Paper short abstract:

Drawing from ethnographic research conducted in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Italy among Eritrean refugees, this paper explores the advantages of applying the anthropological concept of cosmology in the study of refugees’ migratory dynamics and aspirations.

Paper long abstract:

Eritreans have escaped their country for over 50 years because of war, poverty and lack of freedom and reached different destinations in Europe, USA, Africa and the Middle East. The long-term communal experience of migration, as well as the exposure (although limited if compared with other developing countries) to the flow of information and remittances from abroad have produced what I would define a "cosmology of destinations". This becomes noticeable when the ethnographer is confronted with migratory aspirations and strategies of young Eritreans who are fleeing the country nowadays. By "cosmology"—a concept which has a long standing history in anthropology (i.e. Griaule 1948; Leach 1982; Malkki 1995)—I refer to the widespread representations of the world as a hierarchically ordered whole that can be found in some groups of Eritrean society. The outside world is usually constructed as a source of moral value, social development and dynamic transformation, while Eritrea is often represented as a stagnant world, the sphere of the past which does not enable any progress for the individual and the community. Moreover, countries that belong to the outside world are associated with specific images and beliefs which make them more or less desirable as destinations of migration. Drawing from my multi-sited fieldwork (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Italy) among Eritrean refugees, this paper explores the advantages of applying the anthropological concept of cosmology in the study of refugees' migratory dynamics and in the interpretation of how individuals experience their conditions of being immobile or on the move.