Elusive Jannah (2015) by Cawo M. Abdi: Somalis in Dubai, South Africa and the United States

The book

Elusive Jannah: The Somali Diaspora and a Borderless Muslim Identity is by Cawo M. Abdi, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press published it in 2015 in hardback (ISBN 9780816697380) and paperback (ISBN 9780816697397), with about 290 pages (Africa, 2017). Jannah is the Arabic and Somali word for paradise, closely tied to Islam.

Its question

The book asks how life in the diaspora shapes Somalis around the world. Abdi argues that displacement leaves a permanent mark, because people in the diaspora remain in search of a home, and that "place matters": what Somalis worry about differs sharply depending on where they live. In every place, however, the search for cultural, religious and social belonging continues, often together with a search for legal, economic and physical security (Africa, 2017).

What is in it

An introduction places the author in her research and explains her methods, noting that people's life stories and reasons for moving are more complex than legal categories such as "refugee" allow. The first chapter gives an overview of present-day Somali migration, its causes and its routes over time. Three chapters then describe three countries (Africa, 2017):

• The United Arab Emirates, where Abdi spent the least time and faced the most limits on research. She describes a life of partial belonging and temporary visas, where a shared religion does not bring full belonging without rights, and shows the gap between Somalis who arrived before the war, returnees and business people with a foothold in the West, and newer unskilled workers and domestic workers. See Somalis in the UAE and Dubai.
• South Africa, based on several periods of fieldwork between 2007 and 2013. She describes insecurity in a highly segregated society, how Somalis and other Muslims pool money and give charity so that many more people survive, and the shops and businesses that support them, set against xenophobia and violent attacks. See Somalis in South Africa.
• The United States, where many Somalis in the Emirates and South Africa hope to go. Abdi calls it a "slippery Jannah" because of the challenges American life poses, especially around relations between men and women and around poverty. Some people leave once they have citizenship; others keep close ties to home and dream of return. See Somalis in the United States and Minneapolis and St Paul.

How it was received

Reviewing it in the journal Africa, the anthropologist Cindy Horst, author of Transnational Nomads, called it "well-written" and "a powerful ethnography". She praised its rich detail, its many quotations from the people Abdi met, and the way it shows them as resourceful even in very constrained conditions. Her main criticism was that it could have done more with theory, such as the idea of refugees living "in perpetual passage", and with writing on citizenship and uncertainty (Africa, 2017). Reviews also appeared in the Journal of African History and the refugee studies journal Refuge.

Where to read it

It is sold in paperback and as an ebook by University of Minnesota Press and is held by many university libraries. Related reading on the many places Somalis now live is on Somali refugees by the numbers.