The Early Morning Phone Call: Somali Refugee’s Remittances (review)

In The Early Morning Phone Call, Anna Lindley uses her research with Somalis living in the diaspora and others living in Somalia proper to effectively explore the complexities of remittance practice and outcomes. Lindley mixes economic data, ethnography, history, and transnational theory among other things to capture the ambivalence that surrounds remitting and the difficulties that face Somali migrants as well as Somalis who remain in their homes and communities. The result is a book that should find a broad audience, from readers interested in remittance outcomes to those with a concern for Somali migrants, refugees, and stay-at-homes as their history continues to unwind.

Lindley engages with several important debates that confront migration specialists. Among these are a concern for the use, meaning, and role of remittances for movers, refugees, and non-movers; the implications of remittances for development; and the role of remittances in the Somali conflict. The history of Somalia, ongoing conflict, and the diaspora that has relocated Somalis throughout the world makes it difficult to compartmentalize and characterize remittance outcomes using traditional categories. Thus, Lindley problematizes the very concept of remittances. She argues we need to move beyond dichotomous systems that frame social actors as movers and non-movers, remittances as good or bad, and the focus of remittance practices as family or community.

The first two chapters of the book set the stage for Lindley’s argument. In chapter one, she recounts current models for the discussion of migration and notes that dichotomies which split the outcomes of migration and remittance practice into discrete categories (such as good and bad) often fail to capture the dynamics of individuals sending remittances as well as the unanticipated outcomes as those remittances are defined by local socio-cultural practices. In chapter two, Lindley turns her attention to Somali history and the collapse of the nation; the diaspora and migration; conflict and civil war. She also notes the varying roles remittances play. While remittances generally go to the support of a sending household, the importance of extended kin and the nature of Somali kinship mean that remittances are spread much farther afield and engage the development of transnational space through which identity is defined.

The central ethnographic examples that support Lindley’s argument focus on remittance practices in three different settings: the impacts for Hargeisa, Somalia (chapter three); sending and receiving in Eastleigh, Nairobi (chapter four); and the politics of remittances, migration, and identity for the Somali diaspora in London, England (chapter five).

The realities of Somali remittance practices “challenges international models of conflict resolution and development…[and] illustrates the highly transnational dimensions of economic activity in the shadow of conflict…” (86–87). Diasporic communities are often described as dangerous and belligerent. They harbor radicals and support investment in conflict. Yet, as Lindley effectively shows, remittance practices are dynamic, shifting in relation and response to the changing nature of the conflict as well as the role that locals and members of the diaspora play. Thus, while money does flow to support militias, it more often flows to support families, cover expenses (schooling, health care), and build businesses.

In chapter four, Lindley moves from Somalis who are in their home country to those living in Eastleigh, a neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya often referred to as “little Mogadishu.” In a sense, Eastleigh sits between the world of Hargeisa, on the one hand, and London, on the other. Lindley describes it as a “global crossroads” (109), both a destination and a point of transfer. People come to Eastleigh and often plan to continue on to destinations in Europe and elsewhere, nevertheless, for many travelers, Eastleigh becomes home. Yet, even as Eastleigh becomes home, there are few opportunities and Somalis (like so many other migrants) find themselves caught between their status, the state, and petty (as well as not so petty) conflicts and violence. Thus, many Somalis in Eastleigh can only survive through the support of migrants who have settled in other areas with better opportunities. Lindley...