‘My race is Habesha’: Eritrean refugees re-defining race as pan-ethnic identity in post-apartheid South Africa

Introduction

Since the end of apartheid and liberalization of immigration, South Africa has become the main destination for African refugees ¹ fleeing political persecution and civil wars and for migrants ² seeking a better life. South Africa has been one of the major refugee receiving countries globally particularly those coming from the African continent (United Nations Data, 2017). As refugees settle in South Africa, one of their main challenges is adapting to the racial identity categories of South Africa (Vandeyar, 2012). Most African refugees in South Africa originate from societies where social differentiation is based on, inter alia, non-racial systems such as clan, ethnicity, tribe, religion and language groups, (Vandeyar, 2012). When African refugees arrive in South Africa they encounter a classification system ³ that is structured around race ⁴ which is at odds with the classification systems they were familiar with back home. The South African racial system is structured along four major racial categories, namely Coloured, Indian, White and Black. Refugees must therefore find their racial place within this quaternary classification scheme that was initially invented to classify South African nationals (Abdi, 2015; Vandeyar, 2012). For example, Eritrean refugees in South African originate from a social classification system that is based on ethno-linguistic differentiation and when they arrive in South Africa, they confront a phenotype-based racial classification system that is incompatible with their home country’s classification system.

The goal of this paper is to understand how first-generation Eritrean refugees in South Africa defined their identity in light of their everyday encounters with the South African racial categories that are imposed on them in everyday interactions and on bureaucratic forms. The primary research question that frames this paper, therefore, is: How do first-generation Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in post-apartheid South Africa self-identify when encountering racial classification?

This paper argues that by defining their race as Habesha, participants re-defined race as a pan-ethnic identity dissociating racial identity from physical appearance and skin colour. Some refugees who never self-identified in terms of phenotype-based racial categories are nuancing traditional definitions of racial identity in post-apartheid South Africa.

First, I review scholarship on race in post-apartheid South Africa and identify the research gap. Next I outline the theoretical lens of immigrant incorporation followed by a discussion on the ethnic social differentiation system in Eritrea and Habesha identity. I then discuss the racial differentiation system in South Africa within which Eritrean refugees find themselves. Next the research method is outlined followed by the results as to how and why some Eritrean refugees identified their race as Habesha. The last sections discuss the results further and conclude the paper.

Literature review

Researchers on race and racial categorization in South Africa have extensively researched race and racialization (Christopher, 2002; Erasmus, 2001; Hammett, 2010; Maré, 2014; Posel, 2001a, 2001b). Scholars note that South African society is a race-conscious society where race-based identification is entrenched and socio-economic stratification is largely structured around racial groups (Hino et al., 2018). Academics such as Maré (2014) and the late Alexander (2006) contend that official use of apartheid-era racial categories further cement race-consciousness and race-based division among South Africans. As Hammett (2010) argued, South African nationals still classify themselves and others in terms of the traditional White, Black, Coloured and Indian racial categories. Race scholars in South Africa, however, have focused only on South African citizens when discussing issues of racialization and race-consciousness in the country. They have not adequately examined, beyond South African citizens, how non-South Africans such as new refugees and immigrants experience everyday racial classification and how they classify themselves in the face of imposed racialization. Do refugees adopt or reject a South African racial classification system which historically was never meant to classify them?

Research is still emerging on racialization experiences of immigrants in South Africa. For example, in her study of African youth immigrants, Vandeyar (2012) examined how African immigrants self-identified in the face of racialization. She found that her African participants defined themselves in multiple ways, such as Black, African, and in pan-ethnic terms. Abdi’s (2015) study found that Somali participants in South Africa avoided self-identifying as Black and instead emphasized their ethno-religious identity as ‘Muslim’. However, no studies have examined how Eritrean refugees in post-apartheid South Africa self-identify in the context of their experiences with racial categorization.

Within the field of Eritrean diaspora studies, much of the focus has been on topics such as, inter alia, migratory journeys (Araia, 2005; Arnone, 2008; Treiber, 2013), transnationalism (Hepner, 2015) and human rights (Belloni, 2016; Hepner, 2013). A few studies have examined racialization experiences and self-identification of Eritrean refugees in their race-conscious host countries (e.g. Arnone, 2011; Habecker, 2012). In her study of how Eritrean youth immigrants define themselves in Italy, Arnone (2011) found that her participants self-defined both as Black and as Eritrean. They self-defined as Black because the Italian society racializes them as Black/African. Habecker (2012) examined how Eritreans in the US self-identified in a context where the American society sees them as Black due to their African origin. Habecker (2012) found that her participants, predominantly of the Tigrinya ethnic group, rejected defining themselves as Black and self-identified as Habesha. The few studies on the racialization and self-identification experiences of Eritreans in the diaspora were conducted outside South Africa. To date, there has been no study on self-identification practices of Eritrean refugees in South Africa. This paper addresses this research gap by examining how first-generation Eritrean refugees in post-apartheid South Africa self-identified in reaction to their everyday encounters with racial classification.

Theoretical perspective: Immigrant incorporation

Scholars examining how immigrants incorporate into identity categories of the host country argue that the generation status of refugees or immigrants shape how they self-identify (Berry, 1997; Schimmele and Wu, 2015). Those who arrived in a host country as adults tend to preserve identities associated with their countries of origin and generally eschew the identity categories of the receiving society (Berry, 1997; Schimmele and Wu, 2015). Second-generation immigrants however tend to adopt host country based identity systems due to their socialization into the host society’s ways of thinking and culture (Schimmele and Wu, 2015).

Immigration and acculturation scholars also argue that the degree of compatibility between a host and a home country’s identity categories shape the degree to which refugees or immigrants adopt or reject social categories of the host society (Arriaza, 2004; Berry, 1997; Kusow, 2006; Rodriguez, 2000). If the social classification systems in refugees’ home countries are different from those of the host society, the refugees or immigrants might have a difficult time easily adapting to the identities of the host society (Arriaza, 2004; Kusow, 2006). If there is convergence between classification systems of the host and home countries, however, immigrants are more predisposed to adopt the identity label of the host country they are familiar with. For example, a person defined as White in the US might easily fit into White classification in South Africa due to the availability of a ‘White’ category both in the US and South Africa. On the other hand, an immigrant of Kunama or Nara ethnicity in Eritrea might find it difficult to identify as Black in the US, despite their generally African features, due to the unavailability of a ‘Black’ category in Eritrea.

Eritrean migration to South Africa

The first wave of Eritrean immigration to post-apartheid South Africa started when hundreds of students arrived from 1999 to 2001 to study at South African universities (Hepner, 2015; Mekonnen and Abraha, 2004). As the human rights situation in Eritrea deteriorated and the ruling authoritarian government intensified repression of the freedoms of Eritreans back home, most of the students decided not to return to Eritrea after the completion of their studies (Mekonnen and Abraha, 2004). The majority of them moved to the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia while those who remained in South Africa sought asylum and became refugees (Mekonnen and Abraha, 2004). The emergence of Eritrean refugee communities in South Africa is therefore linked to the early Eritreans who had arrived as international students.

In subsequent years, more Eritreans arrived in South Africa mostly by crossing the border (Araia, 2005). The arrival of the second wave of Eritreans in 2000s is linked to the draconian governance in Eritrea and the consequent emigration of Eritreans by their thousands. Open-ended national service, forced military conscription, a crackdown on political dissent, religious and press freedoms are some of the conditions from which Eritrean refugees have been fleeing and arriving in South Africa (Hepner, 2015; Human Rights Watch, 2017; Tewolde, 2017). Most Eritrean refugees arriving in South Africa do not intend to stay but re-emigrate mostly to North America and Europe. The United Nations Data (2017) put the number of recognized Eritrean refugees in South Africa at 1978 by the end of 2017. A majority of Eritrean refugees in South Africa are of the Tigrinya ethnic group and most of them are engaged in business running grocery and clothing shops.

Social classification and identities in Eritrea

When Eritrea was created as an Italian colony in 1890, the colonial administration integrated the various ethnic/cultural groups in the territory under a single Eritrean national identity (Dirar, 2007). The consolidation of the previously unconnected cultural groups within a new political state created a multi-ethnic polity. The current Eritrean government still organizes social differentiation in the country using ethnic/cultural distinctions (Bereketeab, 2002). Even though supra-ethnic nation building is officially promoted at the expense of ethnicity-based affiliation, self-identification by ethnicity and clan membership is significant for many Eritreans (Bereketeab, 2002). There are nine officially recognized ethnic/cultural groups in Eritrea, namely Rashaida, Saho, Tigre, Tigrinya, Afar, Bilen, Hedareb, Kunama and Nara. These ethnic groups speak different languages and practice various cultural traditions. There are various clan groups within most of the ethnic groups and some of the ethnic groups are linguistically, religiously, ethnically and culturally related due to historical inter-migrations (Bereketeab, 2002).

Ethnicity-based social distinction in Eritrea is not based on phenotypic characteristics such as skin colour or other bodily features but on linguistic and cultural distinctions. Therefore, people use cultural and linguistic markers to differentiate between the different ethnic groups. There is wide phenotypic variation within most of the ethnic groups in Eritrea, such as the Tigrinya; therefore members of an ethnic group are not necessarily phenotypically homogenous (Woldemikael, 2005). Some of the ethnic groups in Eritrea are linguistically and culturally related to other ethnic groups. For example, the Tigrinya of Eritrea and the Tigre of Ethiopia speak the same language and exhibit almost the same cultural traditions and the Amhara of Ethiopia also share similar cultural traditions with the Tigrinya and they refer to themselves as Habesha.

Habesha identity is a pan-ethnic cultural identity claimed by mostly Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans and Tigrinya-, Amharic- and Gurage-speaking Ethiopians. The languages Tigrinya, Amharic languages belong to the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family (Habecker, 2012). However, this does not imply that Habesha identity is limited only to speakers of Semitic languages as the identity is also increasingly being claimed, particularly in the diaspora, by members of the other ethnic groups in Ethiopia (Belcher, 2012). Habesha identity is rooted in shared cultural traditions and way of life (Habecker, 2012). Eritreans and predominantly Ethiopians who claim Habesha identity often point to their being descendants of the African Queen of Sheba’s and Middle Eastern King Solomon’s union 3000 years ago (Belcher, 2012: 31).

This mythology has informed their sense of distinction and superiority over other Africans (Belcher, 2012). Habesha as a cultural identification refers to sharing cultural practices such as dress, music, food, customs, and so forth. For those living in the diaspora, Habesha identity is associated with being Eritrean or Ethiopian. For example, it is common for individuals to ask ‘Are you Habesha?’ when meeting strangers who appear Eritrean of Ethiopian descent (the Amhara or Tigrinya). Some scholars contend that Habesha identity is tied to notions of belonging to a special ethno-racial community where members share a near-homogenous phenotypic appearance, such as lighter skin and Middle-Eastern features (Belcher, 2012). But Habesha people do not necessarily display a homogenous phenotype as the Tigrinya and Amhara who claim Habesha identity exhibit wide variation in physical appearance ranging from dark to light skin, African to Middle-Eastern features and varying hair type (Woldemikael, 2005).

Racial classification in South Africa

Officially, social differentiation in South Africa is based on racial classification in which four main racial groupings are recognized as primary identity groups. The classification of South African society into the four major groups evolved through the colonial and apartheid eras of state-led racial categorization projects (Christopher, 2002) and racial classification in the country is largely predicated on physical appearance. Racial categories in South Africa feature in both state and non-state bureaucracies in the form of check-boxes and in everyday life where people define themselves and others in terms of the four standard racial categories: White, Black, Coloured and Indian (Hammett, 2010; Hino et al., 2018).

While most African countries are organized along ethno-cultural, ethno-linguistic and tribal lines, inter alia, race features as a dominant form of social distinction and organization in South Africa due to its prolonged history of colonialism and apartheid (Christopher, 2002; Goldberg, 2002). Official racial classification in South African emerged in 1865, when the Cape Colony created three racial groups, namely European, Kafir, Hottentot and Other (Christopher, 2002: 403). Subsequently, racial classification underwent drastic changes and modifications until the 20^th century. When apartheid was established in 1948, racial classification became more institutionalized and policed and four racial categories, namely, White, Black, Coloured and Indian/Asian (Christopher, 2002) were created. These four apartheid categories are still in use among ordinary South Africans and on administrative forms long after the apartheid system has ended (Hino et al., 2018). The post-apartheid state maintained apartheid racial categories to correct past racial inequalities and injustices through affirmative action programmes.

Social meanings attached to the four racial categories reflect definitions given to each category during the apartheid era (Christopher, 2002). White identity refers to individuals who are of European ancestry and of various European national origins. Black identity in South Africa alludes to people of African ancestry and of the various African ethnic/cultural groups. The term Coloured points to individuals assumed to have mixed-race heritage. Indian/Asian refers to individuals of Indian or Asian ancestry.

The various South African racial categories are unequally positioned in the socio-economic hierarchy. Most White South Africans are at the top of the social structure controlling much of the country’s wealth (Statistics South Africa, 2012). Despite the emergence of a Black middle class, the majority of Black South Africans are socio-economically located at the bottom of the ladder where many South Africans are unemployed and still find themselves trapped within impoverished areas designated by the racist apartheid regime (Statistics South Africa, 2012). Many Coloured and Indian people also find themselves below White South Africans (Statistics South Africa, 2012).

Besides race, ethnicity is also used as a source of self-identification for South Africans (Hino et al., 2018). There are many South African ethnic/cultural groups in South Africa, such as Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Venda, Xhosa, Sepedi, Tswana, Sotho, Swazi, Afrikaans and English. One may identify as Sotho or Venda ethnically (Hino et al., 2018). However, social relations in South African are structured largely around racial differentiation. Arguably, race appears to trump ethnicity. State bureaucracies collect data on race effectively undermining the numerous ethnic/cultural identities that exist within each racial category. Race-thinking and race-consciousness is also pervasive and entrenched among most South Africans (Hammett, 2010; Hino et al., 2018). It is within this racially organized and race-conscious host society that refugees find themselves (Vandeyar, 2012).

Method

The larger research study interviewed 46 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in three major South African cities, namely Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban and purposive and snow-ball sampling strategies were used to identify participants. The interviews were conducted in Tigrinya, my first language and the first language of the participants. The focus of the interview questions was on the everyday encounters of participants with racial classification in everyday life and how participants self-identified in response to their racialization. Pseudonyms rather than participant’s real names are used when referring to participants. The average time taken to complete an interview was an hour. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed and translated into English. Analysis of data was centered on racialization experiences and self-identification. Across each of the interview data I identified participant’s lived experience with ascribed racialization and how they self-identified in reaction thereto. Relevant instances were coded across the data from each interview and patterns emerged which were subsequently condensed into themes. Various themes were identified from the data of the overall study; however, this paper focuses only on a few participants who constructed a Habesha cultural identity as their racial identity.

Some participants bypassed the standard South African racial classification system and red-defined their Habesha pan-ethnic identity as their racial identity effectively turning their cultural identity into a race. I discuss participants who constructed their identification in this way. The three participants are Asgedom, Eyasu and Belay. Asgedom is a 31-year-old male refugee trader and he had been living in South Africa for seven years at the time of the interview. Eyasu is a male refugee student and he is 26 years old. He had lived in the country for four years at the time of the interview. And Belay is a 32-year-old male refugee trader who had been in South Africa for eight year when I interviewed him. All the participants are Christians and do not include members of the Tigrinya-speaking Muslim Jeberti. All the participants had completed high school. The following section discusses how the three participants experienced racial classification in everyday life and how they self-identified.

Results

As part of a larger research project, some participants defined their race as Habesha rather than neatly fitting into the traditional four South African racial categories. In the broader study, other Eritreans defined themselves racially in various ways such as Black and Coloured and non-racially in national, ethnic and cultural terms, but this paper does not discuss such themes. Participants did not associate race with phenotypic appearance or skin colour pigmentation but with a pan-ethnic group identity. The participants encountered racial classification both on official forms that asked them to check ‘their’ race and in everyday life where they were classified as Black, Indian and Coloured. Even though racial categories were imposed on the participants, they did not adopt ascribed identity labels but instead conflated their Habesha cultural identity with a racial identity. Asgedom constructed a Habesha pan-ethnic identity as his race even though he was often classified as Black by South Africans in everyday life.

  …  Black South Africans speak to me in Xhosa. I mean, when I meet them for the first time, they think I am Black. I think, maybe they think I must be Xhosa like one of them. Even on the street when random strangers ask me for directions they speak to me in Xhosa. It didn’t happen once or twice but it happened so me many times …  It is obvious, I look Black like them. You can look at my hair and my facial appearance. My hair is very similar to that of Black South Africans. Not only that, but also my general appearance is like them. My skin colour isn’t too dark as you can see. It is lighter like Xhosa people, but my hair is like other Black South Africans. Maybe they look at my hair type and conclude that I must be Black. But I don’t see myself as Black even though South Africans perceive me as Black. My race is Habesha and I don’t define myself as Black. Black and Habesha are not the same thing because we Habesha people are not Black but our own race. I mean, we Eritreans and Ethiopians define ourselves as Habesha not as Black or any other race because we are different.

Discussion

Participants self-identified as being of the ‘Habesha race’ and by doing so rejected self-definition in terms of the standard South African racial categories. The Eritreans who defined their race as Habesha lived in urban neighbourhoods where many non-White communities such as Eritreans, Ethiopians, other African refugees and Black South Africans live. These are spaces where Eritreans and Ethiopians reside and socially interact and often use the collective Habesha cultural identity to define themselves.

Proponents of immigrant incorporation theory posit that generally adult first-generation immigrants tend to maintain identities found in their countries of origin while avoiding host country based identity categories (Berry, 1997; Schimmele and Wu, 2015). Scholars argue that the tendency for first-generation immigrants to primarily identify by their home-country-based identities is due to socialization. Further, similarity/dissimilarity between host country and home- country-based identities also shape whether or not immigrants adapt to host-country identities (Itzigsohn, 2005; Kusow, 2006). Kusow (2006) argued that immigrants who originate from social differentiation systems that are based on non-racial factors, such as clan, tribe or ethnicity tend to have difficulty adjusting to race-based identities of a host society. The ways in which participants of the present study defined themselves by a familiar identity as Habesha supports such an argument. Participants constructed a familiar Habesha identity as their preferred ethno-racial self-identification distinct from South African racial categories.

An important element of immigrant incorporation perspective is the factor of length of stay in which first-generation immigrants who stay longer in a host society tend to adjust to norms and identity categories of the host country (e.g. Berry, 1997; Schimmele and Wu, 2015). This was not the case for participants of the present study. For example, Asgedom and Belay had lived in South Africa for seven and eight years respectively, but they did not adopt the South African racial identity categories. This could be because the participants resided and socialized within the Habesha community (Eritreans and Ethiopians) in urban neighbourhoods and they were less socially integrated into the host country. As Berry (1997) and Suarez-Orozco (2004) argued, ethnic enclaves and communities function as milieus for the maintenance of home country cultures and identities for immigrants and refugees.

Participants’ constructions of their pan-ethnic cultural identity as a distinct racial identity positioned alongside the standard racial categories points to the ways in which some refugees are usurping, redefining and undermining traditional notions of the South African racial classification system. Some refugees are introducing novel definitions of race in post-apartheid South Africa whereby home-based ethnic/cultural identities are re-defined as racial categories (Itzigsohn et al., 2005). Refugees are not passively succumbing to the racial classification systems of the host society; instead they are actively constructing classifications to define themselves and by doing so complicating notions of race in post-apartheid South Africa where continued immigration is shifting the demographics and identities of the country.

In a study by Itzigsohn et al. (2005), Dominican immigrants in the US also ‘racially’ defined themselves as ‘Hispano/a’ and ‘Indio/a’ in the face of the US racial classification system. The terms Hispano/a’ and ‘Indio/a are not recognized as racial categories in the US; however, in spite of this, the Dominican immigrants did not see themselves fitting neatly into the standard US racial classification system (which is based on Black/White binary) hence defining their racial identity as ‘Hispano/a’ and ‘Indio/a’. By introducing a new way of racial self-identification, the Dominican immigrants in the Itzigsohn et al. (2005) study redefined and usurped the traditional racial classification system in the US. Eritrean refugees in the present study also mirrored the patterns observed among the Dominican immigrants in which Eritreans constructed the Habesha cultural identity as their race instead of finding their racial place within the four standard racial classifications in South Africa.

Ironically, though, rather than rejecting the notion of race altogether, the participants tended to reinforce the practice of racial classification by racializing their Habesha identity as a form of a racial identity. Critical race theory posits that racialization may function in implicit forms (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012) as is the case with the participants who, wanting to distance themselves from the South African racial scheme, ironically succumbed to the ideology of race by turning their cultural identity into a race.

Within the field of Eritrean diaspora studies, scholars such as Habecker (2012) found that Eritreans in the US constructed their Habesha identity as a distinct cultural identity to distance themselves from a racialised Black identity. However, in the present study, participants constructed their Habesha identity, not as a cultural or a pan-ethnic identity, but as their racial-identification juxtaposing the racialised Habesha identity alongside the standard South African racial categories. Habesha identity therefore was transformed from a cultural to a racial category for the participants of this study.

Conclusion

This paper set out to explore how first-generation Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in post-apartheid South Africa self-identified in the face of their encounters with racial classification on official forms and in everyday life. As part of a larger study, this paper was focused on those participants who defined their Habesha cultural identity as their race. Habesha identity which was traditionally understood as a non-racial pan-ethnic cultural identity for Eritreans and Ethiopians was redefined as a racial identity by the participants. Habesha then became a type of racial category juxtaposed alongside the traditional South African racial categories, namely White, Black, Coloured and Indian. This novel practice by some refugees to invent racial identities out of ethnic/cultural identities speaks to the undermining of the South African racial classification system to which non-South African refugees are expected to assimilate/adapt. It would be interesting for future studies in the diaspora settings to explore whether Habesha identity is claimed by the Jeberti people in Eritrea — though officially classified under the Tigrinya ethnic group — they have been claiming a separate ethnic/cultural identity. Future studies could also investigate whether members of other ethnic groups such as the Tigre, Bilen, Saho of Eritrea claim Habesha identity in racially structured host societies. Further research is also needed to understand how other African refugee groups beyond Eritreans define themselves in the face of a racially organized host society, South Africa.