Abdulkader Saleh Mohammad, The Saho of Eritrea: Ethnic Identity and National Consciousness

Revie

Migrationsbiographie als politische Erfahrungsgeschichte

Das europäische Asylrecht verlangt eindeutige, rechtsrelevante Erzählungen der individuellen Verfolgung und Flucht. Es nimmt dabei wenig Rücksicht auf die politischen Bedingungen und historischen Einwebungen biographischen Erzählens; mitunter stehen sich im Verfahren die Sprachen der Bürokratie und der Migration dann unvereinbar gegenüber. Mit Bezug auf das Herkunftsland Eritrea setzt dieser Beitrag drei Beispiele aus den ganz unterschiedlichen Textsorten Gerichtsurteil, Fluchtbiographie und Interview in einen breiteren Kontext und betrachtet die individuelle Erzählung als politische Erfahrungsgeschichte

Grasping Kiflu’s Fear – Informality and Existentialism in Migration from North-East Africa

Five decades after sociologist Everett Lee published his universal ‘Theory of Migration’, rationalising etic explanations of praxis in unprivileged migration still prevail. In this article I critically discuss commonly used concepts such as coping strategy, agency and creativity that have been widely derived from the study of uncertainty in urban and rural Africa. Subsequently I suggest reassessing the concept of informality within the context of migration, where it evolves alongside migration’s informal/formal divide. Informality then includes migration’s specific existential dimension and can be understood as a typical mode of action in unprivileged migration. Informality potentially bridges the gap between ‘acting’ and ‘being acted upon’ (Jackson 2005), it renders active where otherwise passivity and exclusion have to be faced and thus feeds imaginations of a better life elsewhere. Informality, however, also shapes people and their view of the world. This is explicated exemplarily with reference to my own fieldwork with migrants from Eritrea and Ethiopia. I argue that migrants’ agency should not be simply alleged from above, but conceptualised from empirical research. The study of migrants’ informal praxis can not only contribute to theoretical debates in migration studies but also refers to a global perspective

Grasping Kiflu’s Fear – Informality and Existentialism in Migration from North-East Africa

Five decades after sociologist Everett Lee published his universal ‘Theory of Migration’, rationalising etic explanations of praxis in unprivileged migration still prevail. In this article I critically discuss commonly used concepts such as coping strategy, agency and creativity that have been widely derived from the study of uncertainty in urban and rural Africa. Subsequently I suggest reassessing the concept of informality within the context of migration, where it evolves alongside migration’s informal/formal divide. Informality then includes migration’s specific existential dimension and can be understood as a typical mode of action in unprivileged migration. Informality potentially bridges the gap between ‘acting’ and ‘being acted upon’ (Jackson 2005), it renders active where otherwise passivity and exclusion have to be faced and thus feeds imaginations of a better life elsewhere. Informality, however, also shapes people and their view of the world. This is explicated exemplarily with reference to my own fieldwork with migrants from Eritrea and Ethiopia. I argue that migrants’ agency should not be simply alleged from above, but conceptualised from empirical research. The study of migrants’ informal praxis can not only contribute to theoretical debates in migration studies but also refers to a global perspective

Introduction: Nietzsche's Life and Works

An introduction to Nietzsche's life and works

Nietzsche's Ethics of Affirmation

This chapter looks at Nietzsche's notion of the affirmation of life. It begins with the origins of the concept in Schopenhauer and in the Schopenhauerian philosophy known to Nietzsche. It then examines affirmation in three phases of Nietzsche's writing: early, middle and late. It relates affirmation to other key Nietzschean concepts like the Apollonian and the Dionysian, eternal recurrence, amor fati and will to power

Introduction: Eritrea’s Uneasy Futures and their Historical Contingencies

To introduce this special issue of Modern Africa, the editors review Eritrea’s current condition and consider its historical roots: they place this Horn of Africa state in a broader historical context, one where neither relevant comparative cases nor past precedents are limited to its region. Hopes that were once invested in Eritrea as a model developmental state have now, thirty years since its independence, been thoroughly disappointed. The human rights violations and persistent underdevelopment that make an Eritrean transition necessary are very real: equally real are the risks and dangers that would be involved in any such transition. Recent cases of failed transition are discussed here: so too are the possible routes Eritrea might take to a “developmental democracy.” This issue’s various contributions are then introduced and summarised.