198, 203 Dublin Regulation (1997), 161, 163, 164, 166, 169, 171, 173 EASO, 161 EUROJUST, 161 EUROPOL, 161, 163 family reunification, 176–177 FRONTEX, 160, 161, 179n2, 186, 210 home, concept of, 186–187, 193–194, 204, 213, 214 hotspots (border control), 160–162, 211–213 migrant crisis, 159, 211 Operation Triton, 210–211 Regulation No 603/2013 (FRONTEX), 163 Schengen Agreement (1985), 160, 210 secondary migration, 166, 169, 175, 177–178, 193, 201 See also Denmark; Greece; Italy; Security; Turkey European Union Agency for Law Enforcement (EUROPOL), 161, 163 EUROPOL, see European Union Agency for Law Enforcement

F

Finland, 78, 79 Flaherty, Michael G., 141 FRONTEX, 160, 161, 179n2, 186, 210 G

Geed-deeble (Somaliland), 42 Glascock, Anthony Philip, 61 Global South, 7, 18, 106, 122, 160, 213 Gluckman, Max, 48n1 Greece brokers, 127, 130, 131, 135 documents, 104, 126, 128–129, 135, 198 exploitation of migrants, 130 hotspots (border control), 161, 171, 193 imprisonment, 129, 135–136 refugee camps, 184–185 restricted movement, 17 safe houses, 124–126 social media, 139 Somaali Istaag, 127–130 tahriib, 102–104, 118, 123, 152–153 Gundel, Joakim, 38, 49n12 H

Hargeisa (Somaliland) bombing of, 11, 40 diaspora, 98, 106, 200–201 districts and sub-clans, 65, 67–68 education, 33, 76, 93, 142–143

 Index 

female labour, 70–72 gender roles, 71–72 holding funds, 134–135 Ramadan, 72–73 social hopes, 13–14, 80–81 social networks, 14–15, 98 SONYO, 55–57 tahriib, 13–14, 33, 67–68, 115–116, 151 transnational marriage, 77–79 unemployment, 93, 200 Heidegger, Martin, 107n4 Höhne, Markus Virgil, 58, 81n7 Home in between, 197–199, 203–204 emplacement, 185–188, 202, 203 EU concept of, 186–188, 193–194, 204, 213, 214 heart homes, 193–196 qurbajoog, 178, 199–204 return, 189–192, 203 Hope (rajo) agency, 105 double-edged nature, 89, 98–99, 104–105, 108n8 education, 92–96 examination of, social sciences, 89–90 mobility paradox, 88 social context, 87, 101 social fantasies, 87, 96, 97, 99–101, 105–106, 108n7, 147, 217 social hopes, 70, 87, 90–91, 101–102, 106–107, 107n4, 214 tahriib, preparation for, 86–88, 95, 126–127, 208 taking the passport, 100, 203 Husserl, Edmund, 107n4

223

I

Information as commodity, 130, 132, 133 control by brokers, 118 gendered access, 117–119 imperfect information, 119–122, 130–131, 136, 152 information access, 115, 117–119, 125–130, 195 kutiri kuteen (hearsay), 113–114, 136n1, 139, 146 (mis)trust, 131–136 xog, 114, 130, 139, 146 Istanbul (Turkey), 102–104, 147, 152, 156 Italy asylum, 170–174 biometric registration, 161, 169–170, 173–175 Centro di Accoglienza per Richiedenti-Asilo (CAS), 170 drone surveillance, 211 economic challenges, 170, 175 fear of crime, 210 hotspots (border control), 160–161, 171, 211–213 Mare Nostrum program, 210 no life, 169–170, 174–175 restricted movement, 147 safe houses, 171–173 securing rights, 176–177 Sistema di Protezione per Richiedenti Asilo e Refugati (SPRAR), 170, 174 undesirable destination, 8, 15, 114, 170–173, 175

224 Index J

Jackson, Michael, 105, 107n4, 116–117, 197–198 Johnson-Hanks, Jennifer, 144–145 K

Kenya, 10, 11, 104, 149–150 Kleinman, Julie, 209 Kleist, Nauja, 88 L

Lampedusa (hotspot, Italy), 171, 211–213 Lee, E.S., 26 Libya brokers, 98 discrimination, 97 hostage for ransom, 31, 33, 56, 63 Magafe, 31, 48n6, 56, 97 migrant deaths, 113, 118 sexual assault, 122 transfer point to Italy, 96–98, 113, 171–172 M

Magafe, 31, 48n6, 56, 96–97 Magafe, Tahriibka iyo Dhallinta Sibiqdhaqaaqday (Diiriye, Axmed Cali et. al.), 34 Mariam, Mengistu Haile, 40 Mediterranean Sea crossings, 159, 160, 173, 174, 210–213

deaths, 56, 75, 169, 213 hotspots, 160–161, 171, 193, 211–213 Migration displacement, 29–30, 160 Global South, 7, 18, 106, 122, 160, 213 internally displaced persons (IDP), 26, 29 legal migration, refugees, 13 loss of life, 56, 75, 98, 113–114, 118, 160, 169, 213 Manchester school, 27, 48n1 mass migration, forced, 6 migrant crisis, 5, 159, 160, 211 migration studies, 26–28 refugee studies, 28–31, 48n5 tahriib as human history, 6 travel as experience, 7 uncertainty, 2–4, 6–7, 209 See also Mediterranean Sea; Security; Tahriib Mogadishu (Somalia), 11, 148, 149 N

National Conference of Somaliland (2003), 59 National Youth Policy (Somaliland, 2005), 61 O

Obama, Barack (President, USA), 99, 101, 105 Olwig, Karen Fog, 6, 27 Oman (Yemen), 46

 Index  P

Puntland (Somalia), 101 R

Refugee Convention, see United Nations Refugee Convention (1951) Rousseau, Cécile, 89–90 S

Saudi Arabia guest workers, Somali, 36–38, 44 local labour preferences, 38, 193 social restrictions, 192–193 tahriib, 66 umma, 38 work insecurity, 38 Schengen Agreement (1985), 160, 210 Security local expression of, 5 9/11 and migrant crisis, 4, 5 PARIS approach, 5 securitisation (Copenhagen School), 4–5, 7, 122, 160, 194–195, 204n5, 210 See also Border control Serbia, 123, 134 Al-Shabaab, 11, 20n9, 154, 169, 187, 197 Simmel, Georg, 133 SNM, see Somaliland National Movement Social media diaspora, 2 Facebook, 71, 128, 139–140

225

hope, 90, 106, 201 information search, 125, 139 making home, 196 networking, 15 Skype, 128, 139 transnational marriage, 78 uncertainty, 208 Zoom, 183 Somalia brain drain, 56 civil war, 10–11, 40–43 clans, 10, 60, 65 colonial borders, 9–10 colonial legacy, 10 diya, 65–66, 82n13 economy, 31, 39, 57, 70 environmental variation, 32 Ethiopia, peace treaty with, 40 Ethiopia, war with, 10, 59 ethnic cleansing, 11 migration and identity, 25, 30, 209 migrations, 2, 9, 11, 32–33, 40–43, 48, 209, 217 nomadic migration (reer guura), 31–33, 48, 48n3 scramble for Africa, 8–9 al-Shabaab, 11, 20n9, 154, 169, 187, 197 Soomaaliweyn (Greater Somalia), 9, 59, 65 suudaal, 33–36, 39 telecommunications, 139–140, 156n1 Turkish investment, 147 xawilaad, 39, 139–140, 156n1 See also Migration; Somaliland

226 Index

Somaliland achieving goals, 1–2 adulthood, 58, 61, 95, 144, 145 bad jobs, 56, 142–146 civil war, consequences of, 43–44 clans, 64, 66–68, 70, 156 colonial occupation, 8–9 Committee on Illegal Migration and Unemployment, 56 déclassement (downgrading), 68–69 economy, 62, 93, 94, 142 education and independence, 76–77 gerontocracy, 58–62 Guurti, 40, 59, 60 higher education, 93–94 immigrant labour, 69 independent state, establishment of, 40, 59 Isaaq clan, 40, 43, 59 jobs and education level, 68–69 judiciary system, 66 marginalisation of youth, 69–70 National Conference of Somaliland (2003), 59 National Youth Policy (2005), 61 opportunity at home, 80–81 pastoral politics, 59 presidential system, 60 remittances, 64 SNM, 40, 41, 59 social death, 3, 28, 57, 73, 98, 106, 143–144 traditional authorities, 59–60, 81n7 transnational marriage, 45, 77–79, 200–201

unemployment, 93–95, 142 women in politics, 60–61 Zaad (money transfer app), 140 See also Diaspora; Hargeisa (Somaliland); Suudaal; Taber; Tahriib Somaliland National Movement (SNM), 40, 41, 59 Somaliland National Youth Organization (SONYO), 55–57, 79, 142 SONYO, see Somaliland National Youth Organization Sørensen, Ninna Nyberg, 27 Sudan border control, 120–121 brokers, 119, 120, 134–135 difficult route, 117–118, 122, 123 insecurity, 119, 134–135 kidnap for ransom, 63 tahriib, 117 Suudaal, 33–36, 39, 209 Sweden, 76, 78–79, 167 T

Taber clan connections, 39 definition, 33, 36 documentation, 38 economic impact, 38, 40, 209 Franco-valuta, 39, 49n12 guest workers, Gulf states, 36–38, 43, 49n11 Hawala, 39 insecure working conditions, 38 middle eastern migrations, 36–37 See also Saudi Arabia

 Index 

Tahriib attempts to dissuade, 55–56 circular migration, 14, 15 definition, 33, 44 diasporan influence, 140–141, 157n2 early form of, 41–43 economic impact, 43, 64 education as driver, 93–94 failed attempts, 46–47, 74, 75, 102–104, 119–121, 148–150, 154–155 financial preparations, 67, 97, 123 flow of resources, 44 freedom, 70, 73–77, 124 gender bias in routes, 117–118, 122–123 government complicity, 100, 101 intergenerational contract, 63–64, 81n10, 143, 185, 203 kidnap for ransom, 31, 63 legal migration, 46, 47, 74 money transfer, 139–140, 156n1 origins, 40 personal investment, 62–63 prohibition against, 56 secrecy, 119–120, 130, 133–134, 214 social contract, 66 social meaning, 44, 185 social mobility, 2–3, 44, 45, 57, 62–63, 94–95, 190, 202, 209 social networks, 14–15, 215–216 See also Denmark; Diaspora; En route; Ethiopia; Greece; Home; Hope (rajo); Italy; Libya; Social media; Sudan; Turkey Time being stuck, 128, 143, 147–151, 153

227

empty time, 144–147, 152, 215–216 female lifecycle, 150–151 imagined futures, 144–147 losing time (wakhti lumis), 141, 146–148, 151, 153, 154, 174 as social institution, 143–144, 152 tempo en route, 148–149, 151–154, 156, 214 time work, 141, 145–148, 153–156 Turkey brokers, 102–103, 148–149, 154–155 documents, 147–148 employment, migrants, 148, 150 movement, 147 police, 103, 147, 148, 154 safe houses, 147 Somaali Istaag, 148, 184 tahriib, 46–47, 102–104, 118, 123, 152–155, 183–185 time trap, 148, 150, 151 umma, 147, 148 undocumented migrants, 103–104 as waystation, 148, 151 U

UNHCR, see United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges United Arab Emirates (UAE), 38, 147 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 13, 103, 149, 162, 208, 209, 214–216

228 Index

United Nations Operations in Somalia (UNOSOM), 11 United Nations Refugee Convention (1951), 28–29, 38, 187 UNOSOM, see United Nations Operations in Somalia

V

Vigh, Henrik, 108n7, 143, 185 Y

Yemen, 8, 35