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ABSTRACT
Drawing on two periods of fieldwork (2007–2008 and 2019–2020) conducted between Somaliland and Italy, this article traces, from a longitudinal perspective, the migratory journeys from Somalia to Libya and Europe of a new generation of young asylum-seekers. The underlying thread linking the two temporal frames is the transformations of the word tahriib. Travelling between Libya and Somalia, the word takes on new meanings: while in the emerging institutional language on migration, the word referred to growing dimensions of control and containment of mobility (in Arabic it refers to human smuggling), for the new generation of young Somali asylum-seekers it alluded initially to a dimension of danger, adventure, and generational rupture, and then became increasingly associated with violence and disruption. These transformations, I argue, reveal the shifting social worlds of Somali youth migration, where protracted crises in the country of origin and struggles for social inclusion in the new transnational Somali society had to adjust to increasingly restrictive forms of regulation of international migration. As the destructive transformations of tahriib unfold, their effects pervade not only the areas of origin and transit but also affect the attempts at integration in European countries, showing the deceitful and uncertain nature of diaspora.
Acknowledgements
This article stems from various fieldwork periods on tahriib conducted in Somaliland and Italy from 2005 to 2020. The people who helped and supported me over this period are many and scattered in different locations, and it would be impossible to make a comprehensive list. I am grateful to all of them for their protection, friendship and insights. The two video workshops mentioned in the article (2008: Dhoof baa I galay; 2019: I ragazzi del tahriib) were made with the collaboration of Alessandra Bozza, Monica Fagioli, Nancy Aluigi Nannini, Academy for Peace and Development in Hargeysa (2008) and Elena Bedei in Italy (2019). I am particularly grateful to all the travellers I met, I wish them way more than luck, in any place they may reach.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Lindley, Leaving Mogadishu.
2 Ciabarri, “Productivity of Refugee Camps”; Declich, “Fostering Ethnic Reinvention”; Horst, Transnational Nomads; Hyndman, Managing Displacement.
3 Carrier, Little Mogadishu, Carrier, Lochery “Missing States?”; Iazzolino, Hersi, “Shelter from the Storm”; Thompson, “Scaling statelessness.”
4 Abdi, Elusive Jannah; Bjork, Somalis Abroad; Horst, Transnational Nomads; Kusow and Bjork, From Mogadishu
to Dixon; Lindley, The Early Morning Phone Call. The extraversion of the Somali political elites – see Bayart, “Africa in the World” – was followed by the extraversion of the entire society: see Ciabarri, “Estroversione della società.”
5 Bernal, Nation as Network; Dereje Feyissa, “The transnational politics”; Falge, The Global Nuer; Iyob, “The Ethiopian-Eritrean Conflict”; Poole, “Ransoms, Remittances and Refuge.”
6 Involving large sectors of the population irrespective of age, sex, wealth or social status.
7 The term irregular and undocumented are here used interchangeably to refer to the border crossing of migrants outside of state sanctioned regulatory norms or border posts.
8 Ayalew, “Refugee Protections from Below”; Belloni, The Big Gamble; Massa, “Waiting for an opportunity”; Schapendonk, “Migrants' Im/Mobilities”; Schapendonk, “Navigating the migration industry.”
9 See Ciabarri and Simonsen, “Fragments of solidarity,” in this special issue.
10 Marx, “The Social Worlds of Refugees.”
11 Ibidem, p 189.
12 Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland; Little, Economy Without State.
13 I refer to studies on the social, historical and existential dimension of African youth, stressing the impossibility of social becoming, expectations, local and global imaginaries of future, sense of waithood, uncertainty: see Christiansen, Utas, Vigh, Navigating Youth; Graw, Schielke, The Global Horizon, Honwana, De Boeck Makers & Breakers, Triulzi, McKenzie, Long Journeys.
14 Andersson, Illegalitiy Inc.; Geiger, Pécoud, The Politics of International; den Heijer, Rijpma, Spijkerboer, “Coercion, prohibition, and great expectations.”
15 The role of diaspora and remittances is extensively discussed in the Somali studies. For a recent assessment: Kleist and Masud Abdi, Global Connections.
16 Ciabarri, “Dynamics and Representations.”
17 This is a succinct description of a complex phenomenon: for a full picture we should also take into account, in Europe, the partial harmonization of the recognition rules for asylum applications, including the introduction of the subsidiary protection and in Libya the increased connection of its space with migratory circuits in Sudan and the Horn of Africa.
18 Ali, Going on Tahriib; Geeldoon, We kissed the ground.
19 Networks of dissolution was the title of Anna Simmons’s book (1995) which portrayed the decline of the Siyad Barre’s regime and its descent into state collapse and civil conflict.
20 Alternatively, it was referred to for the route towards Yemen.
21 Horst, “Buufis amongst Somalis in Dadaab”; Rousseau et al., “Between myth and madness.”
22 Horst, “Buufis amongst Somalis in Dadaab.”
23 Ciabarri, “Estroversione della società.”
24 Bensaâd, “L’immigration en Libye.”
25 Morone, “Cycle of migrants’ containment.”
26 Hamood, African Transit Migration.
27 Just to name a second one: the strait between Somalia and Yemen from the early 2000s emerged as another irregular migration route (officially referred to as East African route), crossed mainly by groups from Ethiopia, but also partly by Somalis. At the same time, it is also an historical commercial route, in which it is evident the overlap of the two fields of application of the term tahriib: goods (first) and people (subsequently).
28 In sum, my perspective on migrant smuggling and trafficking does not present them as, alternatively, mere creation of European discourses on border controls or as unique organizers of migration. On this opposition see Zhang, Sanchez, Achilli, “Crimes of Solidarity in Mobility.”
29 Hamood, African Transit Migration; Triluzi, MacKenzie, Long Journeys.
30 Ali, Going on Tahriib; Simonsen, Tahriib.
31 Hamood, African Transit Migration.
32 Triulzi, “Like a Plate of Spaghetti.”
33 Hamood, African Transit Migration, p. 31.
34 Human Rights Watch. Sinai Perils: Risks to Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers in Egypt and Israel. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2008.
35 Kidnappings, ransom, extortion are in reality reported along many migrant routes, from the border between Iran and Afghanistan and further west, to the border between Mexico and the US. They look like as recurrent outcome of the most mature migratory routes, where well-established systems of exploitation by smugglers/traffickers combine with control and repression by state agents.
36 Ali, Going on Tahriib; see also Simonsen and Tarabi, this issue
37 Elwert, “Markets of violence.”
38 United Nations Support Mission in Libya & Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Desperate and Dangerous: Report on the human rights situation of migrants and refugees in Libya, 20 Dec. 2018.
39 Brubaker, “The diaspora diaspora”; Kleist, “In the Name of Diaspora.”