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Standing on one leg Mobility, money and power in East Africa’s Somali social networks Gianluca Iazzolino PhD The University of Edinburgh 2016 Declaration This thesis has been composed by myself from results of my own work, except where stated otherwise. It has not been submitted in any previous application for a degree. July 2016 i Abstract My thesis examines dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within Somali social networks in East Africa. It focuses on Somali mobility patterns and financial practices to draw insights on the maintenance, reproduction, and transformation of both solidarity ties and inequalities. By examining Somali communities in Kenya, host of the largest Somali refugee population outside of Somalia, and Uganda, an increasingly important recipient of Somali refugees and migrants, this thesis seeks to understand how mechanisms of social stratification rooted in Somali socio-cultural structures are reproduced in mixed migration flows encompassing both forced and voluntary migrants. It analyses sets of relationships whose continuity and changes are regulated by the interaction of structure, agency, and institutions, and argues, on the one hand, that networks are dominated by groups who hold sway over economic and political resources, precluding others from accessing key assets that may help challenge relations of subordination. On the other, that pre-existing inequalities hinder on the capability to move across both physical and institutional categories. These inequalities can be traced back to asymmetric clan relationships shaped by Somali historical trajectories before and after the implosion of the state. However, this thesis suggests also that kin relationships only partially explain why and how bonds are sustained and forged. Instead, by observing the mechanisms that animate networks, reproducing both solidarity and marginalisation, this thesis teases out how new linkages are created and how Somalis communities accommodate to specific institutional settings, either adapting to narrowing windows of opportunity or maximising the benefits that may be yielded from their widening. The thread running throughout this thesis is the argument that mobility contributes not only to accessing and mobilising strategic resources but also to shaping processes of social stratification. By using ethnographic methods of data collection, this thesis seeks to shed light on rifts in Somali social networks often masked by the veneer of trust. ii Acknowledgments Tom Molony and Jamie Cross, my supervisors, have helped me fight off the demons of procrastination and see things more clearly along the way. Tom Molony, in particular, was the first one to welcome me in Edinburgh when, in 2011, I handed in a draft for a research project much different from the one which was to become this thesis. Lucy Lowe, Robert MacDonald, Peter Chomka, Diego Maria Malara, Mohamed Hersi and Leila Sinclair-Bright have offered precious comments on the draft. I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for funding my PhD and to the Institute of Money Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) University of California Irvine for supporting my fieldwork (Subaward No. 2013-2929). I thank in particular Bill Maurer and Jenny Fan. I was lucky to first meet, by chance, Neil Carrier in a restaurant in Eastleigh in 2011 and have a first insightful conversation with him over a goat soup. The conversation has continued ever since. In Nairobi, Mark Bradbury at the Rift Valley Institute has encouraged me to write a briefing for the RVI which later became chapter 5 of this thesis. Julie McDowall-Lawson at FAO Somalia provided me with precious contacts to acquire information in Somalia and Somaliland. iii During my fieldwork, I have collected many debts with my informants, and some of them have become friends. I am referring in particular to Omar Abu Omar, Abdi ‘Senegal’, Adams Mohamoud Hussein and Mohamed Abdullahi in Nairobi and Shukri Islow and Hussein Mohamed in Kampala. In Eastleigh, I am thankful to Sayyed ‘grazie maestro’ Ali, Sheik Durman, Mohamed Kidogo, Abdikadir Osman and his beautiful family, Muhubo Salad and his cousin Liban, Ferdowsa Abdir and her family, Saba, Fatuma, Bashir and the ‘gang’ of the exchange market, Jamal Yussuf, Hamda Sala, Adams Mohammed, Abdul Xadir, Abdel Nassir, Hassan, Abdi Fatah, Abdiqadir Ali, Prof Ibrahim Farrah at the University of Nairobi, Edmund Langata of the Refugee Consortium of Kenya, Abdi Aziz, Feisal Abdul Axmed, Yussuf Isaq, MJ, Axmed Abdullahi. Fieldwork in the Kakuma refugee camp would not have been possible without the support of Refugee United, in particular Alexandra Aparicio, and the help of Ibrahim Mual, Dahir Abdullah, Omar Ahmed Mohammed, Kero Abdi Isaq, Akhyiar Mustaf and Aisha Mahmoud. Prof Omar Eno and Dan Van Lehman have shared with me their knowledge and their passion over the plight of the Jareer people. Eventually, I thank my family, and Veronika, for bearing with my absences and being such a great partner. iv Prologue 1 Introduction 8 Rationale of the study and research questions 9 Methodology 11 Choice of the sampling 13 Multi-sited ethnography 15 Interactions with the informants 16 Organisation of the thesis 17 1 Literature review and theoretical framework 19 Discussing mobility 19 The significance of ‘sticky’ places 21 African Migrations in Africa 23 Diasporas between security and development 26 Remitting trust 28 Digital diasporas 30 African nodes of low-end globalisation 31 Urban livelihoods between the formal and informal 33 Social networks as theoretical framework 37 What we talk about when we talk about networks 37 Variety of social networks 41 Mechanisms of social exclusion 45 Culture, agency and power in networks 50 2 Clanship in Somali history through colonial and postcolonial times 55 Introduction 55 An encounter 56 Framing clanship in Somalia 59 The Somali grand narrative 60 Islam and clanship 63 Somali minorities 65 Somalia before Independence 72 v Somalia under Italian rule 75 Somali Independence 77 The 1969 Somali revolution 79 The rise of the remittance industry 81 The Ogaden war and the beginning of the end 82 Conclusions 86 3 Conflict, crisis, and mobilities 88 Introduction 88 Of games, fashion, and war 89 War, Humanitarian Intervention 92 Havoc and famine in Gosha 94 Questioning the failing state narrative 98 Strategic convergences 99 The TFG and the ‘4.5 formula’ 100 The 2006 Ethiopian invasion and the rise of Al-Shabaab 101 Famine and relief 103 Somalis in Kenya 104 Refugee flows to Kenya 106 Conclusions 107 4 Hustle and bustle in Little Mogadishu 111 Introduction 111 The road to Eastleigh 112 ‘Openly informal’ 117 A time of uncertainty 120 Fear and desire 121 Little Mogadishu rises 125 Changes and consolidation 127 Eastleigh’s communicative ecology 131 Eastleigh’s voices 135 Digital remittances 140 vi The emergence of an ethnic niche 141 Conclusions 144 5 Follow the money 145 Introduction 145 Spinning the spindle 146 Unpacking trust 149 The ‘myth’ of trust 151 Obligations and debts 152 Money-go-round Somali style 154 Social capital as collateral 157 Remitting the past and the future 158 When kinship is not enough 161 Converting capital, producing value 164 Intersecting platforms 167 Taking financial choices 169 Informal interoperability 170 The exchange market 172 Preserving multiplicity, cultivating alternatives 176 Conclusions 178 6 Crossing borders in troubled times 180 Introduction 180 Troubles in Eastleigh 181 An emerging ‘migration system’ in a volatile context 183 “Should I stay or should I go?” .. 186 The route to Kampala 190 A new Little Mogadishu takes shape . 193 Youth mobility 196 The role of student associations 198 Regional connections 200 Strategic synergies 202 vii Conclusions 204 7 Power and class in a humanitarian space 206 Arriving in Kakuma 207 History and topography of Kakuma 212 Social differentiation, space, economy, security 219 Biometric systems and foodstuff sale 224 “Thanks to America, I became a Bantu” 227 A vicious circle of poverty 233 Conclusions 237 Conclusions 239 References 246 viii Prologue We hung out after iftar. The drifting chant of the muezzin was a spiritual watershed between the day’s atonement and the evening’s respite. Silence fell on the streets of Eastleigh, and the entire neighbourhood remained suspended for the time of the prayer, the noises of Nairobi buzzing at a distance. Then the Sura Qadr ended, and Somalis of all ages, mostly men, poured out of the mosques, rushing home or to other venues where they would break the fasting of the Ramadan. The restaurants filled quickly. I usually met with Hassan on the balcony of the Andalus Hotel, where local notables sat around large plates of pasta and rice and camel meat. In their pockets, they kept Kenyan identity cards, foreign passports, UNHCR cards or, sometimes, all of them together. Yet, Little Mogadishu, as this area of the Kamkunji constituency was known across Kenya, was the mirror of their sense of belonging. A crucible where they conjured up their troubled homeland, by speaking Somali in the streets, recognising Somali faces at every corner, and ‘living a Somali life’, as many said. Eastleigh was a mooring to Somalia in the heart of Nairobi, for Somalis coming from both the homeland and the diaspora.