ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effects and limitations of humanitarian aid workers’ mobilities and migrations. Globally, the vast majority of relief workers are residents of countries and communities in the Global South affected by crises, and their jobs require frequent South-South Migration and travel to serve populations in need. Drawing on a case study of Somali aid workers in Ethiopia, this research finds that despite the necessity of mobility for humanitarian response, aid workers from the Global South often find themselves confined to jobs and travel only within nearby countries and similar communities. These aid workers’ expertise is often labeled as only “local,” belying their broader and more generalizable expertise and skills. Additionally, Somalis’ citizenship and racialized inequities within the humanitarian sector limit their opportunities to move and work outside the Horn of Africa. Despite this, Somalis’ incessant travel for aid work is also shaped and made possible by their long traditions of nomadic pastoralism, geographically dispersed kinship networks, and long histories of solidarity and care in the margins of colonial empires and contemporary governments. Somali aid workers are creative humanitarian nomads, yet the limitations on their migrations and mobility also reveal the inequities inherent to the relief sector.
