Imagining Emigration: Debating National Duty in Eritrean Classrooms

Riggan,

doi:10.2979/africatoday.60.2.85

Cited by 19 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Complicating the contemporary moral and political economy of exit from Eritrea further is also the fact that while the right to exit continues to be denied for most people, there is a growing sense of a responsibility to exit. Leaving has come to be seen as a way of fulfilling national and personal responsibilities through remittances and transnational investments, a sense that the Eritrean government itself reinforces (AuthorY, 2019;Riggan, 2013). At a familial level, our research with families within Eritrea has revealed the whole spectrum of attitudes towards migration, from families who strongly and persistently discourage other family members from leaving, to those families that expect the oldest siblings in particular to leave the country in search of employment and opportunities for future family reunification (Author X, 2019).…”

Section: The Ambivalent Logics Of Eritrean Exit Regulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Policies towards the diaspora also reinforce a tiered system of citizenship whereby Eritreans outside of the country who pay 2 percent of their income to the Eritrean government may have more freedom to travel in and out of Eritrea and be exempted from national service, whilst those who remain in Eritrea have restricted freedom of movement and are enrolled indefinitely in government employment (Riggan, 2013;Woldemikael, 2018).…”

Section: The Ambivalent Logics Of Eritrean Exit Regulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea

Belloni

Cole

2022

International Migration

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In this article, we seek to explain some of the seeming paradoxes of extreme restrictions on the right to exit in the case of Eritrea. While the government has denied passports and exit visas to all but a few categories of Eritrean resident citizens in order to avoid a mass exodus from the country, and imposed harsh punishments on those found crossing the border illegally, the government has also institutionalised policies to “welcome” absconders back. We argue that restrictions on the “right to exit” make this ostensibly more conciliatory position possible because they constitute such a powerful tool of both national and transnational governance. We show the long‐term impacts that people's inability to leave Eritrea legally has on their access to other rights, in particular the right to family life, and how this enables the Eritrean government to continue to discipline people's behaviour long after they have crossed the border. Alongside the ways in which the Eritrean government thus benefits financially and politically from large‐scale emigration from the country, despite its protestations to the contrary, we show how limits on the right to exit provide yet another way for authoritarian governments to exercise transnational reach.

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Section: The Ambivalent Logics Of Eritrean Exit Regulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Ambivalent Logics Of Eritrean Exit Regulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea

Belloni

Cole

2022

International Migration

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“…The notion of hollow nationalism is inspired by Ritty Lukose's () discussion of “empty citizenship.” Elsewhere, I have focused more extensively on the subtle and covert forms of counterideology that emerged in the face of the hollowing out of official nationalism. I have examined how hybrid nationalism was formed by Eritreans born in Ethiopia (Riggan ), how teachers construct notions of national identity for educated citizens (Riggan , ), and how students attempt to carve out a sense of national identity that is based on desires to emigrate (Riggan in press).…”

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confidence: 99%

“It seemed like a punishment”: Teacher transfers, hollow nationalism, and the intimate state in Eritrea

Riggan¹

2013

American Ethnologist

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A B S T R A C TDiscourses of the punishing state that circulated in Eritrea at a time when the government had become increasingly coercive were articulated especially clearly in debates over teacher transfers. Teachers imagined the state on the basis of their intimate encounters with its bureaucrats, who were thought of as capable of punishing, manipulating, or being manipulated. In a country once noted for the effervescent, revolutionary celebration of the state's capacity to defend and develop the nation, thinking of the state as pernicious challenged the core tenets of Eritrean nationalism but left intact lingering fantasies of state fairness. By examining the complexity of debates about teacher transfers, I uncover a multifaceted commentary on government power, a dialogue over the nature and meaning of the notion of duty to the nation, and a reworked popular imaginary of the state. [nationalism, state, teachers, Eritrea, bureaucracy, intimacy, citizenship] I n the fall of 2004, in the town of Assab, Eritrea, teachers and students as well as their families and neighbors were anxiously awaiting news about teacher transfers to more remote towns and villages in the Southern Red Sea region, where Assab is located. For weeks, in every house, teashop, and bar I visited, this was the topic of conversation. That fall, several new schools were being opened in the sparsely populated region, and a much larger number of teachers than ever before were being transferred to remote posts. The transfers loomed large in everyone's minds, evoking the specter of a government capable of relocating citizen bodies at will without regard for their well-being or wishes. The transfers were personally troubling to teachers, who would be separated from family for six months at a time or longer and who would have to live without running water and electricity. But, in addition to this sense of individual loss, discussions of transfers among those affected, directly and otherwise, described an increasingly pernicious relationship between government actors and citizens in a way that depicted the state as autocratic and uncaring.One transfer case was particularly controversial. As soon as Abraham, a young university-aged, "national service" science teacher heard that he was to be transferred to the village of Tio, he immediately left Assab and headed for the Eritrean capital, Asmara. 1 Before leaving, he made it clear that he was protesting his transfer, claiming that it was a punishment for having upset local Ministry of Education officials. He believed this punishment to be highly personal. Abraham also stated that his highly placed relatives in Asmara would intervene on his behalf. In a country noted for a lack of what many would term "corruption," Abraham was willing to use his personal connections to counteract what he understood to be a very personal form of punishment. 2 In Eritrea, a country controlled by an authoritarian regime, it was rumored that the government would not hesitate to arrest its citizens for much lesser infract...

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The Global and Local Politics of Refugee Management in the Horn: Ethiopian Refugee Policy and Eritrean Refugee Agency

Riggan

Poole

2019

Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development

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Imagining Emigration: Debating National Duty in Eritrean Classrooms

Cited by 19 publications

References 22 publications

The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea

The right to exit as national and transnational governance: The case of Eritrea

“It seemed like a punishment”: Teacher transfers, hollow nationalism, and the intimate state in Eritrea

The Global and Local Politics of Refugee Management in the Horn: Ethiopian Refugee Policy and Eritrean Refugee Agency

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