‘Wasting time’: migratory trajectories of adolescence among Eritrean refugee girls in Khartoum

Abstract

Eritrean adolescent girls’ migration to Khartoum exposes the interplay between aspiration and desire of becoming an adult linked to a specific geographical location, dreams of being else-where, impossibilities of returning, and realities of uncertainties and being-stuck inbetween. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among Eritrean adolescent refugee girls and young women in Khartoum (2014–2016), who see Sudan as a transit place to an imagined ‘better place’ elsewhere. Aspirations and desires of moving elsewhere shape the experiences of and the different transitions associated with one’s life course. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is of critical importance, where aspirations of being elsewhere and the impossibilities of achieving this goal shape the experiences of ‘becoming an adult’. These transitions are also gendered, both in space and across spaces. Using insights from feminist narrative research, I examine how Eritrean refugee girls and young women narrate and experience migration, waiting and transitions in a transitory context of Khartoum. Through hope for mobility and the experience of waiting while faced with protracted uncertainty, I analyse how waithood, personhood and transition to adulthood are experienced.

La migration des adolescentes érythréennes vers Khartoum met en lumière l’interaction entre aspiration et désir de devenir adulte, liée à une région géographique donnée, le rêve d’être ailleurs, l’impossibilité de rentrer, les réalités d’incertitudes et de bloquage entre les deux. Ce document est basé sur un travail de terrain ethnographique réalisé auprès de filles adolescentes et jeunes femmes réfugiées érythréennes à Khartoum (2014–2016), qui voient dans le Soudan un lieu de transit vers un ‘lieu meilleur’ qu’elles imaginent ailleurs. Les aspirations et les désirs d’aller ailleurs façonnent les expériences et les différentes transitions associées au cours de la vie. La transition de l’adolescence à l’âge adulte revêt une importance cruciale, où les aspirations d’aller ailleurs et les impossibilités de réaliser cet objectif façonnent les expériences qu’elles ont de ‘devenir adulte’. Ces transitions sont également différenciées selon le sexe, à la fois dans l’espace et entre les espaces. En utilisant des informations tirées de recherches narratives féministes, j'examine comment les filles et les jeunes femmes réfugiées érythréennes racontent et vivent la migration, l'attente et les transitions dans un contexte transitoire à Khartoum. A travers l’espoir de la mobilité et l’expérience de l’attente face à une incertitude prolongée, j’analyse la manière dont l’attente, la personnalité et la transition vers l’âge adulte sont vécues.

Keywords:

• Eritrea
• Sudan
• migration
• adolescence
• girls
• waiting
• agency
• transitions
• aspirations

Mots clés:

• Eritrée
• Soudan
• migration
• adolescence
• filles
• attente
• agence
• transitions
• aspirations

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my colleagues and especially Marina de Regt for inspiring discussions and comments on earlier versions of this article. My deep gratitude goes to Ruta, Hibret, Bisrat, Bana and all the other Eritrean girls and young women who opened up their homes to me and invited me to share in their lives. This article is in recognition of your everyday struggles.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Names of participants anonymised. All interviews occurred between March 2014 and April 2016 in Khartoum, Sudan. They were conducted in English, Arabic, Tigrinya, Amharic, or Bilen and translated into English. Life stories were recorded and transcribed.

2 The notion of waithood was first used by Dhillon and Yousef (2009) and Singerman (2007) in work on youth in the Middle East and North Africa.

3 While the distinction between voluntary and forced migration has been widely criticized in academic discourse as confused, politically it remains important to underscore the circumstances that precipitate migration, as they link to international protection extended to some migrants and not others.

4 I use migration and forced migration interchangeably here, because most of my respondents referred to their move as migration, as moving. This is not to deny the difference between forced and voluntary movement, but rather to acknowledge that the motives might be diverse and might change during the different phases of movement.

5 For example, migration prolonging stages of adulthood with marriages and child bearing postponed.

6 In Eritrea, people below 5 and over 50 years old are able to travel outside the country. Thus, parents of several research participants regularly visited, sometimes staying more than several weeks.

7 Source: fieldwork, 2014–2016.

Additional information

Funding

The research is funded by the Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS) and carried out in collaboration with Terre des Hommes, Girl Effect Ethiopia, the University of Dhaka, and the Ahfad University for Women, Omdurman in Sudan.