Transnational lived citizenship: Practices of citizenship as political belonging among emerging diasporas in the Horn of Africa

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It is increasingly acknowledged that the world is characterised by a high degree of mobility. Subsequently, social, political and economic processes and outcomes within nation states are significantly impacted by migration, making it untenable to understand political processes solely by looking at actors within states. In this context, many homeland states have developed diaspora engagement strategies.In parallel, in the context of transnational movements, concepts of citizenship have expanded beyond the nation state, and citizenship is in various ways conceived of as a relational practice. In such an understanding, citizenship moves beyond legal status, but focuses on concrete, often everyday acts. Focusing on such acts of citizenship makes it possible to analyse citizenship as a practice related to homelands, hostlands or the wider transnational social field in often interconnected and overlapping ways. In this project we bring a critical analysis of these strands of literature together, and in proposing a re-defined concept of transnational lived citizenship investigate how practices of citizenship among emerging diasporas constitute political belonging - to the homeland but also the hostland and the transnational social field. In a further step, we investigate what forms of political engagement may emerge from such practices. In order to address the above theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature, we have chosen the Horn of Africa as a case study region, as the Horn is a prototypical example of an origin-area of out-migration. Focusing in concrete detail on emerging diasporas from Ethiopia and Eritrea who reside in key cities of the wider region will allow us to understand how migration shapes citizenship practices, political belonging and engagement, and this in turn will speak to the wider debates on patterns of migration and transnationalism.Through mapping, life history interviews, semi-structures interviews, focus groups, and participant observation we will examine citizenship practices as expressions of political belonging and how they translate into political engagement by those who have emigrated from Ethiopa and Eritrea to the cities Khartoum, Addis Ababa and Nairobi, all three important transit as well as more permanent residence spaces. Our analysis of citizenship practices as a politics of belonging will allow us to develop a typology which ranges from the institutional to the quotidian, and from the visible to the furtive. In addition, our data gathered during the fieldwork component of the research will allow us to empirically map when, where, why, how and by whom various forms of transnational engagements are made. An additional fieldwork component in the Eritrean capital Asmara will in addition trace such engagement back to a home country setting.In fulfilling the project-objectives, we will be able to make original contributions to both academic and non-academic debates. Firstly, we will re-theorise transnational citizenship practices as a specific form of political belonging going beyond the nation-state but at the same time intimately linked to it. Secondly, we will provide comparative empirical data on concrete citizenship practices and the forms of political belonging these generate, thus the contribution to theory is intimately linked with an empirical investigation. Thirdly, we will focus on emerging diasporas in key urban settings in the Global South, cities being important sites for a reconfiguration of citizenship practices. Fourthly, through providing a thorough understanding of how emerging diasporas exercise transnational lived citizenship, we will provide a detailed understanding of the ambivalent loyalties that often characterise migrant lives. And lastly, through collaborating with local researchers and research institutions, and emerging diaspora communities we will engage in co-production and dissemination of knowledge, locally and with key political actors.