Elusive Jannah explores the question of how the diasporic condition affects the lives of Somalis around the globe. In this well-written book, Cawo Abdi argues that displacement leaves a permanent mark as those in the diaspora remain in search of a home. She furthermore shows how ‘place matters’ by providing rich empirical descriptions of life for Somalis in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and the United States. Yet in all these places, as Abdi argues, the search for cultural, religious and social belonging continues, often combined with a search for legal, economic and physical security. While the depth of fieldwork in these three very different contexts varied considerably, Abdi largely manages to portray convincing descriptions of people's lived experiences and the stark differences between some of their concerns, depending on where they live.
The book's introduction sets the stage for this comparison and adds the context of the research by positioning the researcher and elaborating on methods. It places the book in the theoretical landscape of diaspora and transnationalism, and furthermore highlights a challenge for researchers working with refugees and diasporas: the fact that people's life histories and motivations are more complex than is recognized by legal categories. The first chapter then provides an overview of contemporary Somali migrations, describing causes and routes over time.
Chapter 2, the first of the three core empirical chapters, discusses life in the United Arab Emirates, where Abdi spent the least time, while facing the most restrictions on her research. At the same time, she manages to capture the context well, which she describes as being defined by partial belonging and temporary visas. She shows how religious identification is not sufficient for a full sense of belonging as not having access to rights clearly restricts people's options of creating a home. She also highlights the great differences between different categories of Somalis living in the UAE, who include those who came before the war, returnees and transnational entrepreneurs with footholds in the West, and newer groups of unskilled migrants and maids. Of course, their situation is determined not only by conditions in the UAE but just as much by their assumed resources and potential to contribute and ‘fit in’.
Chapter 3 describes Somalis in South Africa, based on a range of extensive fieldwork periods and stays between 2007 and 2013. South Africa is described as being defined by insecurity in racialized spaces, which is contextualized by a short description of South Africa as a highly segregated and racialized society, which often clashes with Somalis’ self-perception. Abdi furthermore describes in great detail how Muslims, and in particular Somalis, pool resources and provide assistance and charity in ways that enable many more to survive than would otherwise be the case. The chapter focuses on livelihoods, economic survival and entrepreneurship, although it also places this in the context of xenophobia and violent attacks.
Chapter 4, the last empirical chapter, discusses the lived experiences of Somalis in the United States, where many of those in the UAE and South Africa hope to move. Yet at the same time, it is also a place that individuals move from, once they have received the much-prized US citizenship. Others maintain transnational ties and dream of return. Abdi describes Somali experiences in the US as ‘slippery Jannah’, ‘Jannah’ meaning paradise and linked closely to Islam. She chooses this description because of the challenges the American model poses to the Somali community, in particular with regard to gender relations and poverty.
The book offers important perspectives on refugee life in contexts that are normally understudied, such as when regional refuge is provided in a range of ways. The first strength of the book is its empirical richness. Through many quotes from her informants, Abdi manages to illustrate the uniqueness of people's lived experiences in different contexts. A second strength of the book is the fact that it builds on a multi-sited ethnography that clearly highlights these differences. While it does hint at the many connections between the three national contexts, and in the case of the United States explicitly discusses transnational ties, the nature and implications of the transnational – and not just diasporic – nature of Somali life could have been made more explicit. A third strength of the book is the way in which Abdi manages to balance writing about the extremely constrained conditions that her informants live in without necessarily losing sight of the fact that they are resourceful individuals who relate to and aim to cope in these conditions.
Elusive Jannah provides an important contribution to diaspora studies, migration studies and Somali studies. The book is timely considering the increasingly restricted political climate. It fits within a growing genre of multi-sited ethnographies on refugees – including many on Somalis. These ethnographies largely take a similar approach to Elusive Jannah in focusing on refugees’ agency in extremely confining conditions. While the book provides a very sound and interesting account, it is thus difficult to see to what extent it moves beyond this existing literature. In particular, there would have been potential for the author to take her empirical findings further theoretically, for example by elaborating more on the idea of refugees being ‘in perpetual passage’. There have been many attempts to theorize this conception, both in relation to belonging and in terms of rights and duties. The literature on liminality, uncertainty and resilience, but also the citizenship literature that Abdi touches on, provides interesting debates that Abdi could have used to position herself and her empirical findings more strongly. Even so, Elusive Jannah remains a powerful ethnography that sheds great light on the challenges, perspectives and strategies of Somalis in different national contexts.
