https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3642-8263
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ABSTRACT
In the Processo Agaish trial, Italian prosecutors accused Eritrean refugees of human trafficking and exploiting their clients’ desires to move further North. Pointing out the mistranslation of the Tigrinya word agaish was part of the defense's strategy to show that the purported victims in this case were not clients, but guests, often family members of those accused who hosted them, not for money but for something akin to hospitality. Defense lawyers linked this case with activist efforts to decry instances where solidarity with asylum seekers was criminalized as aiding and abetting human trafficking in order to expose this criminalization of solidarity as the latest politically motivated tactic in migrant deterrence. This article details the culturally specific forms of caretaking amongst Eritreans in order to consider, from an Eritrean perspective, the relational aspects of care and rethink the scholarship on the ‘criminalization of solidarity’ that limits itself to understanding solidarity in terms of politics. This article further argues that relational ties and hospitality practices amongst agaish become fragmented in the Eritrean diaspora. This work is based on ethnographic fieldwork with the Eritrean refugee community living primarily in Rome from 2016 to 2018 and access to case files in a human-trafficking investigation.
Acknowledgements
The deepest gratitude goes to the Eritrean community members and collaborators, without whom none of this work would be possible. Many thanks as well to the legal team of the Agaish trial, including those up in the balcony. Additionally, a thank you is extended to the editors of this volume and the peer reviewers who offered thoughtful feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Tesfagiorgis, Eritrea. 210.
2 Ayalew Mengiste, “Refugee Protections from Below”; Maher, “Out of West Africa”; Brachet, “Manufacturing Smugglers”; and Zhang, Sanchez, and Achilli, “Crimes of Solidarity in Mobility.”
3 Mezzadra and Stierl, “The Mediterranean Battlefield of Migration”; Lucia Gennari and Enrica Rigo, “Il diritto di Carola.” DINAMOpress, 2 July 2019. https://www.dinamopress.it/news/il-diritto-di-carola/; Lucia Gennari and Enrica Rigo, “Processo alla solidarietà.” il manifesto, 22 February 2021. https://ilmanifesto.it/processo-alla-solidarieta/; Rigo, “Struggles for Freedom”; and Tazzioli, “Crimes of Solidarity.”
4 Mohamed, “Afterward”; Belloni et al., “Much More Than Just Money”; Bernal, Nation as Network; Berhane, “Eritrea, A Diaspora in Two Parts”; and Treiber and Hepner, “The immediate, the exceptional.”
5 ColtivAzione. 2024 “Progetto Di Tutela Legale per Persone Migranti e Rifugiati.”
6 Brachet, “Manufacturing Smugglers.”
7 Maher, “Out of West Africa.”
8 Belloni, The Big Gamble.
9 Ayalew Mengiste, “Refugee Protections from Below.”
10 Bernal, “Diaspora and the Afterlife of Violence.”
11 UN Security Council. 2018. “Letter Dated 5 September 2018 from the Panel of Experts on Libya Established Pursuant to Resolution 1973 (2011) Addressed to the President of the Security Council S/2018/812,” September 5, 2018.
12 Ayalew Mengiste, “Refugee Protections from Below.”
13 “Informativa Conclusiva.” 2016. 10.12.06/0054324. Italian Coast Guard Corps of the Port Captaincies.
14 For a more detailed understanding of remapping the Italian word for friend amiche through affective infrastructures between Eritreans grappling with mass deportation to and from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia keep an eye out for forthcoming work by Sabine Mohamed who presented an early version of this at the 2021 AAAs. Mohamed, “Mass Deportation and Spectral Returns.”
15 Tesfagiorgis, Eritrea, 169; Reisen, Estefanos, and Rijken, The Human Trafficking Cycle; Koser, “Mobilizing New African Diasporas”; and Habtom and Ruys, “Traditional Risk-Sharing.”
16 Transcript of Hearing on November 11, 2017 at Corte di Assise Tribunale di Roma III Sezione Penale. 2018. Pres. ed est. Finiti; imp. Tesfaldet Meles ed altri., 104. (Translation by author)
17 Transcript of Hearing on March 5, 2018 at Corte di Assise Tribunale di Roma III Sezione Penale. 2018. Pres. ed est. Finiti; imp. Tesfaldet Meles ed altri., 84. (Translation by author)
18 Kersch and Mishtal, “Asylum in Crisis.”
19 Transcript of Hearing on November 15, 2017 at Corte di Assise Tribunale di Roma III Sezione Penale. 2018. Pres. ed est. Finiti; imp. Tesfaldet Meles ed altri. (Translation by author)
20 Transcript of Hearing on January 29, 2019 at Corte di Assise Tribunale di Roma III Sezione Penale. 2019. Pres. ed est. Finiti; imp. Tesfaldet Meles ed altri., 43-44. (Translation by author)
21 InfoMigrants. 2018. “French Activist Cedric Herrou Honored in Film for Helping Migrants,” 18 June 2018. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/9988/french-activist-cedric-herrou-honored-in-film-for-helping-migrants
22 Munro, “A Tale of Two Servitudes”; Kempadoo and Doezema, Global Sex Workers; and Mahdavi, Gridlock.
23 Habtom and Ruys, “Traditional Risk-Sharing.”
24 Ibid, 221–2.
25 Ibid, 220.
26 Ibid, 221.
27 Sangiovanni and Viehoff, “Solidarity in Social and Political Philosophy.”
28 Ibid.
29 Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, 24.
30 Tazzioli, “Crimes of Solidarity.”
31 Derrida, “Force of Law”; Benjamin, “Critique of Violence”; Agamben, Homo Sacer; and Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism.
32 Hirt and Mohammad, “‘Dreams Don’t Come True in Eritrea,’” 134.
33 Kibreab, “Forced Labour in Eritrea,” 287; and Kibreab, “The National Service/Warsai-Yikealo Development Campaign.”
34 Poole, “The Youth Has Gone from Our Soil.”
35 Woldemikael, “Introduction to Special Issue.”
36 Derrida, Rogues; Agier, The Stranger as My Guest; Lucht, Darkness Before Daybreak; and Shryock, “Thinking about Hospitality.”
37 See https://euaa.europa.eu/asylum-knowledge/dublin-procedure for background on the Dublin Regulation.
38 Campomori and Ambrosini “Multilevel Governance in Trouble”
39 ECRE, “Protection in Europe”; Giudici, “Beyond Compassionate Aid”; ASGI, “New Pact on Migration and Asylum Feedback”; and Dauvergne, “Making People Illegal.”
40 Roma Fanpage. “Eritrei assolti per favoreggiamento dell’immigrazione.” 24 May 2022. https://www.fanpage.it/roma/eritrei-assolti-per-favoreggiamento-dellimmigrazione-sentenza-storica-fara-giurisprudenza/ (Translation by the author).