The aspiration to find a new home – not only a safe place, but also a ground to exercise freedom and to think positively about the future – is a key ingredient in the life histories of the Eritrean refugees that we met in Italy and the Netherlands. Aspiration here refers to the individual and collective capacity to imagine possible alternatives to present lives. This capacity is a crucial resource for Eritreans who risk everything to change their lives. However, as much as they want to find a stable place for themselves and their families they are continuously struggling with precariousness and isolation.
“Life here is like a traffic light: sometimes it's green, when you have a job, but can suddenly turn red”, Kibron, 37, said. In Italy for over eight years, he lives in a squat on the outskirts of Rome and recently lost his seasonal job. “Maybe it can be green again, but then it will be red, and again, and again”. It’s an apt metaphor for the unpredictability of daily life for Eritreans in Italy. Poor or lacking inclusion policies for newcomers have led to widespread economic precariousness among refugees. They are often relegated to underpaid, irregular and unskilled jobs and face chronic residential instability. As a consequence, many Eritreans experience social marginality and feel without control over their lives, even after years spent in the country.
But precarious jobs and bad housing are not alone in preventing Eritreans from feeling at home in Europe. In the Netherlands refugees mostly struggle with social isolation and feelings of helplessness. Although there are several institutional programmes and, depending on the area, local organisations' initiatives to support inclusion, many refugees we spoke to had a hard time starting a new life there. “I do not feel at home anywhere here”, said Yohannes, who at 39 lives in a provincial town where Eritreans are an absolute novelty. “Back in Eritrea, the house is not what we mean by home. Our neighbourhood instead, is what we call home... the friends, the people, the ground.” He's not there by choice. In the attempt to reduce concentration of specific ethnic groups in bigger cities, such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Dutch asylum reception policies have moved people into small towns and semi-rural areas. In doing so, they have neglected the importance of community connections for the wellbeing of newcomers and their long-term integration.
