| Summary: | In June 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there were 68.5 million people displaced worldwide due to wars, violence and persecution; 25.4 million of them were refugees (Edwards 2018). In 1991, Somalia plunged into civil war, causing a mass exodus. Nearly three decades later, there are large Somali diaspora communities around the world. This article highlights the migration narratives and experiences of ten displaced Somalis who fled their homeland in the 1990s –early 2000s and graciously shared their stories with me during semi-structured ethnographic interviews I conducted in Egypt, the UK and the US between 2003-2010. The reflections shared by these migrants illuminate the tension felt by many displaced peoples when they must occupy differing socio-economic and power positions in their receiving societies as well as when they are confronted with external understandings of their identities that often clash with self-perceptions; they also emphasize the need to disaggregate migrant experiences as migrants take different paths, use different strategies depending on context, and live within diverse host societies.
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