‘Home is home’: journeying and living from Ethiopia to Johannesburg

ABSTRACT

An Ethiopian immigrant in Johannesburg, Mewish, describes the housing she has lived in since leaving Ethiopia in 2002. The interview is framed as a testimony to the kinds of daily actions towards finding shelter and making a home that might be considered forms of micro activism, daily actions of resistance and change making in precarious housing circumstances.

KEYWORDS:

• Housing
• refugees
• South Africa
• Ethiopia
• activism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Aliases are used throughout for Mewish and her children.

2. Hannah Le Roux’s 2014 scholarly vignette, The Ethiopian Quarter, offers a rich image of this area of Johannesburg, and Tanya Zack and Yordanos Seifu Estifanos unpack the contemporary Ethiopian immigrant experience in Johannesburg more generally (2016).

3. At the time of the interview (December 2017), Anthony was six and Lola was four.

4. A suburb on the far western side of Johannesburg.

5. A question I knew the answer to. When Mewish moved out of Bienvenu, she moved into the small flat block next door.

6. The Bienvenu social worker at the time.

7. Zulberg and Mamela Estate are both prominent letting agents in the inner city. Both would be involved in the City’s arrangement to subsidise housing managed by private agents in order to address the social housing crisis (Zack et al, 2016: 53).

8. A wealthy suburb on the east side of the city, not far from Bertrams, characterised by impressive houses on big stands and townhouse complexes, many new-builds, some older but few built before the 1970s.

9. Colloquial South African expression of uncertainty or dismay.

10. One of the other women living at the shelter at the same time as Mewish and her family. Abarash and her husband were happily married but separated temporarily while waiting for their refugee status to be secured. Abarash and their two children lived at Bienvenu, while her husband rented a room nearby in Bertrams. Subsequently, Abarash’s family were granted asylum in America and were relocated to Houston through an international refugee placement programme.

11. People Opposing Women Abuse is a South African not-for-profit organisation, which provides services to women who have experienced abuse as well as advocating for women’s rights.

12. Bienvenu provides a free crèche service for all current and former residents of the shelter.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation, South Africa [F14/25].