Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) 1-1-2011 Making Moral Worlds: Individual and Social Processes of Meaning-Making in a Somali Diaspora Anna Jacobsen Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Recommended Citation Jacobsen, Anna, "Making Moral Worlds: Individual and Social Processes of Meaning-Making in a Somali Diaspora" (2011). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 592. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/592 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Anthropology Dissertation Examination Committee: John R. Bowen, chair Geoff Childs Carolyn Lesorogol Rebecca Lester Shanti Parikh Timothy Parsons Carolyn Sargent Making Moral Worlds: Individual and Social Processes of Meaning Making in a Somali Diaspora by Anna Lisa Jacobsen A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2011 Saint Louis, Missouri Abstract: I argue that most Somalis living in exile in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya are deeply concerned with morality both as individually performed and proven, and as socially defined, authorized and constructed. In this dissertation, I explore various aspects of Somali morality as it is constructed, debated, and reinforced by individual women living in Eastleigh. I examine a variety of ways in which Somali women in Eastleigh identify morality and ethical behavior. I argue that this metaethical project is not an artifact of analysis, but is a useful way of capturing how Somalis in Kenya and elsewhere are undertaking a dialogue and exploration of what constitutes “the moral.” The contours of such projects vary depending on local context, and I endeavor to look carefully at how this unfolds in one specific place, at one specific time. Yet I argue that some of the processes of metaethical reflection I describe here, and how they related to people’s sense of Somali identity in diaspora, are active in other contexts as well. As I will show throughout this dissertation, this metaethical project designed to define the good and bad serves not only social ends, but individual, spiritual and psychological ones as well. This process has not created a univocal narrative or definition of the moral. Identifying the moral takes place within tensions between the clan structures, which organized social and moral worlds, and some nascent or even purely imagined social orders. It also emerges amidst and within the tensions among diverse ways of understandings Islamic commands and ethics, and within debates about mental and spiritual health. The metaethical project undertaken by Somalis in Eastleigh is one of multiple moralities and is therefore multivocal and contextually varied, even while it is the case that most of the people with whom I spoke saw themselves as engaged in such a project. Here I wish to highlight that the project of cultivating moral personhood extends both deeply within individual persons as well as extending far beyond them. ii Acknowledgements There are many people deserving of my deepest gratitude for their support, assistance, guidance, love, mentorship and friendship. Without them, I can honestly say I would not have been able to do this. Here I would like to name a few. To my family, particularly Petra and Peter Lenzini, and Joel Jacobsen, you have been my foundation. From late nights helping me enter bibliographic data into Endnote and into my manuscript, to wonderful family-fun-nights where we sat on the back porch and laughed, I am indebted to you and I love you so much. Mom and Dad, thank you for your love, encouragement and for believing in me. To my committee members, John Bowen, Rebecca Lester, Geoff Childs, Carolyn Sargent and Shanti Parikh, your support and encouragement went above and beyond. I have benefited personally, intellectually, and academically from each of you. John, your mentorship has been a gift; I have loved working with you and talking to you from the very beginning. Thank you for believing in me. To the other members of my committee, Tim Parsons and Carolyn Lesorogol, thank you for your insights, suggestions, and comments. And to the rest of the faculty and staff in the department of Anthropology at Washington University, thank you. Kathleen and Elaine, I know you are personally responsible for helping me hundreds of times over the last years. Lou Brown, although you are no longer in St. Louis, I want to thank you for your friendship and intellectual support and guidance both while at Washington University and since then. Finally, Fiona Marshall and T.R. Kidder, thank you for your interest in me and my work, for the various opportunities you provided me, and for the constant support you have given me. I would be remiss to neglect to acknowledge all the love I feel toward my wonderful friends, around the world. Katie and Steph, my writing buddies, we did it! I will cherish all the insane, intense conversations we had as much as the belly-laugh- inducing moments we shared over the years. To my girls in Monday night “Group Therapy” at Pi, thank you. LeAndra thank you for all of your love. To all of the rest of my friends, I look forward to continue laughing with you for a very long time. Robert Kimbui, Lynsey Farrell, Anne Sweeney and Meghan Ference, you were my Kenyan rocks. Thank you. And Judith, thank you for your wisdom and kindness. Of course, none of this would have been possible without all of the men and women in Eastleigh who were willing to spend time with me, talking to me, teaching me, and encouraging me. Osop, Maryan and Yahye, you are at the top of that list. I could not have done this research without your insight, assistance, friendship, guidance and humor. Osop, you are fearless and one of the most compassionate and loving people I have ever known. Yahye, I laugh with few people as much as I laugh with you. Thank you for sitting for hours and hours with me going over all of my data, thinking with me, and talking to me. Maryan, you are a beautiful, kind, intelligent, and loving woman and I will cherish our friendship forever. I would like to thank the Washington University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Utrecht University, the American Philosophical Society, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Grant Foundation, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies program for the financial support and research support each organization and institution gave me along the way. iii Abraham Woolsey Lenzini, you are the future. You can do anything you put your mind to, and in that vein I dedicate this to you. iv Contents Acknowledgements Dedication 1. Introduction: On Moral Breakdowns, Ethical Selves, and Creative Re-imaginations 2. Making a Moral State and Moving Along 3. Mapping Morality 4. Possessing Morality 5. Moral Journeys, Moral narratives 6. Moral Madness 7. Poetics of Morality 8. Conclusions 9. Epilogue: Facebook Fatwas Works Consulted v 1. Introduction On Morality, Moral Creativity, and Moral Crisis Introduction “Do you see that cooking stove over there?” Hamdi asked me. I dutifully looked at the cooking stove and nodded using every ounce of willpower I could muster not to roll my eyes. I struggled because this question introduced the message of nearly every lesson I was taught and my reactions wavered from finding the question tiresome to finding it hilarious. During my dissertation fieldwork among Somali refugee women living in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya, I spent countless hours listening to different people tell me that I had done something wrong. This particular lesson would be about nail polish. I was interviewing an elderly woman about her new political poetry with an audience of a dozen of her close friends and family. As usual, I was wearing a buibui1 and, as I had learned to do early in my research, I tucked my feet under the hem of the gown when I sat. In the middle of listening to her talk about the moment she first realized that Allah had given her the gift of poetry, I shifted my weight slightly on the bed and my bare right big toe poked out from under the robe revealing bright purple toenail polish. It did not go unnoticed. Rodo, a 22 year-old Aqwaani2 woman’s eyes bulged and she 1 A buibui is the long, thin, black robe women wear over their clothing in many parts of the Muslim world. It is thinner than the jilbaabs and burqas, which are also commonly worn. 2 Aqwaani is the term Somalis use to refer to people who follow the Wahhabbi, or Salafi path of Sunni Islam. Although this Somali word sounds quite similar to the Ikhwan, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, they are not the same in Somali society. I go into more detail about how these and other terms are used to 1 whirled around to whisper something in the ear of her friend, Asha. Asha found and fixated on the offending digit. In spite of my attempts to subtly re-conceal my naked toe and its painted nail, Asha loudly interrupted the old poet to ask her auntie, a large woman in her mid-40s, who was sitting across the room, “Auntie, do you remember that story of the girl who painted her toenails and then suddenly died?” With hardly a moment’s pause the women in the room nodded and proceeded to collectively construct the story of the young, worldly woman who, because her toenail polish would not come off as they prepared her dead body, could not be buried in a Muslim cemetery and consequently she went to hell, which brings me back to where I started: Do you see that cooking stove over there? Do you see the hot coals burning there? Would you want to live in there for all eternity? Because that is what hell is like – only hotter.