Emergent Eritrean Human Rights Movements: Politics, Law, and Culture in Transnational Perspective

Hepner, Tricia Redeker

doi:10.1163/9789004250130_014

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The last few decades – specifically in the context of the continuing emigration of Eritreans – has seen the emergence of studies on Eritrean refugees in Africa (Hepner 2015; Tewolde 2017; Treiber 2013), North America (Habecker 2012; Hepner 2015), and Europe (Arnone 2008; Belloni 2016; Hepner 2015). The predominant focus of the studies on Eritrean refugees has been Eritrean migration and transnationalism (Hepner 2015), migration and national identity (Noronha 2004), Eritrean refugees’ journeys (Treiber 2013), and human rights (Belloni 2016; Hepner 2013).…”

Section: The Eritrean Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

First‐Generation Refugees’ Rejection of Racial Self‐Identification in South Africa: Constructing Non‐Racial Identifications

Tewolde

2020

Studies Ethnicity & National

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Although racial classification in South Africa has been extensively studied by scholars, little is known about the extent to which post-apartheid refugees or immigrants reject the South African racial classification system. In particular, there is scant research on Eritrean refugees' self-identification patterns within the racially structured South African host society. The current study addresses this lacuna by exploring how first-generation Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers, who originate from an ethno-linguistically structured social system, self-identify. Semi-structured interviews with 46 participants were conducted. Largely, those who lived in isolated Eritrean ethnic communities rejected identifying by race and instead self-classified by identities they were familiar with in their home country. The results reported here form only part of a larger study that identified various themes. Four themes were identified in relation to this paper's specific research question: (1) identifying as human; (2) identifying as Eritrean; (3) identifying as Habesha; and (4) identifying as Tigrinya. The paper argues that non-acculturated and residentially and ethnically isolated individual refugees in South Africa eschew South Africa's racial classification system. The resistance to racialization by new refugees might hold potential for transforming the country's entrenched racial classification system based on Black, White, Coloured, and Indian categories as the social demographics of South Africa change in response to immigration. * Amanuel Isak Tewolde is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include race, ethnicity, migration, welfare, and social development.

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Section: The Eritrean Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

First‐Generation Refugees’ Rejection of Racial Self‐Identification in South Africa: Constructing Non‐Racial Identifications

Tewolde

2020

Studies Ethnicity & National

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“…In a study concerned with the political subjectivities of Eritrean refugees, Hepner 2013found that Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers who formed human rights-based movements in Germany, USA and South Africa were mobilising in relation to the rights extended by their respective host states. According to Hepner (2013), Eritreans mobilised rights enjoyed to make sense of their relatively favourable position in contrast to that of fellow Eritreans living in Eritrea under a repressive political system, and were able to translate that into a set of claims for reform in Eritrea.…”

Section: Eritrean Refugees Experiences In Different Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eritreans with refugee status in South Africa find themselves in a context where they are legally protected under the Constitution which gives them a plethora of rights (Crush 2001;Hepner 2013). 2 However, despite the constitutional dispensation, Eritrean refugees, like other refugee communities in South Africa, encounter xenophobia and hatred in their everyday lives (Crush 2001;Hassim, Kupe and Worby 2008;Landau 2010: 217;Chinomona andMaziriri 2015: 23;Hepner2015:196;Inaka 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Little is however known about the everyday experiences of Eritrean refugees in South Africa in order to shed light on their positionality as refugees. An exception is the study done by Hepner (2013) on the political subjectivities and transnational networks of former University of Asmara students who founded the Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Refugees rarely own their own stories and their discourses are often marginalised (Zetter 1991). It adds to a growing body of scholarship on Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers conducted in various national contexts such as Sudan (Kibreab 2000;Noronha 2004;Treiber 2009Treiber , 2013Treiber , 2016Hepner2015), Ethiopia (Treiber 2009(Treiber , 2013(Treiber , 2016Hepner2015); South Africa (Hepner 2013); Italy (Arnone 2008;Abraha 2011;Belloni 2016); Malta (Lutterbeck 2009;Mainwaring 2012); Germany (Hepner 2013), the USA (Hepner 2013) and Israel (Yacobi 2009;Afeef 2009;Lutterbeck 2009;Paz 2011;Lijnders 2012;Mainwaring 2012;Campbell, Hashimshony-Yaffe, and Yaron 2013;Müller 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How Eritreans in South Africa Talk about Their Refugee Experiences: A Discursive Analysis

Tewolde

2017

South African Review of Sociology

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This article reports on a study that explored how Eritrean refugees 1 in South Africa-part of a generational wave of emigrants labelled 'generation asylum' by Hepner (2015)-make sense of their refugee experience and identities, herewith referred to as interpretative repertoires. Interpretative repertoires is a concept coined by sociologists, Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) and later adopted by Potter and Whetherell (1987), to refer to the different and at times contradictory ways in which social actors characterise or describe a phenomenon. Five dominant interpretative repertoires were identified based on a discursive analysis of interview transcripts with ten participants living in Pretoria: (1) a 'rights' repertoire; (2) an 'embrace your refugee identity' repertoire; (3) the 'victimised refugee' repertoire; (4) the 'protected refugee' repertoire and (5) the 'criminalised refugee' repertoire. It is argued that participants deployed contradictory and yet complementary repertoires, drawing primarily on lived and imagined experiences in their country of origin and asylum as resources to give meaning to their refugee identities. These repertoires demonstrate refugees' ambivalence. It surfaces tensions they experience between South Africa's constitutional promise and their relative legal security, on the one hand, and the everyday threat of xenophobic violence and negative public sentiment, on the other.

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Asserting an Eritrean identity in the face of imposed racialisation: national identity claims of some Eritrean refugees in South Africa

Tewolde

2021

Identities

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Emergent Eritrean Human Rights Movements: Politics, Law, and Culture in Transnational Perspective

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

First‐Generation Refugees’ Rejection of Racial Self‐Identification in South Africa: Constructing Non‐Racial Identifications

First‐Generation Refugees’ Rejection of Racial Self‐Identification in South Africa: Constructing Non‐Racial Identifications

How Eritreans in South Africa Talk about Their Refugee Experiences: A Discursive Analysis

Asserting an Eritrean identity in the face of imposed racialisation: national identity claims of some Eritrean refugees in South Africa

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