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Article Excerpt
Abstract
This paper draws on ethnographic research in America and Ethiopia to explore the phenomenon of Sudanese (Nuer) refugee remittance from those in the diaspora to those who remain behind in Africa. Specifically it locates the unidirectional flow of cash within transnational flows of people, goods, and information. This multi-sited study explores the impacts of these transfers on both sides of the equation. It documents the importance of remittances as a vital component of survival and investment in the future for Nuer refugees in Ethiopia. Similarly it raises questions about the siphoning off of resources on the social, cultural, and economic integration of Sudanese in the United States. Finally, it situates remitting behaviour within a broader socio-historical context to explain its centrality in maintaining a Nuer community across national borders.
Resume
L'article s'appuie sur des recherches ethnographiques menees en Amerique et en ethiopie pour explorer le phenomene des versements que font les refugies soudanais (Nuer) de la diaspora a leurs compatriotes restes en Afrique. Il permet d'etablir que le flux monetaire unidirectionnel se situe plus particulierement au sein de la circulation transnationale de personnes, de biens et de renseignements. L'etude, effectuee dans divers lieux, analyse les consequences de ces transferts pour les deux parries. Elle documente l'importance des versements en tant que composante vitale de la survie des refugies nuer d'ethiopie et de rinvestissement pour leur avenir. Ce faisant, l'essai souleve la question du detournement de ressources au profit de l'integration sociale, culturelle et economique des Souadanais aux etats-Unis. Enfin, il situe le comportement associe aux versements dans une perspective socio-historique elargie pour expliquer le son role crucial vis-a-vis du maintien de la communaute nuer au-dela des frontieres nationales.
The slogan "Reliability you can trust" emblazoned on a map of Africa greeted me as I waited to meet friends outside Western Union in the sprawling, dusty Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Staring at this sign, I was struck by the vital role these ubiquitous money transfer offices that shuffle more than US$20 billion each year (1) play in larger transnational processes. Quadrupling in size from fifty thousand agents in 1998 to more than two hundred thousand in 2004, (2) Western Union offices (and other businesses like them) serve as storefronts, or localizing venues, for the daily, lived experience of globalization. Therefore, in a world on the more, they offer a unique window into the linkages between refugees in the diaspora and those who remain in Africa.
This article draws on ethnographic research in the United States and Ethiopia to explore the phenomenon of Sudanese refugee remittances to their compatriots in Africa. It situates the unidirectional north-south flow of cash within more complex, multidirectional transnational processes involving people, goods, and information. Specifically, it explores the impacts of these transfers on both sides of the equation. It raises questions about the effects of this siphoning off of resources on the social, cultural, and economic integration of Sudanese in the United States over time. Similarly, it documents the importance of remittances as a vital component of survival and investment in the future for Nuer refugees in Ethiopia. I argue that under these circumstances, these money transfer offices were not just facilitating the flow of cash; they were catalysts for rapid social change among Sudanese in Ethiopia. Moreover, in commentary that engages contemporary debates surrounding the meaning of globalization, what makes this even more compelling is that these processes were occur ring among some of the most marginalized, disenfranchised, and purportedly powerless people on earth--refugees who had been pushed out of their country of origin, many of whom did not have a legal right even to reside in Addis Ababa. This finding lends support to the argument that we need to understand globalization in terms that extend beyond the narrow, economically bounded definition of "the growing liberalization of international trade and investment, and the resulting increase in the integration of national economies" (3) to one that appreciates "the intensification of global interconnectedness, suggesting a world full of movement and mixture, contact and linkages, and persistent cultural interaction and exchange." (4)
This paper is based on ethnographic research I have been conducting since the mid-1990s with South Sudanese refugees who have fled the civil war that has engulfed their country since 1983. Most of my work has focused on those refugees who were resettled in the United States. Fieldwork undertaken in summer 2004 in Ethiopia was an attempt to understand more about the linkages between refugees in the diaspora and those who remain behind in Africa.
Ethiopia, one of nine countries that border Sudan, hosts approximately one hundred thousand Sudanese refugees. Ethiopia, while receiving some US$211 million per year in remittances, or 2.6 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), is one of the poorest countries on the planet, ranking second from the bottom of the list in per capita health expenditure in Africa with a life expectancy of about forty-five years. And it is within this adverse environment that Sudanese refugees must carve out a daily subsistence and attempt to plan for the future.
Who Are the Senders?
There are an estimated thirty million Sudanese. Three million have been killed by the war and another five million displaced. A very small percentage of those displaced have accessed official third-country resettlement placements. North America and Australia have emerged as key destinations for those southern Sudanese who have been resettled as refugees. Sudanese in Canada, Australia, and other places in the world are important to understanding the overall picture. Here, however, in order to provide an in-depth treatment of the subject, I narrow my focus...
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