TWO SPHERES OF BELONGING: EXPLORING HOME MAKING STRATEGIES OF SOMALI WOMEN IN THE NETHERLANDS
Master Thesis Article
Graduate School of Social Sciences / University of Amsterdam
Research Master Social Sciences
Interpretative Track: Cultural Anthropology
Student: Gerdien Gijsbertsen (5945895) g.gijsbertsen@student.uva.nl
Supervisor: Prof. dr. A.C.A.E (Annelies) Moors Second Reader: dr. J.A. (Julie) McBrien
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Table of contents
Introduction___________________________________ ____________________________ 4 The Somali presence in the Netherlands ______________________________________ 4 The process of resettlement ________________________________________________ 6
The search for home conceptualized ___________________________________________ 8 Home, an essentially social space ___________________________________________ 8 Dutch discourse on home and migration ______________________________________ 9 The role of social capital _________________________________________________ 11 Narrativity and identity __________________________________________________ 12
Intermezzo – meeting Yasmin, Sagal, Aasiya and Alma __________________________ 14 Home making strategies in practice___________________________ _______________ 17
Performing a self _________________________________________________________ 18
Negotiating place in Dutch society _________________________________________ 18 Motherhood, a source of strength __________________________________________ 19 Doubling strength ______________________________________________________ 21
Producing networks _______________________________________________________ 23
Extending networks _____________________________________________________ 23 Self-organisations as source of social capital _________________________________ 25 From empowerment to participation ________________________________________ 27
Producing a home ________________________________________________________ 28
Conclusion _____________________ __________________________________________ 31 Bibliography _________________ ____________________________________________ 33 Appendix 1 – Methodology______ ____________________________________________ 39 Appendix 2 – Demography participating women ________________________________ 42 Appendix 3 – Illustrations of Somali dress ___________________________________ __44
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Introduction
I depart in every dream. What is your dream about? I asked. My country is my dream. It doesn’t matter how long I am here, I feel that I want to return. My home is where my heart is. Where you live is where your mind is.
Nonetheless…both [are] home. It is together – Yasmin.1
The basis of a harmonious society is therefore not forced assimilation into one notion of “home” but recognition that everybody wishes to belong (Duyvendak 2011:121).
Home for many first generation Somali women is situated both in the place where they live now and the space where their hearts long for. As Yasmin, a well-educated women who arrived in the Netherlands in 1990, rhetorically asked: ‘What is home? Both [countries] feel like home’. She explained that for her, the situation is different than for her children who are born and raised in the Netherlands. She said: ‘They have one country and one home. Even when they leave the Netherlands, they will have one home and one country where they belong’. The Somali women whom I got to know during my fieldwork from July till December 2012, navigate between these two spheres of belonging. For these women, home is where your children are and home is where you are surrounded with family. Home is an experience of wholeness, of being at peace, of being together with loved ones. Yet, for none of the Somali women I talked with during the course of my research, this ideal kind of home existed. The wholeness women long for is broken through war and migration. Amina, a single caregiver of the children of her deceased sister, explained her feelings as follows: ‘To feel at home is to be with family, the whole family united… And you don’t have it here’. The stories women shared with me, add a new dimension to Turner’s temporary phase of feeling ‘betwixt and between’ (1969). Women went through a process of transition and established ties of belonging to the Netherlands. Nevertheless, they still long for the life they had to leave behind in Somalia.
The Somali presence in the Netherlands
In 1984 the first individual Somali refugees2 applied for asylum in the Netherlands, leaving behind a country in deteriorating violence and political conflict . Shortly before the collapse of the state in 1991, a flow of Somalis sought a safe refuge in the Netherlands. Up until today the Somali population in the Netherlands increased in number till approximately 30.000
1
All names used in this article are pseudonyms. Quotes are edited only to increase the readability.
2 The term ‘refugee’ is applied to people who are forced to flee their country and cannot or are afraid to return
(UNHCR). Although this can be applied to the women participating in this research at the time of arrival, I question the validity of using this term for women who received a Dutch residence permit or Dutch passport in the meantime. Hence, I only use the term ‘refugee’ in a general sense and as minimal as possible.
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –5– persons, forming one of the largest categories of ‘new migrants’ in the Netherlands (Van Heelsum 2011; Lewis 2008).3
The Somali community4 in the Netherlands can be broadly distinguished by a first flow of refugees who arrived in the early 1990’s and a second flow of Somali refugees, who arrived 10 years later and onwards. The ‘first flow’ of refugees anticipated the political unrest in Somalia and arranged their flight at an early phase. These Somalis are mainly highly educated and from middle to upper class background (Van Liempt 2011a:257). Also considered to be part of the first flow are women who came to the Netherlands for study or work but who were not able to return because of the collapse of Somalia. Women of this latter category still struggle with feelings of loss and with the fact that they have never been able to take a leave from family, friends and places dear to them in Somalia. The ‘second flow’ of refugees had to leave Somalia as ‘a result from an overwhelming push’ (Stein 1981a:322). Most of these women have a working class background and have had no or limited education due to poverty, insecurity and the collapse of institutions as schools.
Stein (1981b:64,65) proposes the term ‘refugee experience’ to indicate that people are affected by the way they have to leave their country and their exposure to violence, conflict and loss. Relatedly, the refugee experience also affects the process of remaking home in the host country. Both, women of the first and second flow mentioned their refugee experience as negatively influencing their process of remaking home. The social and educational background are another influencing factor in how women remake home in the Netherlands. Women of the first flow are often key-figures in the Somali community, they founded self-organisations to help other women cope with emotional distress and the process of resettlement and are involved in national and local politics. Women of the second flow focus more on everyday life, they take care of their families and sometimes participate in local initiatives or do voluntary work in nursing homes or welfare organisations.
The focus of my research was on exploring how Somali women in the Netherlands coped with the challenges of transition from a well-known to an unknown context and what strategies they employed in the process of remaking home in the Netherlands. To find an answer on this question, I collected topical life stories (a term coined by Bertaux, 1981).5 In
3 The statistics fluctuate, mainly related to secondary migration to other (European) countries (Van Liempt
2011a,b). 4
The term ‘community’ is contested as it tends to result in a static and reified portraying of a (sub)culture (Brubaker et al 2008; Baumann 1996). When using the concept in this article, I follow Ghorashi (2007:131) who understands the term ‘community’ as a reference ‘to the existence of certain kind of networks and social and cultural activities that are in many ways constructed’, joined and experienced.
5
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –6– order to be able to trace women’s strategies over a longer period of time, I selected women of the first flow, who came to the Netherlands during the 1990’s,6 assuming that they would speak Dutch or English and that they had gone through this process of resettlement. This enabled me to ask women to reflect on this process and to share their expectations, struggles and dreams.
The process of resettlement
To better understand the strategies Somali women employ in the remaking of home, I insert here a description of the process of resettlement according to Stein (1981a,b). Stein distinguishes four stages of adjustment over time. The different stages are affected by personal experiences and expectations as well as by a host country´s opportunity structure. Although the stages do not fully cover the complexity of the process of resettlement Somali women go through, they nevertheless provide a framework to better situate the strategies women employ.
During the initial period of arrival and first months, individuals adjust to what is lost. Women not only lost loved ones, they also lost their employment and their position in a social network. This initial period begins, for most women, with the asylum procedure. For others, who came her on work or study permit, the process started when they realized that they could not return to Somalia as they had planned to do. Social support during these initial months is essential to cope with emotional distress.
The second stage concerns the rebuilding of life. For women, the organisation of family life gives a hold during this stage. Women show resilience, they start learning Dutch as soon as possible, they develop new networks and try to participate in society through voluntary work. During the 1990’s a residence permit was generally granted within a year. When women moved to a house, they were often welcomed by a local section of the Dutch council for refugees. Women experienced this welcoming as a sign of acceptance and it stimulated them to continue the remaking of home in the Netherlands.
During the third stage, after four to five years, refugees begin to accept life in exile but feelings of disappointment and loss can occur as well. Most women had small children when arriving in the Netherlands and found out that they needed all their time for their families instead of being able to learn Dutch and rebuilding a life of their own. Stein (1981b:67) argues that during these years, ‘refugees often talk of their exodus as having been for the sake
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –7– of the children – hopes are transferred to the next generation’. This recurred in women’s stories as they related their longing for Somalia with how they raised their children. They invest in the future of their children partially from the idea that ‘if you raise your children well, you will have a healthy community in the future’, as Aasiya explained.
The last stage, estimated after 5-10 years, covers the period of coming to terms with life as it is. Somali women achieved a certain stability as civic integration courses are completed, family life is established and women found ways to participate in and contribute to Dutch society and the Somali community. Nevertheless, women’s stories indicate that they remain struggling to achieve stability between their feelings of being at home in the Netherlands and their longing for the place where they were at home once.
In the following, I present the theoretical framework wherein the analysis of the women´s narratives is embedded. In this section I discuss Dutch discourse on integration as it is the context wherein women seek to remake home. As an intermezzo, I present the vignettes of four women whom I cite most often throughout the article, to give a better sense of their backgrounds. Then, I present my research findings consisting of three home making strategies that emerged from the stories women shared with me. The first strategy comprises the performance and production of identity through a narrative performance of self. The second strategy is a discussion of the self as embedded in a social structure of (family) networks and organisations. The third strategy is situated in the private realm and concerns home making practices and material culture aspects. In the final discussion I argue that navigating between being at home in the Netherlands and longing for the home they once had to leave behind, Somali women in the Netherlands establish two spheres of be-longing. Interestingly, these two spheres do not exclude each other, they rather enforce women’s commitment and diligence to remake homes across the ocean.
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The search for home conceptualized
For migrants and exiles, home comes to be found in a routine set of practices, a repetition of habitual interactions, in styles of dress and address, in memories and myths, in stories carried around in one’s head (McMichael 2002:172).
From an anthropological perspective, my research can be situated in the dynamic intersection between the local and the global. Winther (2009:66) points out that home is ‘a capability of being in the world’ rather than an attachment to place. In a similar vein, Comaroff and Comaroff argue (2003:151) that it is no longer sufficient to study in places, but research should focus on ‘the production of place’. These perceptions of home inspired me to investigate what strategies Somali women in the Netherlands employed to make a place a meaningful space, a home.
Intersecting relations between the local and the global make the production of home for Somali women in the Netherlands complicated. The ‘global’ for Somali women consist of their ties to Somalia as well as other countries where they have lived or where family lives, as well as that they feel attached to a worldwide web of social relations. An article of Levitt and Schiller (2004) wherein they discuss the global as a ‘transnational social field’ helps to understand how these intersections are experienced. The authors distinguish between ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of belonging’. ‘Being’ can be understood as the place where one lives, while ‘belonging’ refers to the place where one feels attached to. Both spheres are recognized by Somali women. However, through time, these two spheres become interrelated as women rebuild a life and a network in the Netherlands. This is explained by Aasiya: ‘Somalia is my first country. I am born and raised there. It will always be “home sweet home”. But the Netherlands has become my country too. I feel that in my heart. The Netherlands is my second home’. For other women, the quest for belonging is less settled, as Yasmin, who lives in the Netherlands for 22 years now, rhetorically asked: ‘What is home? I have no home. In Somalia, all has changed, the future unknown. I do not have a home [in the understanding of a space of belonging] here either. But I am in the Netherlands’. Yasmin, and many more Somali women, manoeuvre between be-ing in the Netherlands and longing for a recovery of life as they remember it from Somalia.
Home, an essentially social space
In this article home is understood as a lived space, created in relationship with others and depending on relationships with others for its enactment (Mallett 2004; Winther 2009). It is a
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –9– dynamic, multi-facetted concept consisting of social, sensorial and practical elements. Following Bachelard’s (1994) idea of the poetics of space, Henkel (2007:68) argues that a house must be inhabited to become a home. When memories, imaginations and everyday practices become attached to a place, it becomes a ‘structure charged with meaning’ (Winther 2009:62). In her research about home making practices of expats, Ahmed (1999) observed that a home is created through sensorial experiences as smells and sounds, as well as through story-telling about a shared past and by sharing memories about home with others. The spatial use of a house and material practices are, thereby, supportive elements to enable the production of home as a social space.
Refugees at first face the challenge to remake home in a new context. Winther (2009:66) eloquently points out that the process of ‘homing oneself are ways of relating to everyday life (…) in the midst of change’. In other words, before a home becomes a space of lived relations, a home should become a familiar space ‘where people feel most in control of their lives’ (Easthope 2004:134). Daniel and Knudsen (1995) note that having such a familiar space is all the more important for refugees who’s trust is put on trial because of an often violent disruption of social relations in the country they had to flee and because of the uncertainties a new and yet unknown context brings along. The authors conceptualize trust as a way of being in the world, based on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Ibid.:1). This relates to the idea of Easthope (2004:131,133) about a home as a space where an affective bond is produced between place and self through establishing habitualities. In turn, these newly established habitualities foster people’s sense of well-being and belonging, and contribute to restore trust and regain control over their lives.
Once a space of familiarity is established, a home can become an open space, which is ‘maintained and developed through the social relations that stretch beyond it’ (Easthope 2004:136, emphasis added). Home, in all its multiplicity then becomes enmeshed with society at large. Mallett (2004:65) argues that such a socially embedded home supports for the inhabitant ‘an active state of being in the world’. It functions as a social safety net from whereof people feel safe to explore and settle in the new context.
Dutch discourse on home and migration
As women seek to establish a meaningful life in the Netherlands, they are confronted with Dutch narrowing discourse on migration and integration7 which is increasingly defined by a
7 Schinkel (2008) pleads for abandoning the term ‘integration’ as it leads to a segregation between mainstream
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –10– politicized and normative notion of belonging (Duyvendak 2008:11). Bauer (2000), Ghorashi (2003; 2004; 2007) and Van Liempt (2011a,b) illustrate the pervasiveness of these metaphors in their research on refugees from Iran and Somalia who are time and again approached as temporary inhabitants who will return to their place of origin where they are perceived to be ‘rooted’. The women participating in these researches experiences this attitude as a sign of exclusion and of non-acceptation of their position as citizens and as a limitation of their rights to remake home in the Netherlands.
The portraying of refugees as ‘a transitory phenomena [sic] of crisis and disorder’ (Harrell-Bond and Voutira 1992:7), is based on ‘the assumption that the homeland or country of origin is not only the normal but [also] the ideal habitat for any person’ (Malkki 1995:509). In the Netherlands, this perception of immigrants as transitory phenomena can be explained against the backdrop of labour migrants who arrived in the Netherlands during the 1950’s. In everyday speech, they were named ‘guest workers’, to indicate their status as temporarily inhabitants of the country. Accordingly, they were allowed to maintain their social-cultural identities to enhance their return. However, this multicultural perspective shifted into an integrationist perspective when these families started to bring over their families to settle (Scholten and Holzhacker 2009). From that moment onwards, policies focused on improving participation in Dutch society through integration courses (Ghorashi 2004:109; Duyvendak 2011:86; Bjornson 2007). Along with these policy changes, Dutch discourse changed.
In a recent study on home and belonging of emplaced citizens8 in Western Europe and the United States, Duyvendak (2011) presents a challenging distinction between ‘home as haven’, which is the private realm of family life (ibid.:27); and ‘home as heaven’, which is a shared public identity on national scale (ibid.:39). In this latter concept the ideal of a private home is transferred to a national, homogeneous identity. This perception dominates Dutch discourse. In the face of cultural diversity and ever increasing movements of people, goods and ideas,9 emplaced citizens feel a loss of national identity and start to develop a nostalgia for the past. Such a ‘restorative nostalgia’ is based on the idea that what has been lost (a shared, familiar identity) should be restored (ibid.: 110). This ‘crisis of home’ results in a politicized notion of whom belongs and who does not belong. The most tangible consequence that work together to form an integral whole. Following this metaphor, refugees are perceived as parts that function improperly. However, Schinkel (ibid.:) argues: ‘society is not as fixed as a physical body and [subsequent] ideas about “inside” and “outside” are the results of discourse, they are a social construction’. Therefore, when I do not refer to Dutch discourse I use the term ‘resettlement’, which emphasises a process of inclusion rather than exclusion.
8 Malkki (1995:515) uses this term when referring to people who stay instead of move away. I find this term
clearer than the term ‘majority’, which is used by Duyvendak. 9
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –11– of these shifting notions of belonging is a culturalization of citizenship, expressed in suspicion towards immigrants who are asked to prove their loyalty to the Dutch ‘home as heaven’ ideal (Geschiere 2009). The following example illustrate how women navigate between maintaining their individuality and negotiating their place in Dutch society, while they also take over Dutch discourse in emphasising their efforts to participate in Dutch society. As comes forward in Aasiya’s pointed out: ‘Integration should come from two sides. Integration is to know the Dutch language, the customs, to know how to find your way in society, to be able to work. (…) See, I keep my identity but I know the Netherlands, I know my responsibilities. That is what [integration] is about’.
The role of social capital
The strategies women employ in the process of remaking home can also be understood from the perspective of bonding and bridging social capital. Social capital is reflected in bonding relations within a community and bridging relations across communities. In an article on the role of social capital in relation to community resilience and health, Poortinga (2012:287) argues that social capital is reflected in social cohesion, social support, social trust, reciprocity and civic participation. Bonding social relations are established vis-à-vis ‘communities of cultural reference and engagement’ as Bauer (2000:182) observed in her research among Iranian women in exile and which I recognized in the narratives of Somali women in the Netherlands. Van Liempt (2011a) also observed this tendency to establish homogeneous networks among Dutch Somalis who re-migrated to England. Constrained in their efforts to establish heterogeneous networks and to participate in the Netherlands, these migrants favoured to live and remake a home among fellow Somalis in England. Although these homogeneous networks, which are based on a shared identity and shared norms and values, are often criticised for their inward looking, they are nonetheless important to establish senses of belonging (Correa-Velez et al. 2010:1406).
In turn, these bonding networks of trust enable individuals to form bridging relations based on ‘respect and mutuality’ with the broader host society (Poortinga 2012:287). Hence, well-established community related networks are ‘good agents in facilitating integration’ (Mesteneous and Ioannidi 2002:318). A host country´s social environment and economic and political opportunity structure, in the form of discourses and institutional rules and regulations can enable or constrain the development of bridging relations. Research among Somali migrant youth in Australia indicates that, to establish social bonds and senses of belonging, it is crucial to be accepted as full citizen and to be socially valued, regardless of background,
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –12– status, or speech accent (Correa-Velez et al. 2010:1405). Dutch discourse, however, leaves less room for individuality as immigrants are asked to share the ‘home as heaven’ ideal, implying a ‘socio-cultural adaptation to Dutch values and norms’ (Scholten and Holzhacker 2009:97). In my findings I show how Somali self-networks seek to find a middle road between societies expectations and their own agenda’s, aiming to support women to take up their sense of responsibility for the Somali community and wider Dutch society.
Narrativity and identity
During the six months of fieldwork I collected the topical life stories of 24 Somali women on their home making strategies in everyday life in the Netherlands. Applying a narrative approach fitted the oral heritage of Somali women wherein stories and poetry are valued ways of expression (Lewis 2008:23) and in which conversation is favoured above texts. In addition, as storytelling is intertwined with identity performances, it enabled me to explore on a subjective level how women experienced and ascribed meaning to their process of remaking home in the Netherlands. This idea of identity performance through storytelling, is based on a perception of narrativity10 as a performative act wherein the self tells and the self is shaped through telling (Ochs and Capps 1996:22). Butler (1993 in Felluga 2011) formulates it even more concise when she argues that ‘a performative is a discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names’. In other words, how women experience and go through the process of remaking home is shared and shaped through the stories they tell each other and which they shared with me (Butler 1990 in Felluga 2011). This is why Willemse (2012:129) points to the situatedness of storytelling, explaining that ‘narratives constitute spaces that allow the narrator a temporal moment of closure, of constructing oneself as a unified, coherent, bounded self in a specific place at a specific time’. Identity is dynamic, an unfolding story that is shaped and reshaped through telling and through the social situatedness.
In his work On Being Authentic, Guignon (2006:127) vividly discusses the self as an unfolding story , arguing that ‘we shape an identity for ourselves’ through storytelling. He unriddles the quest for authenticity by pondering the conceptualizations of identity throughout history. Ideas about the self, changed from perceptions of the self as consisting of an ‘inner core’ to the opposite perception of ‘a centerless self’ in the post-modern world. Guignon seeks the middle, arguing that the self is something we ‘do’ in a socially constructed and time and context specific context of which one cannot fully detach itself from (ibid.:127). The social
10
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –13– context gives the individual moral references that shape one’s identity, and on the other hand, to have an identity is important to have an orientation in life (Guignon 2006:136). Where Butler argues that reality is socially constructed through discursive acts (Felluga 2011), Guignon adds that identity, as defined through dialogue in a social context, is requisite to be able to ‘be answerable or responsible in our interchange with others’ (2006:136-137).
Coherence in our fragmented and diffusive lines of live is created in a dialogical context with others. Storytelling as a ‘relational activity that gathers others to listen and empathize’ is thereby, a powerful instrument (Riessman 2000:4). Krauss, discussing ‘The narrative negotiation of identity and belonging’ (2006:107) adds that the narrative construction of a personal identity is extended to a struggle over social identity. Embedded in a social context, people seek to establish cohesion in the midst of a ‘whole array of attachments, which must be managed in their relation to one another (ibid.:108). Through this process of negotiating identity in a dialogical context, social bonds can be established which contribute to the remaking of home (Ghorashi 2007:121).
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Intermezzo – meeting Yasmin, Sagal, Aasiya and Alma
Yasmin is a middle-age, well educated women. She and her family arrived in the Netherlands
in 1990. She remembered the warm welcome they received. Showing her perseverance, Yasmin told that life in the Netherlands ‘was a chance for a new start, I thought-out how I wanted to live here, from the beginning onwards’. With this clear sense of purpose, Yasmin came in conflict with her husband who struggled dealing with war-related experiences and with changing gender roles as he watched his wife go to work, while he sat at home, unemployed. They are divorced now.
In Somalia, Yasmin attended Koran school and the education academy and worked as a primary school teacher afterwards. In Somalia, she coordinates a mother & childcare program in cooperation with a Dutch organisation. In the Netherlands, Yasmin founded a Somali women’s organisation after having worked for various employers. The aim of this organisation is to connect women and to support the development of a new social network. Yasmin experienced the need to receive support and she wanted to share what she learned: ‘To change a situation, you have to go through the pain. Otherwise change is not possible’.
Yasmin feels connected to Somalia as well as to the Netherlands where she remade a home and a social network. She said: ‘The hope to return remains. I have one leg her, one leg there’. It is a social belonging: ‘These are the best things for nomads, they depart to find other pastures but the connection with people remains strong. That’s true for me too. It doesn’t matter where you live, you remain connected with me’.
Sagal, who is raised by her mother, came from Mogadishu to the Netherlands 20 years ago.
She was 24 and mother of four children. After three years, she was united with her husband. She experienced these initial years as very difficult. In her narrative she articulated the distress Somali women have to cope with. She said: ‘You have a negative start; you flee, you have to leave everything behind and you arrive in an unknown country, an unfamiliar culture. It is so difficult! Those people need a warm place’.
Sagal studied modern languages in Somalia until she married and got pregnant. Now she works as an intermediary between primary schools and Somali families, where she tries to bridge cultural differences and mediate when communication problems arise. In her work, she observes the major challenges women face in raising their children in the Netherlands. Sagal explained: ‘You want to raise them as you are raised yourself, but here, the children learn different things’. Her work gives her much satisfaction as it enables her to support women to
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –15– find their way in Dutch society while she simultaneously asks Dutch society to carefully listen to the needs of women, to ‘step into their shoes and to show that you want to know them’. According to Sagal, being listened at and being known is vital to make yourself feel at home in the Netherlands.
Aasiya is born in the southern part of Somalia and moved to Mogadishu being a teenager. Her
father was a district’s police officer, married two women, who each lived in different places and managed their own household. Although her mother did not attend school herself, she stimulated her children to study. After finishing her studies, Aasiya worked for a Somali ministry. She came to the Netherlands to continue her studies, in the late 1980s. At that time she was married and mother of two children. The youngest came with her while the oldest stayed with her sister. Shortly after her graduation, war broke out and Aasiya applied for asylum in the Netherlands. The uncertainty about her position and the worries about the safety of her loved ones made it a difficult time. After a year, she was granted asylum and reunited with her husband. A few years later, they divorced due to marital conflicts.
Aasiya’s home making strategy was taking up opportunities at hand, such as learning Dutch, interpreting for others in the asylum centre, and founding a Somali organisation. It was a demanding period, as Aasiya sums up: ‘I was busy with my own life because my husband was somewhere else (…). So, at first I had to take care of two children and I had to learn Dutch and I was occupied with my residence permit, together with a lawyer, and I wanted to continue that Somali organisation’. Nonetheless, her work in and for the Somali community contributed, and continues to contribute, to the reconstruction of her social network and so it contributed to her process of remaking home.
Alma is a highly educated women in her mid-forties. She remembered her home in
Mogadishu as a place where everyone was welcome. Her mother managed the household while her father, a tribal leader, discussed issues and mediated by conflicts. Alma travelled to the Netherlands early 1990 on a visa. She learned Dutch and followed education for management assistant, about which she mentioned: ‘I learned many things that helped me finding my way in the Netherlands’. Reflectingly, she said: ‘I feel at home here, it is a feeling of attachment. I can do whatever I want and I can strife for what I want to achieve’.
Alma is involved in various information projects for Somali women and (co-) founded different Somali organisations. Her aim is to empower women and enable them to participate in society. As the name of one the projects indicate ‘to make the move from old traditions
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –16– towards a new discussion’. This is still important as ‘there are people who fall between two stools, they are only occupied with themselves for over 20 years. Therefore, you need to learn how to say: now I am here, I live here. Until you board a plane, try to really be here’. Alma’s hope is that other Somalis find what she herself found: ‘Somali people say that your house is a space where no one can dictate you. That’s your home. And so is the Netherlands for me, that’s the way I feel it’.
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Home making strategies in practice ___________ ________________
You will not get it ready-to-use, you have to build up – Hibaq.
It´s a process, I always compare it with the idea of going to the ocean without a boat. You really have to learn everything – Kaltuun.
The process of resettlement in the Netherlands is experienced in various ways, as the vignettes of the women clearly show, but the commitment of women to remake home stands out in all narratives. Before turning to discuss the three strategies women employ in the remaking of home, I here situate women’s stories in the context of Dutch socio-political environment.
One of the first challenges women face after arrival is the asylum process. This period of waiting in sober circumstances and uncertainty stands in sharp contrast with life in Somalia. Hani, a single mother of 28, explained: ‘Before the war we had a good life. I came here to find safety’. Yet, she found out that ‘without residence permit [you have] no future in the Netherlands. Five years of waiting for a permit is long! And every time you hope… for security’. Women experienced these first years as the most difficult.
Women underlined the significance of a welcoming environment as they recalled the support of welfare organisations and neighbours. As Sagal said: ‘I have been cared for very well (…) people were so welcoming. That is different nowadays. These kind of things you will never forget. I needed it so badly’. Leylo, who is normally very critical about welfare assistance and integration courses, used a Somali idiom to explain the importance of guidance during the first years after arrival: ‘The owner of a house can show you the corners the best’. A welcoming and stimulating environment is not only important for women’s well-being, as Miski pointed out, it is also important for the process of resettlement as ‘participation will keep women going to make themselves at home’.
Some women felt restricted in their in possibilities to follow education or to find a suitable job. Other women mentioned to be confronted with hostility in everyday encounters. As Jamilah, a friendly, working single mother in her 40s, shared her experience with discrimination: ‘Sometimes you are evaluated by your appearance. I remember that, when something dirty was left in the corridor, they always thought it was mine. Next day, I found it in my front door’. Showing her resilience, she told that she neglected these incidents and focussed instead on her process of resettling, her education and her work.
Being able to develop a social supportive network is of crucial importance. It helps women to cope with feelings of loss and to re-establish life in the Netherlands. The difference
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –18– between the Netherlands and Somalia is, explained Yasmin, that in Somalia ‘we are “we”, not “I”, it is a social life. As such, you have a lot of social support. Yet we have lost it here.’ That is why some women mentioned that, if they had had the chance to go back to Somalia during their first years in the Netherlands, they would have gone back. However, throughout the years, women re-established and extended their social networks of support and many women either founded or joined a (Somali) women’s organisation to support other women in their process of resettlement as well.
Performing a self
Somali women are strong! She is at the centre, she moves on – Yasmin
In their stories, women positioned themselves as ‘strong women’,11 who are persistently looking for improvements and stability while facing the challenges of everyday life. Women present themselves as Somali women, with motherhood as a salient aspect of identity through which they connect their lives with that of their mothers and other women. Meanwhile, they also present themselves as Dutch citizens, negotiating their place in Dutch society by emphasizing their efforts to participate and contribute to society. Women’s narrative performance of self is ‘a fluid, evolving identity-in-the-making’ (Ochs and Capps 1996:22), which is most clearly demonstrated when women mention their vulnerability. Identity is not only performed in a narrative it is as well produced through a narrative performance of self.
Negotiating place in Dutch society
Most women portray themselves at first, as Somali women. This is in line with the idea of life as an unfolding story (Guignon 2006), as the story of life begins in Somalia where they are born and raised. Several women explicitly mentioned this in their stories. Amina, who migrated from Southern Europe to the Netherlands to foster her sister’s children, said: ‘You feel at home where you are raised’. Hani said it more elaborately: ‘There is everything. My country. Father… how do you name it? Do you mean ‘fatherland’? Yes, my parents are there, my family is there, the culture wherein I am raised. So many memories’. Hani’s points at the intermingling of identity and the course of life. Anab, who lives in the Netherlands for 10 years now and who’s children are born in the Netherland, shared how her children sometimes try to provoke her by saying that she is as Dutch as they are because she lives in the
11
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –19– Netherlands for so long now. Yet she simply answers: ‘no, I am Somali. Somali. End of discussion.’ This example illustrates how multiple identities can easily be understood as if they exclude one another. It also shows how Dutch discourse has become part and parcel of everyday speech and that women negotiate their Somali identity on everyday basis.
While women refer to Somalia as the place where they are born and raised, they talk about the Netherlands as their ‘second country’. The Netherlands is the country where they were able to make a new beginning, some women called it their ‘second home’. Their story of life continues in the Netherlands and becomes enmeshed with memories of Somalia through time. Aasiya illustrated this intermingling of attachment beautifully when she said: ‘When I am watching the news about Somalia on television, I think: a Dutch company should go there to build bridges. That thought comes automatically’. By sharing this thought with me, Aasiya negotiated her place in Dutch society, as she disclosed that it is possible to feel attached to and take responsibility for the interests of both Somalia and the Netherlands.
Nonetheless, women feel the need to situate themselves with respect to an increasingly restrictive integration discourse in the Netherlands. A Yasmin argued: ‘It does not matter how you integrate, you are who you are, you have your culture. What my mother taught me, I take with me’. For her, this is an aspect of who she is, it is not a static identity that obstruct dialogue and bridging relations, as she added: ‘I have learned that we are alike. We come together as human beings. There are no differences between us except for small differences, but these are not important’. Adding a sense of humour, and pointing to the superficiality and excluding tone in Dutch discourse on integration, Aasiya said: ‘I feel integrated. Yet, that does not mean that I am wearing jeans now’. For these women, integration is a practical matter based on respect for each other. Integration is ‘to know the Dutch language and the customs (…) to know your responsibilities. That’s what it is about’. Kaltuun draws a parallel between her process of resettlement and that of a Dutch citizen who moves from the south to the north or vice versa. She argues that her strategies to remake home are not that different, as a Dutch citizen will also hold-on to some specific habits and their own dialect. Therefore, she argued for hybridity: ‘You cannot throw away who you are, no. But you can learn from a different culture and a different language’.
Motherhood, a source of strength
Another identity that women articulate is that of Somali women as ‘strong women’. It emerges implicitly when women reflect upon their flight, their process of resettlement, and daily life. It is also mentioned explicitly in reference to Somali women in general, family life
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –20– and motherhood. As Yasmin said: ‘Somali women are strong! You see it everywhere, a woman is the centre, the one who continues. Women are as a machine, not just of the home but of society’. Sagal, who works as a contact person between primary schools and Somali families, also observed the strength of Somali women: ‘Look, Somali women are strong, optimistic, cheerful people. People are startled by the way they are dressed and the large families. [But] they are strong! I never hear them complain’. Sagal added that women ‘give everything for the future of their children [even] when life is really difficult, women persist and choose for their children’.
Several women mentioned their own mothers as an example when talking about the diligence of women and when seeking for an explanation of their own dedication to their everyday activities.12 One of the women, herself actively engaged in various Dutch and Somali organisations said: ‘My mother, she was just a housewife who raised her children. She never went to school. Still, she is a very strong woman to be honest. Somali women really are very strong’. For Rhoda, it was the memory of her mother who played a decisive role in her commitment to found a Somali organisation:
She really was a good mum and she was someone with tenacity. I love her character, I still do. So, when she died in 2004, I said, her name should remain. So we started a foundation with her name because I know for sure that when we start something in her name, we will be able to help a lot of people.
The experience of Kaltuun is likewise: ‘I have become who I am now partly because of her strength’. And Semira, who raised five children in the Netherlands mentioned that she wanted her children to remember their youth as she did: ‘We were not the most rich, but happy’. Memories about their own youth are for women a rich source of support and inspiration when they remake home and raise their children in the Netherlands. In addition, motherhood connects women, not just through generations, also through society. Women connect with each other to share their experiences so other women may benefit. As Miski said, referring to her women’s organisation: ‘I organise these activities and tell my story so many women can say: I can do this as well when I follow this or that way’.
12 Women also refer to their fathers with respect, as wage earners, as clan leaders from whom they learned social
manners and how to deal with conflict situations, and several women mentioned that their fathers encouraged them to study.
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –21– Although seemingly contradicting, even the high rate of divorce in the Somali community in exile (Van Heelsum 2011:22,35) can be understood alongside women’s articulation of motherhood and strength. In Somalia, women are responsible for the household and the education of the children. Yet, in exile, these family structures are shifting. Marital conflicts arise when gender roles change and when women and men try to cope with the new context while lacking the support of a social network as known in Somalia (Gardner and Bushra 2004:112,113). In these situations, women are reminded of how their mothers organised the household independently and, when marital conflicts negatively affect family life, they choose for the well-being of the children and they divorce. Not all women, however, divorce when conflict arise. Using an idiom, Semira explained that you sometimes have to accept the circumstances and make the best out of it: ‘When a glass is broken and you try to repair it, it will never be fully similar’. Whether women divorce or not, women’s strength enables them to persevere, to grow stronger and to be an example for their children and for other women around them.
Doubling strength
Paradoxical with the self-performance of Somali women as ‘strong women’, are women’s stories of their vulnerability. Women not just talk about these two aspects of identity, they are engaged in an identity construction through this discursive performance (Butler 1990) and they simultaneously plea for support and recognition of women’s struggles in the process of resettlement in the Netherlands. Nadiya, a single mother in her mid-40’s, pointed out that there is a distinction between what women experience at the inside and their performance in society: ‘Women are broken inside. Because of experiences, fighting to learn and raising the children. But from the outside, she is strong’. More women mentioned this difficulty to balance their responsibilities, their dreams and their sorrows. Nadiya, a women in her mid-30, was really open about this struggle when she talked about her divorce: ‘We separated. I don’t want to go to Somalia. Neither do I want my children to watch arguments and misery. To be honest, it is very, very, very difficult. But we will manage, I always say to my children,
Insha’Allah’. Here, ‘being strong’ is both presented as an aspect of personality as well as a
source of support in itself, to deal with everyday challenges. Other women used the idiom or prayer ‘if God is willing’ in similar vein. This idiom communicates a hope and longing for better times as well as that it gives women strength to persevere. As such, prayer is perceived as a source of support in the process of resettlement. This is eloquently pointed out by Hani: ‘It can help when you pray. But the most important is to be patient. That’s belief as well.
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –22– Always take it positively, don’t think negative’. Then she laughed and said: ‘When you [think] positive… maybe you can Insha’Allah’.
Women’s vulnerability and emotional distress is related to experiences of war and violence, the loss of loved ones and social relations, and to the challenges of resettlement (McMichael 2002:184). Women often keep silent about their feelings due to cultural norms, taboos and sometimes loneliness. The latter is pointed out by Hani: ‘When you are new, you want to talk when you are sad or mad. You really need someone who is willing to listen. I have really missed that’. According to Yasmin, this can be related to a breakdown of the social fabric as known in Somalia. Taboos in Somali culture make it even more difficult for women to talk about their distress openly, as Sagal explained:
You want to show the outer world that things are all right. They think that their problems are not as severe as they are in Somalia. In Somalia, you will not survive when you are weak. When you feel unable to do something, you will not ask someone, you try it yourself and you get up again. There is shame to admit weakness.
Yet, as long as women are not able to overcome their distress it negatively affects their process of resettlement. Sagal observed this in her contacts with Somali families: ‘That’s why women are unhappy and have their curtains closed all day. They are upset quickly too. They are suspicious… they are in need of help’. The need of support, of being listened at, is also recognized by Hibaq, a volunteer worker of various civil-society organisations in her place of residence. She tells her story to encourage other women to do the same because, ‘when you are stuck, you cannot progress. Although it is not possible for everyone to overcome your difficulties, in general, Somali women are strong. I do think that there is a possibility to change if you want it. It doesn’t matter how big or small your problem is’.
Women’s weakness is an opportunity for other women to show their strength and helpfulness and support others in the process of resettlement in the Netherlands. As women shared their stories, they felt comforted when they realized that their story is a collective story. It is for Jamilah a reason to be proud of her Somali identity: ‘We have such a good thing, we help each other even if you don’t know that person’, she said. Nadiya elaborated on this: ‘Somali women are very supportive. When someone is sick, or has a problem, they try to comfort, to help’. In Somali culture, group interest surpasses the interest of individuals, hence, ‘you feel always responsibility for the well-being of other’s’ explained Alma. This sense of responsibility is internalized and has become a basic principle of life. ‘Life is more than
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –23– earning money or who you are. It is more than that! You will always need people. Not just because they need you, it can be the other way round as well’, Alma added. The importance of sharing is an all-encompassing value in women’s life, as is eloquently put into words by Safiya: ‘I always help. Somali people or not, that doesn’t matter. You have to! Yes, why else do you live?’
Producing networks
Wherever you come to live, you have to invest time to make it your own. Family, friends and connections are really important – Alma.
Central to the previous section is the role of identity in the process of remaking home. Women negotiate a place in Dutch society while they simultaneously hold on to their Somali identity. Women’s performance as ‘strong women’ is employed as a strategy to overcome difficulties and to support other women to establish life in the Netherlands as well. The focus of this section is how women reproduce and extend their social networks after arrival in the Netherlands and the role of self-organisations in rebuilding social capital. Women develop bonding relations within the Somali community while simultaneously developing bridging relations in the asylum centre and, later on, with people in their neighbourhood. Somali self-organisations are situated in the midst of these social fields, they are based on bonding relations within Somali communities and they support and stimulate bridging relations across wider local networks and Dutch society at large.
Extending networks
In the narratives, women frequently mentioned how they feel supported by a worldwide Somali network of extended family and friends. These networks spread along (secondary) migration patterns (Van Liempt 2011a,b) and are maintained through the mobile phone and increasingly the internet. These networks enable women to reconnect with loved ones after arriving in the Netherlands, while these networks are also a source of social support and assistance when settling down in the new place of residence. An example of the density of Somali networks is given by Hibaq when she reflected on her search for her husband who remained in Somalia:
For four years, we did not know whether he was alive … on the grapevine he heard that we arrived in Holland. A befriended reporter who worked in Somalia a long time
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –24– ago, came back to Somalia and met my husband. He told him that he did not know where his family lived. The reporter asked Somali people in England and the one he asked happened to be a good friend of me. Actually, Somali people are one big family. Everyone knows everyone.
Hibaq emphasized the importance of a network, saying: ‘When your network is narrow, you are really vulnerable’. Several women explained their ease to make connections as part of their socio-cultural heritage. So said Yasmin: ‘These are the best things for nomads. They break up to find another country, but the connection with people remains very strong’. This ability to stay connected with people while moving to different places makes women proud of their Somali identity as is mentioned by Sagal: ‘Moving is no problem, I make contact everywhere. That is the nomadic [heritage]. Where I am most proud of is that I can take with me the people I care for’. Fuglerud and Engebrigtsen (2006), who studied the network creation of Somali immigrants in Norway, also observed ‘a tendency towards dispersal and managing tasks through long distance networks’, which they explained against the backdrop of Somali nomadic movements (ibid.:1126). It follows that home is more than it’s locality, it is a space which enables for developing and maintaining social relations.
Nonetheless, locality and home are connected in the sense that women invest in new relations in their place of residence or move houses to live closer to family or friends. Through these local social relations, women foster a feeling of familiarity, which is an aspect of feeling at home somewhere (Duyvendak 2011:27). This is pointed out by Jamilah, who arrived with her new-born son in a Dutch city when she was 19. She said: ‘I feel at home here. For me, home is where you feel safe, where you have confidence in your neighbourhood. And that I have connections with people who live nearby’.
Women’s local networks consist of connections within the Somali community and of networks that are extended through joining local organisations and by getting acquainted with neighbours. Hibaq emphasized women’s responsibility to make connections inside and outside the Somali community, whereby she mentioned that you have to invest in new relations. In similar vein Alma said: ‘Wherever you go, you have to invest time to settle down and to make it your own. Having a social network is really important’. Ubax story beautifully shows how women invest in the remaking of home in the Netherlands and how this is intertwined with a welcoming attitude of the social environment. She realized that ‘you learn nothing by staying at home’. So, while watching the children playing outside, she invested in establishing connections with her Dutch speaking neighbours whom she now considers her
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –25– friends. Pondering the option to move to a larger house, she said: ‘But this is a safe neighbourhood… I want to stay here because I have very good neighbours’.
Self-organisations as source of social capital
‘For me is true, don’t remain alone. People belong together. You belong in a group’ Nadiya said. She joined a Somali organisation in her place of residence as she wanted to contribute to society and be part of a group of people. The majority of the women I talked with either joined or founded a Somali (women’s) organisation in the Netherlands. Somali self-organisations are widespread in the Netherlands especially when compared with other immigrant organisations (Van Heelsum 2004:16) The density of Somali organisations can be explained as a combination of a Somali enterprising spirit and Dutch rules regarding funding, only registered self-organisations can apply for funding. Alma added another explanation: ‘They are truly independent people. Very proud too’. A consequence of this independency is less cooperation between the various organisations than would be possible. Cawo and Iftin, two young ladies who live in the Netherlands since their early childhood remarked about this: ‘It would be great when people are willing to cooperate a bit more. That urge to help others is part of us all, I think. If they would cooperate with the same urge and the same optimism with which they became successful [with their own organisation], it would be very good’.13 Some, often larger, self-organisations already cooperate with Dutch organisations in projects regarding youth care, the fight against Female Genital Mutilation and education projects that focus on life in the Netherlands.
Self-organisations are a source of social support and play an important role in maintaining existing and establishing new social relations within the Somali community as well as across Dutch society. These organisations frequently develop out of local initiatives of women to connect women with each other. Therefore, they sometimes focus on migrant women in general to include non-Somali women as well. As Kaltuun described the start of her self-organisation: ‘So we assembled women and I said: guys, we have come in a foreign country, let us talk with each other and share our experiences’. Through these initiatives, women provide a supportive social network to others and extend their own networks simultaneously. Having access to such a supportive network is essential as is pointed out by
13
In the Netherlands, there is one federation of Somali organisations (FSAN). FSAN is founded in the early 1990 to function as a channel of information and advice between the Dutch government and the Somali community which was, at that time already, represented by many small self-organisations. The federation functions as an umbrella-organisation for approximately one third of the registered self-organisations in the Netherlands (Van Heelsum 2011:23).
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –26– Hibaq, an active member of a women’s organisation in her place of residence. She mentioned: ‘Fleeing is an intensive process. It touches your soul deeply and it is very good to be able to talk about it with others’. ‘That’s what I have learned [too],’ said Miski, who started business as family coach in the Netherlands, ‘if you share everything with people, you feel good.’ She shares this insight with others when she gives information to new-comers, because, ‘when you don’t share your problems with your friends or fellow Somali… you cannot solve everything yourself. They can’t either, but when you talk about it, than you feel a bit better, maybe. And maybe, you even receive some advices.’ This, indeed, is experienced by Semira, who found it difficult to find her way in Dutch society. She told that she had missed the support of a social (family) network, yet managed to remake an alternative network through joining a Somali women’s organisation:
I have no family around to ask for advice and to share my problems with. [Therefore] I tried to attend Somali women meetings on Sundays. That’s good for me. To chat a bit. Whether women share their issues or not on these afternoon gatherings does not matter. We try to understand each other and try to relieve each other’s problems.
Interesting about this example is that Semira here indicates that it is not necessary to always talk about your problems in order to be able to support each other. Just the possibility to come together as women and to chat, is already a source of comfort and support.
The downside of a strong Somali network is social control, mentioned Jamilah: ‘When you do things, they talk about it. To tell you the truth, they want to meddle’. Consequently, women frequently tend to keep their problems and distress for themselves. Leylo referred to this hidden struggle with taboos, social control and gossip in the Somali community, saying: ‘You have to talk about your problems, breathe deeply, open your stomach. Then you are able to think. Now it is all constipation’. As a consequence of the breakdown of former social networks, women have to rebuild relationships of trust with new people (Daniel and Knudsen 1995). This requires courage, as Miski pointed out: ‘Some say: women gossip, therefore we won’t share our issues. Yet it is important that people have trust in each other. Even when people pass on what you have said, you have to learn how to say: this is my situation and I will honestly share it with you’. For some women it is easier to establish friendships outside the Somali community, as Jamilah said: ‘What I say to my Dutch neighbour, I can’t say in the Somali community, it’s true.
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –27– Aware of this issue, some women purposefully invest in developing relationships of trust on a small scale. Safiya told a story to illustrate this:
It didn’t go well with a Somali lady here in the neighbourhood and she became ill. So I said to her: come with us. We went to a sewing course that was organized by the Red Cross and to a Dutch language course once a week. Doing so, we made a program for the whole week. If we did not do this, she would only sit at home, inside. She says she feels happy now’.
This example is recognized by many women, as women time and again underlined the significance of these local women’s networks for the development of new friendships and for their understanding of and resettlement in Dutch society.
From empowerment to participation
While Somali organisations are often criticized for having a too narrow focus on the Somali community (Van Heelsum 2011), the narratives of the women show the opposite. Rather than being a sign of non-settlement and withdrawal from mainstream society, self-organisations often aim to empower women and enhance their participation in society (Stein 1979; Poortinga 2012:287). Sagal explained this, when she told about the aim of her self-organisation: ‘There are many women like me. When you meet each other, you can come to know things from both sides [Somali and Dutch]. We want to help people understand how the Dutch system works, and to be a bridge between Somali people and Dutch organisations’.
The networks of self-organisations are used by women as a platform to participate in society, outside the context of the household. Nadiya indicated this as the primary reason to join an organisation: ‘I’d better be useful, doing something I can do instead of listening to problems without [having] a solution’. Both aspects are part of the aim of self-organisations, as Rhoda explained: ‘Vulnerability is recognized and with our foundation we reinforce the strength and own responsibility of women so they know what they can do to change their circumstances’. With ‘vulnerability’ Rhoda meant that they try to discuss actual issues in the Somali community. Where small-scale organisations are often limited by organising discussion meetings around a particular theme, the larger self-organisations offer programs that support participation in the long turn, for example Dutch language courses. ‘So that,’ Miski said, ‘women don’t have to sit inside. They can start to work voluntary or get experience and continue to grow’. The role of self-organisations thus takes a surprising turn.
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –28– As a social network, where women feel attached with and known, self-organisations enhance participation in society through empowerment and substantive, socio-emotional and practical support.
Producing a home
Where I can relax, where I can be myself, where I can laugh, that is home for me – Rhoda.
In the previous sections home is discussed as related to identity and as a space of lived relations. Yet, for a house to become a space where networks can be maintained as well as produced, it must first be inhabited (Winther 2009:50). Referring to the work of De Certeau (1984), Winther (ibid.:64) argues that home is a matter of ‘doing’. A home is constantly created through the use of space, through the use of objects and through social encounters. In all these aspects, the senses and the body as carrier of identity and memories, play a pivotal role. Women establish a space ‘between the well-known and the [yet] unknown’ (ibid.:66-67), by retrieving memories through the use of objects that reminds them of Somalia, for example through the feeling of clothing on the skin, the smell of incense and the taste of food. Hence, it is in particular one’s home where the two spheres of belonging come together and where women reflect on the past, live the present and dream about the future.
In Leylo’s home, the walls were painted orange and decorated with Arabic calligraphic works of art. Explaining her choice, she said: ‘I want to make my home a bit African and a bit Dutch’. Ummi’s home is another example of mingling of memories and life experiences. Ummi is a women in her mid-50s who lives with her two youngest sons in the Netherlands. I asked her about a framed image of Mogadishu that she put up in her living room. The picture must have been taken during the war, as the stone entrance gate and the surrounding houses were clearly damaged. For Ummi, the picture reminds her of the place where she once lived and where her mother, her husband and her older children still live. She also uses the picture to tell her sons stories about Somalia. In addition, this picture is a valuable sign of the hospitable attitude of her neighbour from whom she received it when she moved in that house. When we continued talking about the objects in Ummi’s home, I asked Ummi about the white, decorated pottery on top of the cupboard. The pottery seemed similar to the pottery from Somali other women used to burn incense. Surprisingly, Ummi bought these pottery by a well-known Dutch general store, because these pots reminded her of the pottery used in Somalia. This sign of hybridity shows how memories of Somalia and everyday
Master thesis article, GSSS, UvA, Gerdien Gijsbertsen, July 2014 –29– life in the Netherlands become enmeshed as women make a space wherein they feel at home, again.
While I used objects as prompts to discuss homing practices, it appeared to me that women themselves more often mentioned sensorial and bodily experiences when they talked about their homing practices. Women’s style of clothing is a beautiful example of how ideas of home and belonging are intertwined with identity and the body. Reflecting on her first years in the Netherlands, Aasiya recalled how Dutch people complimented her for her colourful Somali style headscarf and dress. She said: ‘The way I dress is called baati [or
dirac] (see appendix 3), I don’t wear jeans. It is not that I am bound to this style, it makes me
really feel at home’. Alma, who wears western style cloths in everyday life, said in similar vein: ‘Clothing is important, Somali women are fond about their own [Somali style] dresses. They don’t wear it daily, but they certainly will when they have the opportunity’. Next to an expression of identity is wearing Somali style clothing for Rhoda also an expression of freedom: ‘I want to be able to wear my culture, whenever I want to’. Hence, being able to wear Somali style clothing gives women a sense of comfort, of uniqueness and of belonging.
Sensorial experiences also play a role in the various ways women make memories of Somalia tangible in their homes. As Aasiya summed up when I asked her about these homing practices: ‘Incense is really important and henna too. I have it too. Yes, that is something specific for Somali people. Incense and henna, and eating together, just the rice and everything. It just belongs to it’. Incense is used to make the house smell nice, it is an aspect of hospitality, as a sign that the house is fully prepared to welcome visitors. Next to being a sign of hospitality, is the role of incense described in various other ways. For Amina, the use of incense is a given. She said smiling: ‘I have it. All Somali people use it at home, of course!’ For Rhoda, traditions are really important. ‘As a women, you have to smell nice. So we use incense. It fits tradition. I feel at home when I use it’. Incense contributes to the re-making of home in exile, as Miski eloquently pointed out when she explained that the smell of incense gives her a relaxed feeling, ‘or, a kind of home…’.
In addition to material objects and sensorial experiences is the way a home is inhabited through the use of space and through social encounters. This is most obvious in culinary practices and hospitality. Somali norms and values regarding hospitality and sharing are expressed through the preparation of special dishes for visitors and by inviting people to eat together. In turn, women maintain and extend their social networks by showing hospitality. Leylo explained that social gatherings in the homes of women are essential to pause and reflect on everyday life and to support each other in the process of resettlement. Also, women
