My essay is based on my ongoing research among Sudanese in Canada. My principal
guiding hypothesis is: ‘Sudanese’ are agential in their daily struggles despite
the disciplining hardships they face because of the dominant refugee discourse,
and hence as ‘survivors’ counter the dominant refugee discourse that—simultaneously
and relationally—performatively produces the ‘refugees’ and the ‘Sudanese
refugees’—as victims, abnormal, lacking and threatening—, and the ‘citizen’,
the ‘nation’ and the ‘state’—as the norm. To this end, I am interacting and
participating in the daily lives and events among Sudanese, and listening
to stories of their journeys, in Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa. Calgary has
the largest population of Sudanese in Canada; Toronto is the main destination
for immigrants in Canada; and in Ottawa Sudanese interact with the Canadian
federal government and lobby for support for struggles in Sudan and Canada.
These stories provide accounts of Sudanese journeys, experiences, and the
‘transforming’ ‘landmark’ moments in their lives, and, thus, provide narratives
of: their identities, the issues that are important for them, their particular
strategies and tactics to deal with their daily lives, and their aspirations.
These stories reveal agency and complexity among Sudanese.
Singing about Civil War, Injustice
and Displacement: A Look at Contemporary Dinka Songs and Their Travels
Stephanie Riak Akuei
U College London, UK
Among the Nilotic Dinka songs (kët diët ë
Jieng) are a central feature of self and communal expression. In the
most personal sense, they are a way of conveying what often cannot be communicated
through direct speech in the declaration of feelings and other responses
to intimate social experience and the vicissitudes of life. The study
of Dinka music has revealed the different circumstances for which their many
songs have been traditionally composed and sung—for example, on the occasions
and triumphs of war, in the religious sphere, in youth rites of passage,
cattle identification and praise, and as a means of social commentary and
criticism and to other purposes. This paper examines the way in which contemporary
civil war in Sudan, the injustices perpetrated, forced migration and displacement
have become bases for the novel production of Dinka songs. In the discussion,
songs will be presented showing how the experiences of loss and struggle,
the ambiguity of flight and home/identity notions have been acknowledged
in recent musical compositions. The presentation will also include
a brief discussion of the diaspora trajectories taken by Dinka songs in the
form of music cassettes carried across borders by those fleeing, and in some
cases through the migration movements of the singers themselves.
Sudanese Refugees' Passageway: Escaping
State of Inhibition and Taking Refuge in Emancipation
Lomumba Ema
Canada
The paper intends to draw attention to Sudanese refugee
experience in Egypt; whose immigration aspirations were affected by the “rites
of passage”, whose lives were full of trauma and affected by uncertainty
around asylum policies and odd job markets. This paper briefly focused on
the impacts of socioeconomic challenges the refugees experienced in Egypt.
Geo-political and historical ties between Egypt and Sudan were discussed
to shed a light on the factors which resultant into the massive influx of
Sudanese who seek refuge. This paper was informed by close observation of
the refugee situations in Cairo; collection of primary data; consultation
with Sudanese community leaders and revision of some existing literature
on refugee, immigrants, and exploitation of the refugee bodies and cultural
values. One of the findings of the paper was that many Sudanese who escaped
war (of cultures) in Sudan tend to accept the circumstances of their refugee
vulnerability in Egypt as rites of passage to other countries. Graduating
from the passageway, many resettled Sudanese refugees arrived to their hosting
countries with some negative stigma “baggage” from Egypt and some were in
state of masking of impacts of trauma they had. This paper concludes and
projects possibilities of emerging full-fledged impacts of post refugee and
traumatic life as a result of escaping state of inhibition in Sudan and taking
refuge in a hosting country.
Sudanese Newcomers in Southern Ontario:
Settlement Needs and Adaptation Challenges
Khamisa Baya
Association of Sudanese Women in Research and Development, Canada
This paper outlines
the findings and recommendations of the first major study conducted in Canada,
between May 2003 to May 2004, on the settlement and integration experiences
of recent Sudanese immigrants and refugees. Due to chronic political conflict
and civil wars, Sudan is one of the world’s top refugee-producing countries.
Newcomers from conflict zones tend to be among the neediest of recent newcomers.
However, for various reasons, settlement services are often difficult to
provide to newcomer populations. In particular, current settlement
and integration services do not generally meet the high needs of Sudanese
newcomers.
The paper describes and discusses the settlement and adjustment challenges
Sudanese newcomers face: settlement needs and expectations, settlement
service use, barriers to service utilization, and the impact of socio-economic
and socio-cultural influences on the settlement and integration of Sudanese
newcomers in Southern Ontario (pre- and post-migration experiences including
arrival and adaptation, education, employment and family issues). Special
attention is paid to the challenge of community organization and capability.