BEING HERE Emplacement and Displacement in the Life Stories of two Somali- Australians by Annika Lems This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology 2013. ii Abstract Our age is often described in terms of movement, instability and uncertainty, leading to the sense of homelessness or uprootedness that John Berger once described to be the “quintessential experience” of our time. Struck by this fluidity, many Western intellectuals came to long for a means of replacing the rigid and suffocating narrowness of national belonging with the lightness and ease of the vagabond, the nomad, the traveller, who, owning nothing but her own life, slips in and out of different worlds. Displacement came to be seen as paradigmatic of a time of deterritorialisation and refugees came to be the symbolic figures of this age of movement and fluctuation, challenging established notions of a “national order of things” (Malkki 1995b), of a world that can be neatly mapped and of cultures that are deeply rooted in places that belong to them. But these sentiments often left unanswered the question of how being-at-home or being- without-home is actually lived. Do important existential categories such as home, territoriality and belonging cease to exist in the face of displacement? How do people shape and re-shape them? How is displacement made sense of in everyday life and in relation to a wider place-world? Using these questions as a starting point, this thesis focuses on the life stories of Halima and Omar, two Somalis in their mid-fifties living in Melbourne, and discusses the interrelated meanings of emplacement and displacement. It also works with a series of photographs taken by Mohamed, who, upon returning to war-torn Mogadishu after thirty years abroad, began depicting his relationship to lost, ruined and imagined places. Mirroring the particularities of Mohamed’s, Omar’s and Halima’s experiences of place, displacement and home-building with fragments of the author’s own story of movement and emplacement, the thesis takes a critical look at the use of the figure of the refugee as a metaphor for alienation and estrangement from society. Halima’s and Omar’s stories and Mohamed’s photographs give an insight into the struggles and violent forces that at times crushed their hopes, and the strengths and capabilities that allowed them to regain a sense of balance. Their stories stand in stark iii contrast to ‘refugee stories’ as mere documents of trauma, instability and victimhood and speak for a more complex understanding of displacement. The contrast between the metaphorical use of the figure of the refugee as nomadic, rhizomic, or deterritorialised and Omar’s and Halima’s lived experience suggests that much of the contemporary reading of displacement as a placeless phenomenon is built on an uncritical and confused understanding of space and movement. While roots have come to stand for the postmodern “horror of being bound and fixed” (Bauman 1995: 91), this horror doesn’t seem to be shared by Halima, Mohamed or Omar, who fear remaining in transit forever, never arriving anywhere, never again becoming someone in relation to somewhere. Rather than focusing on the metaphorical treatment of space as boundless and open- ended, the particularities of Halima’s and Omar’s stories demonstrate the need for a more complex and nuanced view of displacement, one that takes the material and geographical location of social life more seriously and attempts to “get back into place” (Casey 1993). iv Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my deep and heartfelt gratitude to Halima Mohamed, Omar Farah Dhollawa and Mohamed Ibrahim, whose stories have filled this thesis with life. There aren’t enough words to thank them for their generosity, for their readiness to let me into their lives and for all the time and effort they invested in this project. Mahadsanid! I also want to thank Klaus Neumann and Peter Browne, my supervisors, who have travelled this journey with me from the very beginning. I want to thank them for their support and guidance, but also for their openness to writing a thesis that doesn’t follow a conventional path. Their encouragement to explore and challenge my writing allowed me to open my mind to new possibilities, and to gain strength and confidence in my ability as a storytelling academic. Working with them made this PhD experience a true academic apprenticeship, and I am grateful for this opportunity. Like any academic work, this thesis didn’t grow in solitude. Rather, the many conversations and discussions I had with colleagues, friends and family members also formed my thinking and have left their imprints on this PhD. I would like to thank all participants of Klaus Neumann’s residential seminars for their generous and constructive feedback to some of my draft chapters. A heartfelt thank you goes to my friends and colleagues Zoe Robertson, Stefanie Scherr, Josefine Raasch, Jasmina Kijevcanin, Wadzanai Machena, Michaela Callaghan, Katherine Wilson and Skye Krichauff. I would also like to thank all the people at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research who, in creating a productive and welcoming environment, enhanced the writing and thinking process. I am particularly indebted to Sandy Gifford for the time she dedicated to reading and commenting on my chapters, but also for her readiness to share some of her own experiences as an anthropologist with me. I would also like to express a warm thanks to my colleague and friend Chris Wilson and his family, who invited me to stay with them after my arrival in Australia and accompanied me in my first steps (and runs) through Melbourne. Furthermore, I want to express my gratitude to my former teacher and supervisor Sabine Strasser from the University of Vienna (now Bern) from whom I have learned so much. v Finally, I want to thank all those people close to my heart who have travelled this journey with me: Sahra and Sagal Mohamed for becoming my sisters; Christine Moderbacher for late-night or early-morning Skype-sessions and for accompanying me throughout the way; Eva Lindtner, Abdi Mujeeb and Ursula Wagner for friendship and inspiration; and finally Paul Reade for being there with me and for me and for making me laugh when I felt like giving up. Last but not least I want to thank my family who have let me move to the other end of the world and to whom so much of my writing is directed: My father Dennis Lems, my mother Ingeborg Lientscher and my brothers and sisters Florian, Eva, Lisa, Christian and Jonathan Lems. vi Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text. To the best of my knowledge this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text. Where the work is based on joint research or publications, this thesis discloses the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors. Annika Lems vii viii Table of Contents I. Introduction .......................................................................... 1 1. Greeting Xamar ...................................................................... 2 2. Mapping the Field ................................................................ 12 Juncture .................................................................................. 29 II. Born of and into the World .............................................. 31 1. Thinking What We Are Doing ............................................. 32 2. Storied Lives ........................................................................ 51 Juncture .................................................................................. 80 III. Emplacement .................................................................. 83 1. Placing Somalia .................................................................... 84 2. Living One-Eyed ................................................................ 103 3. An Accidental Move .......................................................... 119 4. Home-Building ................................................................... 129 5. Homewards ........................................................................ 141 Juncture ................................................................................ 154 IV. Displacement .................................................................. 157 1. At Home in the Universe .................................................... 158 2. The Poetics of Somali Womanhood .................................. 180 3. Displaced Stories ................................................................ 198 4. Placeless Dreams ................................................................ 216 V. Conclusion ........................................................................ 233 Bibliography ......................................................................... 244 Appendix ............................................................................... 270 ix x Die Welt ist groß, doch in uns wird sie tief wie Meeresgrund. The world is large, but in us it becomes deep as the bottom of the sea. (Rainer Maria Rilke) xi I Introduction 1 1. GREETING XAMAR (©Mohamed Ibrahim) After Mohamed disembarked from the plane and set foot in the city he had left behind thirty years ago, he knelt