Care and Politics in Action: The Humanitarian Relief by Somali Businesswomen in Zambia to Puntland

Abstract

This paper examines the humanitarian engagement of Somali diaspora businesswomen in Zambia and it interacts with political and commercial interests. Focusing on a network of businesswomen in Lusaka and their chairwoman, Guddomiso Shamso Sheikh Ali, we investigate the gendered mobilisation, delivery, and communication of emergency relief in response to the 2020 Qardho flash floods in Puntland, Somalia. The ethnographic case study employs qualitative research methodologies, including in-depth life history interviews and observations. It draws on the analytical couplet of modes of being and belonging in transnational social fields, as well as feminist care ethics, to better understand Somali-Zambian businesswomen's humanitarian involvement, arguing that it constitutes care and politics in action. We challenge neat distinctions between “pure” humanitarian care to distant strangers and “partisan” care to loved ones, highlighting how diaspora humanitarianism may be linked with transnational businesses and political interests.