Forging a ‘Good Diaspora’: Political Mobilization among Somalis in the UK

Abstract

This article is about a campaign that was initiated by Somalis in London in 2013 against Barclays Bank's decision to shut down the accounts of four Somali remittance companies in the UK. It explores how young Somalis mobilized politically around the issue, and how, in the process, they created and reified a particular 'imagined community'. By drawing on multicultural notions of community, and development idioms of diaspora engagement, they fashioned themselves around a notion of 'good diaspora' based on generation, pan-Somali unity, and ideas of 'professionalism'. In so doing, they were able to mobilize politically as both national and transnational actors, but were also confronted with some of the limits of the 'good diaspora' identity category. This article establishes a dialogue between the literature on diaspora engagement and that on migrant political mobilization by exploring how young Somalis navigate across these different national and transnational conversations, discourses and social categories.

The contribution of Somali diaspora in Denmark to Peacebuilding in Somalia through Multi-Track Diplomacy

“…Danish Somalis show characteristics similar to those in the rest of Scandinavia (Horst, 2018;Scuzzarello & Carlson, 2019) which differ, in turn, from diasporas in Anglosaxon countries (Abdulle, 2018;Chambers, 2017;Liberatore, 2018). One of them is their higher level of acculturation.…”

“…There are very few people coming from the Somali elites. The elites massively chose to flee to the former metropolises (Italy and Britain) and North America (Chambers, 2017;Gonnelli, 2018, Liberatore, 2018. Many had previously studied and lived there, had political and personal connections, spoke the language and partially shared the culture.…”

Lost and Found in Upstate New York: Exploring the Motivations of “Lost Boys” Refugees as Founders of International Nonprofit Organizations

“…Obligation as a motivator in the literature overlaps with connections to a shared identity, history, destiny, culture, and language (Brinkerhoff, 2014). It is considered an act of “expressing diasporan identity” as a whole (Flanigan, 2017), which can be motivated by “kinship, ethnic or national obligations” (Liberatore, 2017, p. 159). However, this too has been challenged as it assumes one singular identity which might be unrealistic given emergent transnational identities (Ghorashi & Boersma, 2009).…”

“…However, this too has been challenged as it assumes one singular identity which might be unrealistic given emergent transnational identities (Ghorashi & Boersma, 2009). In addition, like with other types of giving, diaspora giving can have religious motivations (Brinkerhoff, 2008; Liberatore, 2017 see Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011).…”

“…Indeed, diaspora mobilization and organizations of many kinds emerge and “shape collective identity” (Babis, 2016). For example, Liberatore’s (2017) research maps out the Somali diaspora in the United Kingdom, which mobilized and protested in 2013 due to Barclays Bank’s decision to shut down accounts which hosted money transfers (Liberatore, 2017). This instance of diaspora mobilization was in reaction to threats to disrupt remittance flows and enabled the Somali diaspora to take on the identity and produce an image of themselves as a community contributing to Somali development as they mobilized and protested the shut downs (Liberatore, 2017).…”