‘We Wait for Miracles’: Ideas of Hope and Future among Clandestine Burundian Refugees in Nairobi

Turner, Simon

doi:10.1057/9781137350831_9

Cited by 28 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The mood that he was describing was part of a larger transformation of Burundian society that had taken place since the end of the armed conflict in the early 2000s. Whereas the post-genocide regime in Rwanda has taken a course of careful social engineering, tight control of security, and limited political freedoms (Straus & Waldorf 2011), Burundi has taken almost the opposite approach (Turner 2012;Vandeginste 2014). Certainly, supported by international donors, independent media has blossomed and the Arusha Accords has paved the way for a consociational model of power sharing with a complex system of ethnic quotas in the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches of government (Lemarchand 2007;Vandeginste 2010).…”

Section: Crisis Anxiety and Hope In Burundimentioning

confidence: 99%

Hope against hope: changing emotions in the Burundian crisis

Turner

2020

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Through the lens of Burundians who have been displaced by the recent crisis in Burundi and their anticipations of possible futures for themselves and their country, expressed in the emotions of hope, anxiety, and despair, this article explores the shift from a situation characterized by upheaval towards the crystallization of authoritarian rule in Burundi. Drawing on ethnographic research amongst Burundian refugees in Rwanda, I examine how these individuals negotiate such uncertain and unpredictable circumstances as well as how emotions of hope, anxiety, and despair change accordingly. I argue that the political closure in Burundi has produced a gradual shift from productive anxiety in the Kierkegaardian sense towards despair and a feeling of existential closure. In such situations, when uncertainty gives way to a certainty that there are no futures, the present becomes detached from the flow of time and decisions become impossible to make. The Burundians in Rwanda can only live for the moment and hope against hope, often evoking a distinction between their hopelessness as human beings and the hope that they are compelled to have as Christians. Since the 2000s, anthropologists have shown an increasing interest in studying futures, as opposed to the anthropological emphasis on memories (Bryant & Knight 2019; Pels 2015). For instance, Appadurai (2004) calls for anthropology to 'repatriate' aspirations to the domain of culture. The anthropology of futures has focused on aspirations (Appadurai 2004), potentialities (Vigh 2008), and hope (Crapanzano 2003; Kleist & Jansen 2016; Miyazaki 2005). A common argument within this focus on futures is that the actions of individuals and groups are not simply the products of their pasts, as people also act according to perceived potential futures. The literature on hope often takes its point of departure from situations of uncertainty, arguing that uncertainty not only produces precarity and 'stuckness' , but also carries with it the potential for alternative futures and therefore produces hope (Cooper & Pratten 2015; Pedersen 2012; Turner 2015). In my own work among Burundian clandestine refugees in Nairobi in the early 2000s, I explored a situation of indeterminacy and uncertainty that engendered hope and aspirations, as opposed to the refugee camps that they had left, where certainty crushed all hope (Turner 2015). In this article, I expand upon the themes of uncertainty and hope by exploring how the present crisis in Burundi is constantly shifting between uncertainty and certainty as well as how emotions

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Section: Crisis Anxiety and Hope In Burundimentioning

confidence: 99%

Hope against hope: changing emotions in the Burundian crisis

Turner

2020

Royal Anthropological Inst

Self Cite

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“…Structural approaches reveal how transnational mobility regimes work to structure the movement of different kinds of classed, racialized, and gendered subjects (Andersson 2014;Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013). While some experience transnational mobility as a routinized, seamless, and pleasant act, others are exposed to the prolonged waiting, enforced immobility or mobility, and blockages that are produced by border regimes (Kleist and Thorsen 2016;Turner 2015). Taking a more grounded household-level approach, other work has revealed how familial roles can limit the spatial mobility of both those who migrate and those left behind along gendered lines (Hochschild 2000;Yeates 2009).…”

Section: Existential Immobility Migration and Oscillationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration as hope and depression: existential im/mobilities in and beyond Egypt

Pettit

Ruijtenberg

2019

Mobilities

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Recent scholarship has asserted that prolonged periods of 'waiting' or 'stuckedness' are becoming the condition of modern capitalism for many people. This article complicates this assertion by interrogating the affective life of migration, an act which offers the possibility of overcoming, but also reinforces, existential stuckedness. Using two ethnographies with young aspiring male migrants in Egypt, and older migrant men in the Netherlands, we reveal how migration, both before and after physical movement, is experienced through constant existential oscillation: between ''amal' (hope) that the good life is arriving, and 'ikti'āb' (an Egyptian understanding of depression) when a new blockage is met. Developing existing understandings of migratory experience and governance, the article argues that oscillation emerges out of 'cruel' migratory regimes which perpetually offer up the promise of the good life to aspiring migrants, while inhibiting the means of achieving it for the majority. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…Gradvis, gjennom filmens oppbygging, får publikum innsikt i hvordan tegn og situasjoner fortolkes. Avslutningsvis vil jeg tydeliggjøre potensialet i denne type audiovisuelle kunnskapsproduksjoner ved å oppsummere analysen av Les Mairuuwas i relasjon til en debatt om usikkerhet i urbane Afrika (Cooper & Pratten, 2015;Mains, 2012;Turner, 2015). «Usikkerhet» forstås av Cooper og Pratten som sosiale ressurser som bidrar til kulturell produksjon (2015: 2).…”

Section: Innledningunclassified

“…I artikkelen We wait for miracles (Turner, 2015) om håp blant hutuflyktninger i storbyen Nairobi, er usikkerhetens produktive potensial et viktig poeng. Disse unge mennene har valgt det Turner kaller for «clandestine uncertainty» (2015: 174) i byen framfor «tryggheten» i flyktningeleirene lenger nord i Kenya.…”

Section: Sluttplakaterunclassified

Å gjenkjenne usikkerhet

Waage¹

2018

NAT

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Central to the process of grasping anthropological knowledge is the discovery of how life is experienced and organized in the context of the research partners. That is why the anthropologist must grasp the perspective of the researched. Using camcorder as a tool is useful in such a discovery process. The processes that are generated by the presence of the film anthropologist, are in this article referred to as fruitful vehicles grasping meaning production in the field but also important in order to successfully convey perspectives to the recipients and the audience of the research. This article aims to illustrate the potential film has in the anthropological work, first to discover, to analyse and convey anthropological insights. Empirically, the article is based on the film Les Mairuuwas -Masters of Water, made by the author, depicting the lives of those who live by trolleys with water jets in the city of Ngaoundéré in Cameroon. Life in the streets are uncertain. The film gradually uncover det social consequenses of living in uncertainty.

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‘We Wait for Miracles’: Ideas of Hope and Future among Clandestine Burundian Refugees in Nairobi

Cited by 28 publications

References 6 publications

Hope against hope: changing emotions in the Burundian crisis

Hope against hope: changing emotions in the Burundian crisis

Migration as hope and depression: existential im/mobilities in and beyond Egypt

Å gjenkjenne usikkerhet

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