Double Periphery: Somali Diaspora Feeling Out of Place Abroad and at Home.
From a casual observation, the Somali Diaspora, particularly those in the West, wield more economic and knowledge powers than those left behind in Somalia.
They have the freedom to travel, have access to good education, better health care, and more job opportunities. When they travel back to Somalia, these powers become more currency to exchange in many marketplaces- such as business and politics.
However, close observation reveals that the diaspora’s economic and knowledge powers are hollowed out by the experiences of the double periphery.
What is the double periphery?
In its simplest definition, the double periphery is when an entity is seen as an outsider by two centres to which it was supposed to belong.
So, how does the diaspora experience this alienation?
Let me explain. The first alienation happens in their adopted homes; this occurs through the intersectionality of race, religion and culture. In their adopted countries, they are immigrant and ethnic minorities, which means economic and social marginalisation.
Consider this
In his own words, Ali is a fully integrated Somali-British. He has a degree in finance and works as an investment advisor for a multinational bank in London. He is married with two children and a homeowner in a well-to-do neighbourhood. Every angle you look at Ali is woven by the classic success story of an immigrant from a war-torn country making a decent life for himself and his family through sheer determination and perseverance.
Despite all this, Ali feels like an outsider to the environment and the society in which he lives and works; he has what W.E. B Du Bois termed in his seminal book The Souls of Black Folks ‘double consciousness’.
This is a feeling of inward ‘twoness’ experienced by Black people when operating in a white-dominated environment. Ali is regularly reminded by the milieu in which he works and lives that he is Black, an immigrant, Somali, Muslim and then naturalised British.
This experience of inward twoness is not unique to Ali but is something widely shared by all immigrants and those who are racially different from the dominant white British.
The second alienation experienced by the Somali diaspora occurs in the most unexpected places- Home.
Consider this
Faiza is a Somali-American. She has a graduate degree in health care management from Brown, an Ivy League research university, and she works at a large hospital in New York.
Faiza wants to contribute to Somalia’s non-existent healthcare system, but she feels out of place every time she visits Somalia. In her own words, she will wear the same clothes the locals wear. She will try and go to the market to do what the locals do on a daily basis. Yet, people treat her like an outsider, not in a hostile way but in a way that makes her she does not truly belong to them and frequently refer to her as ‘ Gabdhii Maraykan ka ka timid’, the girl from America by her close relatives.
Because of this, Faiza feels a sense of duality, a double consciousness-being both American and Somali in her own country and around her close relatives.
The sociological feelings experienced by both Ali and Fiaza create the double periphery. Like other Somalis in the diaspora, Ali and Faiza are in the middle of two centres; the first centres are their respective adopted countries, United Kingdom and the United States. In these countries, they are considered immigrants with multi-hyphenated identities.
The second centre is Somalia, a country they both call their homeland. Yet this centre, too, sees them as outsiders — diaspora folks who are not fully the same as the local Somali.
The alienation caused by the double periphery has created what I call the ghettoised identity of home and abroad. At home, those diaspora returning to Somalia are now making their own — diaspora-only gated neighbourhoods in Mogadishu and other major urban areas. Abroad, most are confined in poor inner cities, often resided in by immigrants.
In both scenarios, people who find themselves at the double peripheries of these centres will only have their identities further alienated, which will produce undesirable social outcomes.
