Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
1,158
result(s) for
"Somali."
Sort by:
The Ethiopian Revolution
Revolution, civil wars, and guerilla warfare wracked Ethiopia during three turbulent decades at the end of the twentieth century. This book is a pioneering study of the military history and political significance of this crucial Horn of Africa region during that period. Drawing on new archival materials and interviews, Gebru Tareke illuminates the conflicts, comparing them to the Russian and Iranian revolutions in terms of regional impact.
Writing in vigorous and accessible prose, Tareke brings to life the leading personalities in the domestic political struggles, strategies of the warring parties, international actors, and key battles. He demonstrates how the brutal dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam lacked imagination in responding to crises and alienated the peasantry by destroying human and material resources. And he describes the delicate balance of persuasion and force with which northern insurgents mobilized the peasantry and triumphed. The book sheds invaluable light not only on modern Ethiopia but also on post-colonial state formation and insurrectionary politics worldwide.
eBook
Strategies and sacrifices of family caregiving in the Somali-American community: a qualitative study
Background
Among the many pressing concerns of the Somali-American community, and other similar immigrant and refugee communities as they grow in the United States, is the provision of care for older adults and adults with disabilities. The implications of effective caregiving range from the facilitation of community building and place-making to the delivery and management of healthcare on a systemic level. However, little is currently known about Somali-American family caregivers, including their duties and responsibilities, primary concerns, and the impacts of surrounding influences on their ability to fulfill their role.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Somali-American family caregivers in Somali language. The resulting transcripts were translated into English by a professional interpreter and analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. A key informant from the community was additionally consulted for insights regarding cultural nuances and interpretations of idiomatic expressions and concepts.
Results
Thematic analysis of the reports revealed the principal themes of visitation, patient accompaniment, and self-sacrifice through acceptance and God-consciousness as pervasive and salient concerns across participants. Furthermore, the heightened stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how severe the consequences can be when access to culturally habituated navigational tools and coping mechanisms are restricted.
Conclusions
In light of our findings, the growing concern for discrimination and sociocultural discord in the Somali-American community presents a particularly prescient threat to the well-being and sustainability of family caregivers. Their experiences must be understood and used to promote education and partnership between the healthcare system and the community in order to build trust and ensure a healthy future for this indispensable population.
Journal Article
Fairytales for lost children
Firytales for Lost Children is narrated by people constantly on the verge of self-revelation. These characters - young, gay and lesbian Somalis - must navigate the complexities of family, identity and the immigrant experience as they tumble towards freedom. Set in Kenya, Somalia and South London, these stories are imbued with pathos, passion and linguistic playfulness, marking the arrival of a singular new voice in contemporary fiction.
Book
Soomaaliniimo as Strength: Navigating the COVID-19 Crisis in the Somali-Ugandan Community of Kisenyi
Uganda has been home to a myriad of communities of Somali origin for over a century. Pioneering Somali-Ugandans can trace their arrival to the early days of the colonial administration. A second wave of Somalis migrated to Uganda in the 1980s, and a third wave of Somali refugees has been arriving in Uganda since the Somali Civil War. The article will focus on how a community of mostly Somali-Ugandans living in Kisenyi, also known as “Little Mogadishu,” navigated the COVID-19 crisis through mutual aid practices upheld by a shared sense of Soomaaliniimo . In doing so, it will foreground the role prominent religious leaders and women-led initiatives played in providing lifelines through community practices in areas where the Ugandan state infrastructure fell short.
Journal Article
Mogadiscio's Unenlightened Pilgrim: Farah's “Links,” Dante's “Inferno,” and the Somali Civil War
This article explores the narrative strategies employed in Nuruddin Farah's novel, Links, for representing the aftermath of civil conflict in Somalia. Specifically, it examines the novel's many self-conscious references to its own narrative discourse in creating the story of Jeebleh and his return to Mogadiscio. Three specific examples of this dialectic between story and discourse are considered. First, with reference to John Freccero's notion of “infernal irony,” the intertextual references to Dante's Inferno are shown to affect our understanding of Jeebleh's journey and the environment he moves in. Second, the narrator's use of Somali language elements is explored. Several examples are considered, including the narrator's use of proverbs, folktales, and Somali nicknames. Rather than reflecting the novel's imagined cultural environment, these elements are shown to reflect back on the narrator's efforts at creating a story. Finally, the resolution of the story's central conflict is evaluated in terms of the destabilizing effect of the novel's self-referential narrative. It is shown that, ultimately, the signs and symbols of the novel's “hellish” environment do not offer meanings that transcend the limits of the environment itself. In other words, the novel can show us the civil conflict as a sort of hell, but it can offer no pathway out.
Journal Article
Adua
A searing novel about a young immigrant woman's dream of freedom in Rome and the legacies of her African past.
Book
“An Integral Part of Our Lives”: WhatsApp Groups as Socio-Technical Gathering Spaces in Somali Drought Relief
This article examines Somali WhatsApp groups as socio-technical gathering spaces used for emergency assistance during crises. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork in Nairobi and Mogadishu, and a case study of a WhatsApp group mobilising drought relief in 2022, we explore how platform usage is shaped by social norms, care practices and kinship structures to enable mobilisation, coordination, and distribution of aid. Inspired by scholarship on communicative affordances, we conceptualise WhatsApp kinship groups as closed but scalable online spaces, highlighting assembly and coordination in a context where disasters and emergencies are recurrent. We argue that these groups extend long-standing Somali mutual support systems into digital space, intensifying practices of connectivity and emergency response, while reflecting and potentially reproducing social hierarchies. By analysing Somali WhatsApp usage as situated socio-technical practices, the article contributes to broader debates on digital and diaspora humanitarianism, vernacular giving, and crisis response.
Journal Article