Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:25:20.031Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Refugees, Foreign Nationals, and Wageni: Comparing African Responses to Somali Migration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2020

Beth Elise Whitaker
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Host governments have responded to the migration of Somali refugees throughout Africa in recent decades in different ways. Kenyan policymakers have treated Somalis primarily as a security threat, imposing restrictions on them that especially target this group. In South Africa, where economic and political competition fuel xenophobia, Somalis are part of a larger foreign national population that is seen as having disproportionate economic influence. However, Somali Bantus have been welcomed in Tanzania, which granted them citizenship even as it limited the mobility and activities of other refugees. A comparative analysis suggests that the relative balance among security, economic, political, and normative considerations shapes the extent and scope of host government policies.

Résumé:

les gouvernements hôtes ont réagi de différentes manières à la migration des réfugiés somaliens à travers L’Afrique au cours des dernières décennies. Les dirigeants kényans ont traité les Somaliens principalement comme une menace à la sécurité, imposant des restrictions les visant tout particulièrement. En Afrique du Sud, où la concurrence économique et politique alimente la xénophobie, les Somaliens font partie d’une population nationale étrangère plus importante et considérée comme exerçant une influence économique disproportionnée. Cependant, les Bantous somaliens ont été accueillis en Tanzanie, ce qui leur a octroyé la citoyenneté, même si cela a limité la mobilité et les activités d’autres réfugiés. Une analyse comparative suggère que l’équilibre relatif entre les considérations de sécurité, économiques, politiques et normatives conditionne l’étendue et la portée des politiques du gouvernement hôte.

Resumo:

Nas últimas décadas, a atitude dos governos africanos em relação às migrações de refugiados somalis tem assumido expressões variadas. No Quénia, os decisores políticos encaram os somalis sobretudo como uma ameaça à segurança, impondo restrições que afetam especificamente este grupo. Na África do Sul, onde a concorrência económica e política alimenta a xenofobia, os somalis integram a população de origem estrangeira que é vista como detendo uma influência económica desproporcionada. Todavia, os bantu da Somália são bem-vindos na Tanzânia, que lhes concedeu cidadania, mesmo quando impôs restrições à mobilidade e às atividades de outros refugiados. Uma análise comparativa sugere que a dimensão e a abrangência das políticas dos governos de acolhimento são determinadas por um equilíbrio relativo entre a segurança e considerandos de natureza económica, política e jurídica.

Keywords

migrationimmigration policyrefugeescitizenshipSomaliaSouth AfricaKenyaTanzania
Type
Forum: Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Somali Refugee and Migrant Experience
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 18 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2020 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdelaaty, Lamis. 2017. “Debating Refugees: The Domestic Politics of Asylum Policy in Kenya.” Paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, Baltimore, Maryland.Google Scholar
Adamson, Fiona B. 2006. “Crossing Borders: International Migration and National Security.” International Security 31 (1): 165–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
AFP. 2019. “Nairobi Attack Highlights ‘new Generation’ of Shabaab Recruits.” https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/nairobi-attack-highlights-new-generation-of-shabaab-recruits-20190221 (March 21, 2019).Google Scholar
Amnesty International. 2014. “Kenya: Somalis Scapegoated in Counter-Terror Crackdown.” Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/05/kenya-somalis-scapegoated-counter-terror-crackdown/ (March 23, 2019).Google Scholar
Anderson, David M., and McKnight, Jacob. 2015. “Kenya at War: Al-Shabaab and Its Enemies in Eastern Africa.” African Affairs 114 (454): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Art, David. 2011. Inside the Radical Right: The Development of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balakian, Sophia. 2016. “‘Money Is Your Government’: Refugees, Mobility, and Unstable Documents in Kenya’s Operation Usalama Watch.” African Studies Review 59 (2): 87–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balakian, Sophia. 2017. “The Fraudulent Family: Humanitarianism, Security, and Kinship in Refugee Resettlement from Kenya.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Balakian, Sophia. 2020. “In the Spaces of Patchwork Governance: Somalis in Kenya, National Security, and Refugee Resettlement Bureaucracy.” African Studies Review 63 (1): 43–64. doi: 10.1017/asr.2019.53Google Scholar
Bannon, Brendan, and Wolfcarius, Eveline. 2009. “Somali Bantus Gain Tanzanian Citizenship in Their Ancestral Land.” UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2009/6/4a28cd886/somali-bantus-gain-tanzanian-citizenship-ancestral-land.html (March 22, 2019).Google Scholar
Besteman, Catherine. 2012. “Translating Race across Time and Space: The Creation of Somali Bantu Ethnicity.” Identities 19 (3): 285–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charman, Andrew, and Piper, Laurence. 2012. “Xenophobia, Criminality and Violent Entrepreneurship: Violence against Somali Shopkeepers in Delft South, Cape Town, South Africa.” South African Review of Sociology 43 (3): 81–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claassen, Christopher. 2016. “Group Entitlement, Anger and Participation in Intergroup Violence.” British Journal of Political Science 46 (1): 127–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crush, Jonathan S. 2001. “The Dark Side of Democracy: Migration, Xenophobia and Human Rights in South Africa.” International Migration 38 (6): 103–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crush, Jonathan S., and Peberdy, Sally. 2003. Criminal Tendencies: Immigrants and Illegality in South Africa. Southern Africa Migration Project. Migration Policy Brief, No. 10.Google Scholar
Crush, Jonathan S., and Pendleton, Wade. 2004. Regionalizing Xenophobia? Citizen Attitudes to Immigration and Refugee Policy in Southern Africa. Southern Africa Migration Project. Migration Policy Series, No. 30.Google Scholar
Daley, Patricia. 1992. “The Politics of the Refugee Crisis in Tanzania.” In Tanzania and the IMF: The Dynamics of Liberalization, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Danso, Ransford, and McDonald, David A.. 2001. “Writing Xenophobia: Immigration and the Print Media in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Africa Today 48 (3): 115–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, Gary P. 1995. “Modes of Immigration Politics in Liberal Democratic States.” International Migration Review 29 (4): 881–902.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gettleman, Jeffrey. 2017. “Kenyan Court Blocks Plan to Close Dadaab Refugee Camp.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/world/africa/kenyan-court-blocks-plan-to-close-dadaab-refugee-camp.html (November 8, 2017).Google Scholar
Gisesa, Nyambega. 2019. “Panic in Somalia over KDF Pullout - Daily Nation.” The Daily Nation (Kenya). https://www.nation.co.ke/news/KDF-pullout-sends-Somali-leaders-into-panic/1056-5033066-158201gz/index.html (March 23, 2019).Google Scholar
Givens, Terri, and Luedtke, Adam. 2005. “European Immigration Policies in Comparative Perspective: Issue Salience, Partisanship and Immigrant Rights.” Comparative European Politics 3 (1): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez-Garcia, Jesus et al. 2016. Sub-Saharan African Migration: Patterns and Spillovers. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund.Google Scholar
Gordon, Steven. 2015. “Xenophobia across the Class Divide: South African Attitudes towards Foreigners 2003–2012.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 33 (4): 494–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Steven. 2017. “A Desire for Isolation? Mass Public Attitudes in South Africa Toward Immigration Levels.” Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 15 (1): 18–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Steven. 2018. “Who Is Welcoming and Who Is Not? An Attitudinal Analysis of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in South Africa.” South African Review of Sociology 49 (1): 72–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Steven, and Maharaj, Brij. 2015. “Neighbourhood-Level Social Capital and Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in an African Context: An Individual-Level Analysis of Attitudes towards Immigrants in South Africa.” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 53 (2): 197–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Government of Kenya. 2017. “Government Will Appeal Closure of Dadaab in Interest of National Security.” @SpokespersonGoK. https://twitter.com/SpokespersonGoK/status/829671578396934145/photo/1 (November 8, 2017).Google Scholar
Honig, Lauren. 2016. “Immigrant Political Economies and Exclusionary Policy in Africa.” Comparative Politics 48 (4): 517–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J. 2010. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104 (1): 40–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horst, Cindy. 2006. “Buufis amongst Somalis in Dadaab: The Transnational and Historical Logics behind Resettlement Dreams.” Journal of Refugee Studies 19 (2): 143–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibrahim, Ahmed, Malik, Aditi, and Wielenga, Cori. 2020. “Migration in sub-Saharan Africa: The Somali refugee and migrant experience.” African Studies Review 63 (1): 9–17.Google Scholar
Ikanda, Fred Nyongesa. 2018a. “Animating ‘Refugeeness’ through Vulnerabilities: Worthiness of Long-Term Exile in Resettlement Claims among Somali Refugees in Kenya.” Africa 88 (3): 579–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikanda, Fred Nyongesa. 2018b. “Somali Refugees in Kenya and Social Resilience: Resettlement Imaginings and the Longing for Minnesota.” African Affairs 117 (469): 569–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inman, Kris. 2018. “The Legacy of Exile: Terrorism in and Outside Africa from Osama Bin Laden to Al-Shabaab.” In Africans in Exile: Mobility, Law, and Identity, eds. Carpenter, Nathan Riley and Lawrance, Benjamin N.. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 252–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, Karen. 1996. “Factors Influencing the Policy Responses of Host Governments to Mass Refugee Influxes.” International Migration Review 30 (3): 655–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joppke, Christian. 1998. “Why Liberal States Accept Unwanted Immigration.” World Politics 50 (2): 266–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kabendera, Eric. 2014. “Somali-Bantu Refugees Granted Citizenship at Last.” The East African. https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Tanzania-grants-Somali-Bantu-refugees-citizenship/2558-2340358-kise5iz/index.html (March 26, 2019).Google Scholar
Kibreab, Gaim. 1985. African Refugees: Reflections on the African Refugee Problem. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Landau, Loren B. 2010. “Loving the Alien? Citizenship, Law, and the Future in South Africa’s Demonic Society.” African Affairs 109 (435): 213–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landau, Loren B, ed. 2011. Exorcising the Demons Within: Xenophobia, Violence and Statecraft in Contemporary South Africa. Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press.Google Scholar
Lehman, Dan Van, and Eno, Omar. 2003. The Somali Bantu: Their History and Culture. Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Lindley, Anna. 2010. The Early Morning Phone Call: Somali Refugees’ Remittances. Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Lischer, Sarah Kenyon. 2006. Dangerous Sanctuaries: Refugee Camps, Civil War, and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Little, Peter D. 2003. Somalia: Economy without State. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Lochery, E. 2012. “Rendering Difference Visible: The Kenyan State and Its Somali Citizens.” African Affairs 111 (445): 615–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masethla, Billy L. 2002. “Presentation of the Department of Home Affairs on the Migration System in South Africa.” https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/1307/ (November 5, 2017).Google Scholar
McCormick, Ty. 2016. “In Pursuit of the African Dream.” Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/19/in-pursuit-of-the-african-dream-ethiopia-south-africa-migration-crisis/ (March 21, 2019).Google Scholar
McDonald, David A., and Jacobs, Sean. 2005. “(Re)Writing Xenophobia: Understanding Press Coverage of Cross-Border Migration in Southern Africa.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 23 (3): 295–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McSheffrey, Elizabeth. 2014. “Kisenyi Slum: The Little Mogadishu of Kampala.” The East African. https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/Why-Somalis-feel-at-home-in-Kisenyi-slum-Uganda/434746-2522790-rixv60z/index.html (March 22, 2019).Google Scholar
Menkhaus, Ken. 2006. “Governance without Government in Somalia: Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping.” International Security 31 (3): 74–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menkhaus, Ken. 2010. “The Question of Ethnicity in Somali Studies: The Case of Somali Bantu Identity.” In Milk and Peace, Drought and War: Somali Culture, Society and Politics, eds. Hoehne, Markus V. and Luling, Virginia. New York: Columbia University Press, 87–104.Google Scholar
Money, Jeannette. 1997. “No Vacancy: The Political Geography of Immigration Control in Advanced Industrial Countries.” International Organization 51 (4): 685–720.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Money, Jeannette. 1999. Fences and Neighbors: The Political Geography of Immigration Control. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mosselson, Aidan. 2010. “‘There Is No Difference between Citizens and Non-Citizens Anymore’: Violent Xenophobia, Citizenship and the Politics of Belonging in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (3): 641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neocosmos, Michael. 2010. From “Foreign Natives” to “Native Foreigners”: Explaining Xenophobia in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA).Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, Francis B. 2006. Insiders and Outsiders: Citizenship and Xenophobia in Contemporary Southern Africa. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Peberdy, Sally. 2001. “Imagining Immigration: Inclusive Identities and Exclusive Policies in Post-1994 South Africa.” Africa Today 48 (3): 15–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ripero-Muñiz, Nereida. 2016. “The Port and the Island: Identity, Cosmopolitanism and Islam among Somali Women in Nairobi and Johannesburg.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Faculty of Humanities. University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
Ripero-Muñiz, Nereida, ed. 2017. Metropolitan Nomads: A Journey through Joburg’s Little Mogadishu. Johannesburg: African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
Roble, Abdi, and Rutledge, Doug. 2008. The Somali Diaspora: A Journey Away. University of Minnesota Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/32588 (March 22, 2019).Google Scholar
Rudolph, Christopher. 2003. “Security and the Political Economy of International Migration.” American Political Science Review 97 (4): 603–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutinwa, Bonaventure. 1996. “The Tanzanian Government’s Response to the Rwandan Emergency.” Journal of Refugee Studies 9 (3): 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rydgren, Jens. 2008. “Immigration Sceptics, Xenophobes or Racists? Radical Right-Wing Voting in Six West European Countries.” European Journal of Political Research 47 (6): 737–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samatar, Abdi Ismail, Lindberg, Mark, and Mahayni, Basil. 2010. “The Dialectics of Piracy in Somalia: The Rich versus the Poor.” Third World Quarterly 31 (8): 1377–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schain, Martin A. 2008. The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain, and the United States: A Comparative Study. Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Lahra et al. 2019. “Local Integration and Shared Resource Management in Protracted Refugee Camps: Findings from a Study in the Horn of Africa.” Journal of Refugee Studies Online first.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Lahra, and Carruth, Lauren. 2017. “Wealthier Nations Can Learn from How Tiny Djibouti Welcomes Refugees.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/30/wealthier-nations-can-learn-from-how-tiny-djibouti-welcomes-refugees/ (March 21, 2019).Google Scholar
Southern African Migration Project. 2008. The Perfect Storm: The Realities of Xenophobia in Contemporary South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa).Google Scholar
Soysal, Yasemin Nuhoglu. 1994. Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Jonny. 2014. A Man of Good Hope. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Jonny. 2018. “Xenophobia and Collective Violence in South Africa: A Note of Skepticism About the Scapegoat.” African Studies Review 61 (3): 119–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 2001. Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Daniel K. 2016. “Risky Business and Geographies of Refugee Capitalism in the Somali Migrant Economy of Gauteng, South Africa.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (1): 120–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmer, Ashley S., and Williams, Jeffrey G.. 1998. “Immigration Policy Prior to the 1930s: Labor Markets, Policy Interactions, and Globalization Backlash.” Population and Development Review 24 (4): 739–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNHCR. 2018. “UNHCR Population Statistics Database: Mid-Year Trends 2018.” popstats.unhcr.org. http://popstats.unhcr.org (March 22, 2019).Google Scholar
UNHCR Tanzania. 2010. Finding a Home on Ancestral Land: Somali Bantu Refugees Gaining Citizenship in Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: UNHCR Tanzania. https://www.unhcr.org/protection/integration/4c4444266/finding-home-ancestral-land-somali-bantu-refugees-gaining-citizenship-tanzania.html (April 25, 2019).Google Scholar
United Nations. 2017. Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2017 Revision. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (United Nations database, POP/DB/MIG/Stock/Rev.2017).Google Scholar
Veney, Cassandra R. 2007. Forced Migration in Eastern Africa: Democratization, Structural Adjustment, and Refugees. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warah, Rasna. 2016. “Somali Refugees Deserve Better than Being Sent Back to Danger.” Daily Nation. http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/opinion/Somali-refugees-deserve-better-than-being-sent-back-to-danger/440808-3204888-y44xffz/index.html (November 8, 2017).Google Scholar
Weiner, Myron, ed. 1993. International Migration and Security. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, Myron, and Russell, Sharon Stanton, eds. 2001. Demography and National Security. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Weitzberg, Keren. 2017. We Do Not Have Borders: Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of Belonging in Kenya. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Weldemichael, Awet Tewelde. 2019. Piracy in Somalia: Violence and Development in the Horn of Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, Beth Elise. 1999. “Disjunctured Boundaries: Refugees, Hosts, and Politics in Western Tanzania.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Political Science. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Whitaker, Beth Elise. 2003. “Changing Priorities in Refugee Protection: The Rwandan Repatriation from Tanzania.” In Problems of Protection: The UNHCR, Refugees, and Human Rights, eds. Steiner, Niklaus, Gibney, Mark, and Loescher, Gil. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Whitaker, Beth Elise. 2008a. “Funding the International Refugee Regime: Implications for Protection.” Global Governance 14 (2): 241–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, Beth Elise. 2008b. “Reluctant Partners: Fighting Terrorism and Promoting Democracy in Kenya.” International Studies Perspectives 9 (3): 254–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, Beth Elise. 2015. “Playing the Immigration Card: The Politics of Exclusion in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 53 (3): 274–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, Beth Elise, and Giersch, Jason. 2015. “Political Competition and Attitudes towards Immigration in Africa.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 41 (10): 1536–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Values Survey. 2017. “World Values Survey.” http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ (September 18, 2017).Google Scholar
Yusuf, Ahmed Ismail. 2012. Somalis in Minnesota. Minnesota Historical Society.Google Scholar