Socio-Economic Positioning and Class Making in the Context of Transnational Forced Migration. Somali Refugees in Kenya and Germany

Funding: DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Project number 546928908)

Duration: 2025-2027

Project Lead: Dr. Tabea Scharrer

Abstract: This project explores the connection between forced migration and class. Using the example of Somali refugees and migrants in Kenya and Germany, the project investigates the relation between socio-economic positioning (on the individual level) and class formation (on the societal level) in the transnational setting of forced migration and asylum regimes. Public discourse, but also academic research, often portrays forced migrants as homogeneous groups. This homogenization results from treating their national origin as a primary unit of analysis, with other socially relevant aspects, such as class, hidden behind that. In contrast, this project will carve out the heterogeneity of class positions of Somali refugees and migrants and the factors influencing their socio-economic situation. Conceptually, the project will approach socio-economic positioning and class by creating an analytical framework based on Marx, Weber and Bourdieu, which will be applicable beyond the European context. Methodologically, multi-sited anthropological research will be conducted, with one research site situated in the Global South (Kenya, a proximate country of refuge) and one in the Global North (Germany, a more distant country of asylum). This research design gives due relevance to refugees who do not have the resources to migrate to Europe. By following migration trajectories, the project will discern those factors in the migration process that are crucial for social mobility or stuckness and, consequently, for socio-economic positioning and class formation. With the example of Somali forced migrants in Kenya and Germany, this research goes beyond the bi-national setting to which transnationality research is often restricted. This project contributes to social theory in two aspects: First, it will overcome the national framing of most research on socio-economic class positions by focusing on migration and the transnational space. It will show the influence of border-crossings, migration regimes and ‘legal capital’ on migrants’ socio-economic positions, as well as their strategies of positioning and boundary-making in and between the various places they settle or claim belonging. The project therefore also raises the question of how forced migration affects the class structure of the emigration society. Second, the project contributes to the development of migration theory by adding to the debates on the particularities of forced migration, often resulting in fragmented journeys shaped by local migration and asylum regimes, and on how transnationalism is actually envisioned and lived, in terms of practices of embedding in the current locality(s) as well as the resources required for the aspired lifestyles.