Table Of ContentInternational Perspectives on Migration 17
Päivi Armila · Marko Kananen
Yasemin Kontkanen Editors
The Contexts
of Diaspora
Citizenship
Somali Communities in Finland and the
United States
International Perspectives on Migration
Volume 17
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Päivi Armila • Marko Kananen
Yasemin Kontkanen
Editors
The Contexts of Diaspora
Citizenship
Somali Communities in Finland
and the United States
Editors
Päivi Armila Marko Kananen
Department of Social Sciences Juvenia – Youth Research and Development
University of Eastern Finland Centre
Joensuu, Finland South-Eastern Finland University of
Applied Sciences
Yasemin Kontkanen Mikkeli, Finland
Department of Social Sciences
University of Eastern Finland
Joensuu, Finland
ISSN 2214-9805 ISSN 2214-9813 (electronic)
International Perspectives on Migration
ISBN 978-3-319-94489-0 ISBN 978-3-319-94490-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94490-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951711
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Prologue
I’ve lived in twenty-two different countries, I speak three different languages. I’m a proud
American, and a son of a great Somali. I am a faithful Muslim, and a proud marine. No
matter where I go, I see one thing that is constant: we need a change. We can either let
change change us, and adapt to what’s going on today, or be the change that can actually
bring possibilities for a better tomorrow. – Shirwa Hersi1
With two million individuals living outside of their country of birth, Somalis form
one of the most prominent diaspora populations of today. Although many Somalis
have sought refuge in the neighbouring countries, many of them have also made a
long journey to distant destinations, such as the United States and Finland. Through
a multifaceted collection of articles, this book explores how Somali migrants in
these two countries experience and explore their identities and belongings and how
they strive for participation as (diaspora) citizens of their sending and receiving
societies. As such, this book contributes to the rich and complex discussion around
immigration, emigration, diaspora and (trans)nationalism that has perplexed social
sciences for the past decades.
Both contexts of this book – Finland and the United States – are currently going
through an ideological climate change around the issues of global migration. The
signs of both hot and banal nationalism have become strong and apparent after few
decades of intentional and articulated tendencies towards multiculturalism, anti-
nationalism and postnational and multi-ethnic citizenships. This climate change
does not concern only these two countries, but it reflects a broader discourse that
promotes the idea that all the people have one ‘natural’ place or territory on the
globe, where they rightfully belong – and where they should stay. Descriptive of this
new climate is that in addition to the one highly publicized building plan, around
70 countries across the globe have already erected new walls to protect their
borders.2
1 Shirwa Hersi (2012). The Revolutionist. http://thepoetnation.com/2012/12/19/
hersi-the-revolutionist/
2 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3205724/How-65-countries-erected-security-walls-
borders.html
v
vi Prologue
These ideological waves are not just abstract moves of collective minds or state-
level discussions, but they affect diaspora people’s social and individual existence.
In the end, processes in local spaces are variations of global processes, and abstract
politics become very real in the practices of everyday life. For example, in the
United States, members of the Somali diaspora have been faced with the conse-
quences of the expanded surveillance and control over the Muslim communities.
The short-lived travel ban assigned by President Trump was just the most recent
example of cases, in which the most basic human and civil rights are overhauled in
the name of national security and protectionism.
Many of the Somalis we met while collecting material for this book are multiple
citizens and plan their future considering the possibilities that this special citizen-
ship position offers. Possession of a Western citizenship is crucial for their mobility,
as the Somali passport is treated with suspicion at many national borders across the
globe. In Finland, two opposing rationales – suspicion and human rights – dominate
the current debate about the dual citizenship. After a few decades of supportive
attitudes, individuals with more than one passport have yet again been portrayed as
possible threats to national security. Limiting the rights of dual and multiple citizens
would thus severely affect the global Somali diaspora.
These examples highlight how the fate of the Somalis as a global diaspora is
routinely intertwined with the changes in the global political climate and the state-
level political processes reflecting it. The suspicions that are currently casted over
Somalis due to their ethnicity, race, religion and status as migrants from the Global
South make their position and possibilities uncertain and vulnerable. Furthermore,
it is estimated that the number of displaced Somalis will keep growing. These prob-
lematic conditions imply that the Somali diaspora must remain at the focus of trans-
national migration research. In addition to research that can generate new
perspectives and analytically sound insights, we also need research that can
empower and, as put by young Somali-American poet Shirwa Hersi, ‘bring possi-
bilities for a better tomorrow’.
This collection of articles is based on a 4-year (2012–2016) research project,
Contexts of Diaspora Citizenship – Transnational Networks, Social Participation
and Social Identification of Somalis in Finland and in the U.S., which was funded
by the Academy of Finland. With this book, we would like to express a great grati-
tude to all the people, who have helped us along the way. Especially, we want to
thank all of our Somali participants in Finland and in the United States, who were
kind enough to share their stories with us. We would also like to thank all those
people working with Somali integration, who have provided their insights for us.
Finally, we would also like to thank all the researchers who we have met during this
journey.
Contents
Part I Perspectives to Diaspora Citizenship: Contexts
1 Facts and Figures: Somalis in Finland and in the United States . . . . 3
Marko Kananen and Ville-Samuli Haverinen
2 The Newest African-Americans?: Somali Struggles
for Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Cawo Mohamed Abdi
3 Mainstream or Margins? How Somalis Perceive Their Status
and Possibilities in Finnish and American Societies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Marko Kananen
4 The Call of the Homeland: “My Relationship to Somalia
Is Difficult to Explain” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Marko Kananen
Part II Acting As Diaspora Citizens: Agencies
5 Subject, Object, Predicate? Somali Migrants’ Subject Positions
in a Local Finnish Integration Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Päivi Armila and Yasemin Kontkanen
6 Somalis in America’s Heartland: Columbus, Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Stefanie Chambers
7 Integration, Finnish Somalis and Their Right to Everyday Life . . . . 111
Tiina Sotkasiira
8 Somali Diaspora Women and Sense of Identity and Belonging . . . . . 129
Habon Abdulle
9 Diaspora Citizenship: Silenced, Stigmatized,
Outlying – And Campaigning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Päivi Armila and Yasemin Kontkanen
vii
viii Contents
10 Proximity to Natives: A Frame, a Resource and a Platform
for Somali Entrepreneurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Yasemin Kontkanen
Part III S tudying Diaspora Citizenship: Theoretical
and Methodological Notions
11 Of Premises for Cross-National Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Ville-Samuli Haverinen
12 Notions About Cross-National Comparative Social Sciences
and the Societal Role of Researchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Päivi Armila and Jussi Ronkainen
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Contributors
Cawo Mohamed Abdi University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Habon Abdulle Women Organizing Women (WOW) Network, Minneapolis, MN,
USA
Päivi Armila Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland,
Joensuu, Finland
Stefanie Chambers Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA
Ville-Samuli Haverinen Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern
Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Marko Kananen Juvenia – Youth Research and Development Centre, South-
Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Mikkeli, Finland
Yasemin Kontkanen Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern
Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Jussi Ronkainen Juvenia – Youth Research and Development Centre, South
Eastern University of Applied Sciences, Mikkeli, Finland
Tiina Sotkasiira University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
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