Remittance Houses and Transnational Citizenship: Mapping Eritrea’s Diaspora–State Relationships

Abstract

Can diaspora houses be used as a site to explore transnational citizenship? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Eritrea, this article shows that different kinds of remittance houses reify different categories of transnational citizens with various sets of rights and duties. Drawing on studies on state–diaspora relations and remittance houses, I illustrate the key role that housing plays in the Eritrean state’s efforts to build a loyal diaspora. By looking at housing projects (state-led and individual) over the last thirty years, the article shows how different groups of emigrants – based on their relationship to the state of origin as well as their status in their country of residence – have been more or less able to realise their aspirations to build a house back home. By doing this, I show the importance of considering remittance houses as not only transnational cultural artefacts but also political claims to membership.

Return and Retreat in a Transnational World: Insights from Eritrea

“…This article is based on both authors' research in and about Eritrea over the last decade (Bel-loni, 2019;Cole, 2019a), though the material we present here is mainly drawn from more recent ethnographic fieldwork in Eritrea (September-December 2018, Belloni;December 2017, January 2019, and Uganda (January-February 2020, Cole), and ongoing transnational connections with our informants in different countries in Africa and Europe. These research trips formed parts of various longer-term projects, including a study aimed at understanding how migration influences the material living environment, including remittance houses and the perception of home of those family members who stay back in the country of origin (Belloni, 2021), and research exploring how Eritreans perceive onwards migration and the various, albeit constrained, options available to them (Cole, 2018(Cole, , 2020. The trips during which the data used here were collected were all assessed and approved by the required ethical approval boards at the authors' respective institutions, and both researchers have secured the authorization of the PFDJ Research Office to conduct research in Asmara.…”

“…2 Because migration is such an omnipresent reality in Eritrea (Belloni, 2019;Cole, 2019a), all these occasions yielded stories of people who had left Eritrea and could not return, who had managed to return after signing an apology letter, who had returned and ended up in prison, and so on. Given the logical connection between local houses financed with migrant remittances (Belloni, 2021) and the possibility of returning to Eritrea, and between how plans to leave are conditioned by the opportunities to return, our conversations during these periods would often touch on who among Eritreans abroad would actually come back and who instead decided to stay away for whatever reasons Cole (2019b).…”

“…She describes how the rights and responsibilities that cohere to Eritrean citizenship are far from uniformly experienced as "graduated policies have created different categories of citizens: external citizens, whose loyalties are cultivated so they will continue to make financial contributions to the nation, and territorially bound citizens, required to engage in national military service" (Riggan, 2013a, p. 102). Woldemikael (2018) and other scholars (e.g., Belloni, 2021;Mohammad, 2021) have further nuanced this picture of graduated citizenships by considering the ethnic, generational, and political divides within the diaspora, as well as the divides between local elite and other locals who are not connected to the power structure. This means that, depending on their background, different refugees may access different rights and duties upon their return as diaspora citizens, as we show in the next section.…”

Refuge Vol. 38 no. 1 (2022) - Special Issue: Refuge in the Time of Pandemic (print copy)

“…2 Because migration is such an omnipresent reality in Eritrea Cole, 2019a), all these occasions yielded stories of people who had left Eritrea and could not return, who had managed to return after signing an apology letter, who had returned and ended up in prison, and so on. Given the logical connection between local houses financed with migrant remittances (Belloni, 2021) and the possibility of returning to Eritrea, and between how plans to leave are conditioned by the opportunities to return, our conversations during these periods would often touch on who among Eritreans abroad would actually come back and who instead decided to stay away for whatever reasons Cole (2019b).…”

Much More Than Just Money: Investigating Remittances Across Time and Place in the Eritrean Context

“…Such remittances should be seen as expressions of the moral and emotional ties connecting transnational families and communities (Belloni 2020;Massa 2020a). However, in recent years it appears that "the gatekeeper state, " as Amanda Poole (2013;see Cooper 2002) defi nes it, has progressively succeeded in gaining total control over the ability of migrants to renew their connections with their communities and families: by controlling informal remittances, the government controls the source of people's identity and prevents refugees from expressing their belonging unless they also contribute to the national project (Belloni 2021).…”