Transnational disruptions: materialities and temporalities of transnational citizenship among Somali refugees in Cairo

Abstract

Literature on both transnationalism and 'lived citizenship' has highlighted the multiple, fluid and simultaneous character of migrant experiences of belonging. Geographers, however, have questioned this emphasis on mobility, connections and simultaneity, regrounding research on migrant transnationalism through the study of materiality and embodiment, and pointing to the salience of temporality in defining contemporary migration and asylum regimes. Drawing on ethnographic research with Somali refugees living in Cairo, Egypt, in this article I explore the material and temporal 'disruptions' that mark their condition at three interrelated levels. These are the experience of 'time suspension' associated with maintaining transnational family connections, the uncertain temporalities characterizing the work of humanitarian agencies, and the 'everyday emergencies' that mark daily life in a Cairo neighbourhood. Through the heuristic lens of materiality and assemblage geographies, through the analysis I hope to offer a more nuanced account of the tension between 'fluidity' and groundedness in refugees' transnational practices, as well as an appraisal of the role temporalities and materialities play in emerging forms of 'irregular citizenship' in the Global South.

A Missing Citizen? Issue Based Citizenship in City‐Regional Planning

“…(), Wood (), Kallio et al . (), De Carli and Frediani () and Pascucci (), among others, we follow Engin Isin's () understanding of status, practices, and acts as the three dimensions of citizenship (also Staeheli, ; Häkli, ). To us, lived citizenship is the contextually specific enactment of these dimensions of citizenship in people's everyday life.…”

Refugee community organisations: capabilities, interactions and limitations

“…Western I-NGOs support RCOs via short-term projects addressing gender equality, child protection, refugee rights and local integration, while Arab Gulf countries will finance RCOs if the emphasis is on material assistance, education and labour-market integration. As argued in the transnationalism scholarship for other locations, Syrians in Turkey engage in transnational space to maintain solidarity (Grace 2019;Pascucci 2016). They build economic, social and political exchanges with Syrians living elsewhere, mainly in Europe, Gulf countries and the US, to create networks and organisations.…”

Leading refugee lives together: Familial agency as a political capacity

“…In countries like Egypt and Jordan most refugees do not gain opportunities to relocation or reunion at all, even if gaining the status, but are compelled to continue their lives in refugee camps or at urban fringes, or alternatively continue their journeys as irregular migrants (Pascucci 2016(Pascucci , 2018Pascucci et al 2018).…”

“…This of course requires a respectful approach instead of exploitation that is sometimes identified from self-help policies (e.g. Pascucci 2016). If the states and the UNHCR started seeing familiality as a resource rather than a problem -like many informal actors already do -they could rely more on the active agencies of refugees during asylum seeking and after.…”