For nearly two decades, and particularly since the civil war, Somali men, women, and sometimes even children without families fled the country in droves. Some sought refuge amongst established Somali communities in the Horn of Africa, the former colonial states of England, France, and Italy, and the Middle East. Others journeyed to new destinations. Today, Somali communities are found in nearly every corner of the world from small rural towns like Barron, Wisconsin and Lewiston, Maine in the United States, to cities like Johannesburg, Sydney, Helsinki, Minneapolis, and Toronto. Diasporic Somalis are just as likely to speak Afrikaans or Finnish as they are to speak Somali. This book represents the first attempt to map the social and cultural contours of the Somali diaspora in a global context. Using case studies from Somali communities in Africa, Europe, and North America, the contributors to this volume construct a global framework for studying the Somali diaspora. This framework simultaneously compares dispersed Somalis in different cultural, economic, political, and racial contexts, and captures the fluid, transnational context of the Somali diaspora. The central questions that guide this book are: How do these contexts inform the production and maintenance of Somali diaspora formation? Consequently, how do the making and remaking of diasporic identities affect local Somali communities, the global diaspora community, host societies as well as the homeland communities they left behind?

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