Somali refugees in Tower Hamlets: Clanship and new identities

Abstract

Recent research in London's East End (El‐Solh 1991, 1993) has stressed the role of clanship as the main basis of social relations amongst Somalis living in Tower Hamlets. This claim can be seen to be problematic on several counts. Clanship is typically analysed as a traditional feature of social structure, an objective system of social relations and kinship obligations which are often divisive in nature. A particular focus here is the way in which the crisis at home feeds into the social identities of Somalis in the diaspora. The need to reformulate the Somali ‘imagined identity’, particularly acute in the context of social and political dissolution in Somalia, is compounded in the case of Somali refugees. In this sense clanship, as an element of ‘traditional’ social structure, can be regarded as a focal point for renegotiation of identity for those living in exile. This article argues that these processes are closely related to a series of localised responses, including changes in the role of the elders in the community and shifts in gender relations. The specificity of refugee adaptation is stressed, with a particular focus on the co‐existence of tradition and innovation in relation to the interpretation of clanship and the emergence of new collective and individual identities.