This thesis examines the lifeworlds of Somali returnees in Ethiopia. Their experience of flight and return is distinctive, shaped by the history and culture of the Somali people and the political and economic conditions of this part of Africa. In emphasizing this distinctiveness, this thesis is an implicit critique of recent efforts by academics and aid agencies to homogenize the experience of refugees in this region and elsewhere. In Ethiopia, "development" and humanitarian aid, in interaction with political contests at many levels, provide the context for interpreting refugee experience and action. Globally, the most powerful of the reductionist accounts is based on the "trauma model" of refugee experience. In this model, "refugee experience" has come to be virtually synonymous with "psychosocial" and, in turn, "mental health" and "post-traumatic stress disorder" (PTSD). Somali refugees and returnees in Ethiopia, however, do not address violence, death, and war-related distress in a framework of psychological medicine, with its goal of reducing psychological, emotional and physiological symptoms of individual distress. Rather, such distress is predominantly assimilated into the framework of politics, with its goals of survival and restitution. Emotion, and talking about emotion, evoke complex individual and collective memories that situate individual and local community experience within, or in juxtaposition to, other realities: competing powers such as the Ethiopian and other states, dispossession, and the precariousness of survival in a harsh natural and political environment. Historical narratives, collective memory, anger, and the rhetorics of development and humanitarian aid play important roles in these communities' efforts to rebuild social networks and what they refer to as a "decent human life."
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.37915 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Zarowsky, Christina. |
| Contributors | Young, Allan (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Anthropology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001846385, proquestno: NQ75689, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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