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

人们日益认识到，世界的特点是高度流动性。随后，民族国家内部的社会、政治和经济进程和结果受到移民的显著影响，这使得仅仅通过观察国家内部的行为者来理解政治进程是站不住脚的。在此背景下，许多移民国家制定了侨民接触战略。与此同时，在跨国运动的背景下，公民身份的概念已经扩展到民族国家之外，公民身份以各种方式被视为一种关系实践。在这种理解下，公民身份超越了法律地位，而是关注具体的、通常是日常的行为。把重点放在这种公民行为上，就有可能以经常相互联系和重叠的方式，把公民身份作为一种与祖国、东道国或更广泛的跨国社会领域有关的实践来分析。在这个项目中，我们对这些文献进行了批判性的分析，并提出了一个重新定义的跨国生活公民身份的概念，研究新兴散居者的公民身份实践如何构成对祖国、东道国和跨国社会领域的政治归属。在进一步的步骤中，我们调查了这种做法可能产生的政治参与形式。为了解决上述文献中的理论和经验差距，我们选择了非洲之角作为案例研究区域，因为非洲之角是外迁起源地区的典型例子。关注居住在更广泛地区主要城市的埃塞俄比亚和厄立特里亚新出现的侨民的具体细节，将使我们能够了解移民如何影响公民实践、政治归属感和参与，这反过来将对有关移民模式和跨国主义的更广泛辩论产生影响。通过绘制地图、生活史访谈、半结构访谈、焦点小组和参与者观察，我们将研究作为政治归属表达的公民身份实践，以及从埃塞俄比亚和厄立特里亚移民到喀土穆、亚的斯亚贝巴和内罗毕这三个重要的过境和更永久的居住空间的人如何将其转化为政治参与。我们对公民实践作为一种归属政治的分析将使我们能够发展一种类型，其范围从制度到日常，从可见到隐蔽。此外，我们在研究的实地调查部分收集的数据将使我们能够经验性地绘制出何时、何地、为何、如何以及由谁进行各种形式的跨国合作。此外，在厄立特里亚首都阿斯马拉的另一个实地工作部分将把这种接触追溯到母国环境。在实现项目目标的过程中，我们将能够为学术和非学术辩论做出原创贡献。首先，我们将把跨国公民实践重新理论化，将其作为一种超越民族国家的特殊形式的政治归属，但同时又与民族国家密切相关。其次，我们将提供关于具体公民实践及其产生的政治归属形式的比较经验数据，因此对理论的贡献与实证调查密切相关。第三，我们将重点关注全球南方主要城市环境中的新兴散居者，这些城市是重新配置公民实践的重要场所。第四，通过对新兴移民如何行使跨国生活公民身份的透彻理解，我们将详细了解移民生活中经常出现的矛盾忠诚。最后，通过与当地研究人员和研究机构以及新兴的侨民社区合作，我们将在当地和与关键的政治行动者共同生产和传播知识。

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.