This research study explores how ten Eritrean refugees living in Pretoria, South Africa, make sense of their refugee identity in individual interviews. Discursive analysis was employed as a methodology to capture the different ways of talking (interpretative repertoires) about their institutionally-ascribed refugee identity, their experiences as refugees and alternative identities which the refugees discursively constructed in their interaction with the researcher. The study was motivated to provide the refugees, as a marginalized social group, a platform for expressing their agency. Six men and four women were recruited for the study using a convenience sampling technique. Analysis resulted in the identification of five dominant and two less dominant interpretative repertoires. The dominant interpretative repertoires were as follows: ‘we have rights’ repertoire; ‘accept who you are’ repertoire; ‘they target you’ repertoire; ‘I am secure: they can’t deport me’ repertoire and ‘we are misunderstood as criminals’ repertoire. The two less dominant repertoires were: ‘our refugee identity is transient’ repertoire and ‘I am lost; I don’t have a country any more’ repertoire. The findings of such varied, contradictory and inconsistent ways of talking by the participants about their refugee identity demonstrate a challenge to previous empirical studies conducted on the experiences and identities of Eritrean refugees in different settings which treated participant accounts as consistent and coherent. Furthermore, the results of the study defy dominant discourses about refugees which describe them as voiceless and without agency. / Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / am2014 / Sociology / unrestricted

The control of the eritrean refugees and the diaspora-tax in SwedenThe purpose of this thesis was to study how the Eritrean government successfully mobilizedand extracted the 2% tax from the diaspora that left the country in protest of its governance.The chosen group of the diaspora, has been the eritreans who left Eritrea after the politicalcrisis in 2001 and currently live in Sweden. Twelve semi-structured interviews wereconducted and the material was analyzed with the theoretical framework of transnationalism.The empirical findings were analyzed with a thematic analysis where three themes wereidentified. The study showed that the Eritrean government controls the diaspora by usingdifferent tools and threats to silence them and to contribute with taxes. The members of thediaspora who are not able to meet the requirements of the government including paying thediaspora tax, are perceived as traitors. Furthermore, they are isolated and live under constantpressure in an insecure environment, while those who contribute with taxes are seen asheroes. Additionally, the government has implemented trust issues among diaspora inSweden, where some members work by reporting to the embassy in order to earn respect andbetter services.