Motivation for the study: The motivation for the study started from the fact that the world is characterised by a high degree of mobility. Subsequently, social, political and economic processes and outcomes within nation states are significantly impacted by migration, making it untenable to understand political processes solely by looking at actors within states. In parallel, in the context of transnational movements, concepts of citizenship have expanded beyond the nation state, and citizenship is in various ways conceived of as a relational practice. In such an understanding, citizenship moves away from legal status, but focuses on concrete, often everyday acts. Focusing on such acts of citizenship makes it possible to analyse citizenship as a practice related to homelands, hostlands, or the wider transnational social field in often interconnected and overlapping ways. The study brought a critical analysis of these strands of literature together and investigated how practices of citizenship among emerging diaspora constitute (political) belonging and unbelonging - to the homeland but also the hostland and the transnational social field. In a further step, it also investigated what forms of political engagement or non-engagement may emerge from such practices. In order to say something meaningful about these theoretical and empirical questions, three cities in the wider Horn of Africa were chosen as case study locations, as the Horn is a prototypical example of an origin-area of out-migration and a region where many migrants stay in neighbouring countries, near their homeland. Focusing on how migrants become emerging diasporas, the project looked at migrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea who reside in key cities of the region, namely Addis Ababa; Khartoum; and Nairobi. Such a detailed focus allowed to understand how migration shapes lived citizenship practices, political belonging and engagement, and this in turn speaks to the wider debates on patterns of migration, belonging and transnationalism, but also the potential and pitfalls of conceptions of lived citizenship. Aims and Topics covered: The overall aim of the project has been to improve our understanding of the ways in which diaspora populations embrace, subvert and refine ideas, narratives and practices of citizenship and establish different forms of (political) belonging and unbelonging to their homeland, their place of residence and the wider transnational social field. The project was conceived as having an extensive qualitative component that would have included (in addition to in-depths interviews) participant observation; knowledge production by participants (based on methods like photo-voice); and co-production of knowledge through dissemination activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the only possible means of data collection became in-depth virtual interviews (for a discussion of these changes in data collection methods and the potential and pitfalls, please refer to the sections on methods). These interviews still allowed to achieve the key objectives of the project: a detailed analysis of how emerging Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora perform and practice citizenship, and through these performances assert political belonging in relation to Eritrea and Ethiopia, their host-cities in neighbouring countries (Addis Ababa; Khartoum; Nairobi) and the wider Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora spread across the world. Following a lose interview guide, the project data provided key insights into how political belonging is produced, performed, and contested by emerging Eritrean and Ethiopian diaspora through acts of citizenship. This then contributed to an interrogation of the concept of transnational lived citizenship as a useful theoretical framing for understanding political belonging in relation to homelands, hostlands and the transnational social field of emerging diaspora. It built on previous work on diaspora that has examined everyday practices as expressions of belonging and identification and brought this together with work on diaspora politics and contested connections to and beyond the nation state. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an additional lens to interrogate lived citizenship practices and changing patterns of belonging, and how those may be transformed by intersecting crises, as did the outbreak of internal armed conflict in Ethiopia during the interview phase that also involved Eritrea. Key findings: The project contributed first to the call to re-theorise transnational citizenship practices as a specific form of political belonging going beyond the nation-state but at the same time intimately linked to it. Second, it provided comparative empirical data on concrete citizenship practices and the forms of political belonging these generate. This makes the contribution to theory intimately linked with an empirical investigation. Third, it focused on emerging diaspora in key urban settings in the Global South, cities more generally being seen as important sites for a reconfiguration of citizenship practices. Fourth, through having provided a thorough understanding of how emerging diaspora exercise transnational lived citizenship, a detailed understanding of the ambivalent loyalties that often characterise migrant lives has become visible, as a response to crises but also more generally. This has also been linked to the literature in liminal legality in cities of residence, and to how such liminality determines everyday practices of lived citizenship and belonging. Ultimately, the key findings enforce a focus that also underpins the lived-citizenship literature: It is vital to understand and analyse the tensions that characterise migrant struggles in cities all over the world, and from there think creatively about localised solutions within a transnational social field where migrant rights are increasingly threatened.It is increasingly acknowledged that the world is characterised by a high degree of mobility. Subsequently, social, political and economic processes and outcomes within nation states are significantly impacted by migration, making it untenable to understand political processes solely by looking at actors within states. In this context, many homeland states have developed diaspora engagement strategies. In parallel, in the context of transnational movements, concepts of citizenship have expanded beyond the nation state, and citizenship is in various ways conceived of as a relational practice. In such an understanding, citizenship moves beyond legal status, but focuses on concrete, often everyday acts. Focusing on such acts of citizenship makes it possible to analyse citizenship as a practice related to homelands, hostlands or the wider transnational social field in often interconnected and overlapping ways. In this project we bring a critical analysis of these strands of literature together, and in proposing a re-defined concept of transnational lived citizenship investigate how practices of citizenship among emerging diasporas constitute political belonging - to the homeland but also the hostland and the transnational social field. In a further step, we investigate what forms of political engagement may emerge from such practices. In order to address the above theoretical and empirical gaps in the literature, we have chosen the Horn of Africa as a case study region, as the Horn is a prototypical example of an origin-area of out-migration. Focusing in concrete detail on emerging diasporas from Ethiopia and Eritrea who reside in key cities of the wider region will allow us to understand how migration shapes citizenship practices, political belonging and engagement, and this in turn will speak to the wider debates on patterns of migration and transnationalism. Through mapping, life history interviews, semi-structures interviews, focus groups, and participant observation we will examine citizenship practices as expressions of political belonging and how they translate into political engagement by those who have emigrated from Ethiopa and Eritrea to the cities Khartoum, Addis Ababa and Nairobi, all three important transit as well as more permanent residence spaces. Our analysis of citizenship practices as a politics of belonging will allow us to develop a typology which ranges from the institutional to the quotidian, and from the visible to the furtive. In addition, our data gathered during the fieldwork component of the research will allow us to empirically map when, where, why, how and by whom various forms of transnational engagements are made. An additional fieldwork component in the Eritrean capital Asmara will in addition trace such engagement back to a home country setting. In fulfilling the project-objectives, we will be able to make original contributions to both academic and non-academic debates. Firstly, we will re-theorise transnational citizenship practices as a specific form of political belonging going beyond the nation-state but at the same time intimately linked to it. Secondly, we will provide comparative empirical data on concrete citizenship practices and the forms of political belonging these generate, thus the contribution to theory is intimately linked with an empirical investigation. Thirdly, we will focus on emerging diasporas in key urban settings in the Global South, cities being important sites for a reconfiguration of citizenship practices. Fourthly, through providing a thorough understanding of how emerging diasporas exercise transnational lived citizenship, we will provide a detailed understanding of the ambivalent loyalties that often characterise migrant lives. And lastly, through collaborating with local researchers and research institutions, and emerging diaspora communities we will engage in co-production and dissemination of knowledge, locally and with key political actors.

The project in its original planning aimed to conduct face-to-face fieldwork consisting of interviews; participant observation; data collection by participants; and joint production of dissemination materials. Fieldwork was to commence in March 2020 in Nairobi, then move to Addis Ababa and Khartoum, with an expected stay of a minimum of 40 days in each setting by the researcher (the PDRA). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all fieldwork had to be reconfigured virtually, and in the end only the conduct of virtual interviews in all three cities was possible and viable. The PIS and consent forms still include sections of agreement for all data collection methods. The shift to virtual fieldwork brought with it challenges and opportunities. Questioning face-to-face fieldwork as the gold standard when researching migration precedes the pandemic, but COVID-19 highlighted the limitations of research methods that take physical mobility of researchers for granted in new ways. Travelling overseas was neither possible nor, had that not been the case, would it have been ethical to travel to the African continent and potentially contribute to the spread of the disease. As a potential way forward, patchwork ethnography has been proposed. While originally aimed at foregrounding inclusivity and conditions under which knowledge production takes place, it provides a useful lens to consider the methodological implications of our move to virtual fieldwork. A key component of patchwork ethnography is to adjust methodological choices to the circumstances of the researcher, in this case COVID-19 enforced immobility, and to focus on multiple encounters designed to capture changing dynamics. For our project, this resulted in turning to proven types of remote, qualitative, synchronous interviews – using WhatsApp, zoom, or telephone calls. The postdoctoral researcher, Mesghina Abraha, conducted all interviews between September 2020 and December 2021. Instead, as originally envisaged, a sampling process based on participant observation of migrant communities, sampling of respondents relied on gatekeepers. In the case of Eritreans, those were recruited through informal networks of Abraha. For the sampling of Ethiopians, we relied on locally based migration researchers identified through our local partners. Gatekeepers for both communities came from faith-based organisations, community schools or other civil society networks. Through gatekeepers and subsequent snowball sampling, the target of fifteen interviewees from each community in each city was reached, and in addition four key informant interviews were conducted (in Nairobi and Khartoum). This adjusted way of sampling resulted in the same type of respondents we would have envisaged had fieldwork taken place face-to-face. What did change in the project was the sole reliance on in-depth-interview data, as the participant observation part and other envisaged methods were not possible. Having said that, such interviews, focused on detailed dynamics in individual everyday lives, are a pertinent methodological approach in the investigation of migrant practices of ‘makeshift’ citizenship in the here and now and the wider study of belonging. Altogether, 30 participant interviews and one key informant interview were conducted in Nairobi, 30 participant and three key informant interviews in Khartoum, and 15 participant interviews in Addis Ababa (with Eritrean migrants). This enforced move to virtual interviews turned out to have a number of clear advantages. While social clues are less visible in remote interviewing, these were not absent as interviewees made pauses; or their voice broke or became emotional, as noted by Abraha. More importantly, interviewees felt more comfortable to discuss sensitive issues in both politically deeply divided migrant communities with a researcher who himself is a UK citizen but of Eritrean origin. Mobile phone apps also made it easier to follow up with interviewees and allowed different ways of probing in a patchwork-style interview process. In fact, many interviews were conducted over multiple sessions and were easy to adjust to interviewee schedules and obligations (even if this meant some unsocial hours for Abraha). Virtual interviews also allowed to follow-up on additional issues that arose during the research process. More generally, the fact that both migrant communities rely on social media apps for much of their everyday activities made the process to conduct interviews in this way more natural and less intrusive than would otherwise have been the case. It also allowed participants to share additional material easily. Taken together, the move to a virtual interview process adds to reflections on the need to adapt traditional forms of fieldwork in times of intersecting crises, climate change and other global challenges. Our data demonstrates that this does not need to compromise research objectives or data quality. All interviews were following a detailed interview guide (the interview guide is part of the submission).