Abstract
In this story, I trace how the compulsion to work has shaped the lives of Elias and Biruk, two men who left their home country, Ethiopia, and now live in the US. Despite working hard at multiple jobs, work was not something they celebrated. Working hard was the embodiment of their precarity, simply the main currency in their lives of mobility. Were Biruk and Elias refugees? Undocumented migrants? Alien residents? What they told me about their lives over the phone did not help me understand their status in the US. Face to face, I had a chance to ask them a straightforward question, but Biruk and Elias did not reply by saying: “I am this, not that.” Their status would be stable and definable only when they got a paper recognizing they had a right to be in the US. Before that all-important scrap of paper, they were in a state of constant becoming. All they could do in the meantime was work and work. Because “if you do not work, what the hell are you in the USA for?” Elias said.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Anthropology & Humanism |
| Early online date | 20 Sept 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 20 Sept 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS – FNRS), Belgium [grant number FC 2597]. Special thanks go to the men I here call Biruk and Elias. The writing of this story would not have been possible without their kindness and generosity. I also wish to thank my students in the Anthropology of Migration course at the University of Birmingham for thoughtful discussions and Fatima Raja, Francesca Meloni, Marthe Achtnich, and Emma Lochery for their insightful comments. Acknowledgments 1.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author. Anthropology and Humanism published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Anthropological Association.
Keywords
- mobility
- precarity
- work
- Ethiopian workers
- life trajectories
