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‘Madmen, Womanisers, and Thieves’: Moral disorder and the cultural text of refugee encampment in Kenya
Kenya's refugee camps have evoked spectacular imaginaries of terrorism and humanitarian crisis. Drawing on everyday discourses and shared knowledges among camp administrators, this article reveals that these geopolitical narratives are underwritten locally by more generalized concerns about the imagined ‘otherness’ and moral degeneracy of the displaced. Refugees are thus portrayed as criminals and crooks, sexually deviant and idle, as well as ‘mad’ and uncivilized. Together, these tropes constitute a cultural text of encampment that reproduces postcolonial imaginings of difference and engrains the notion that ‘refugeeness’ equates to a state of ‘moral disorder’. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Kakuma refugee camp in north-western Kenya's Turkana county. It argues that the discursive production of refugees as immoral subjects not only has practical effects for the actions of government officials and aid workers but rekindles a binary colonial mapping of the world into ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’ spaces. These social imaginaries and banal discourses illustrate that the camp has not just a political but also an imaginative geography. Kakuma camp is hereby doubly excluded: from the modernity that humanitarianism ostensibly embodies and from the imagined moral community of Kenya.
Disentangling the migration-development nexus using QCA
Under what circumstances does human development facilitate or constrain emigration? Moreover, under what conditions is migration a driver for rather than an obstacle for development? Empirical evidence identifying the drivers of the two-way relationship between migration and development is still rather mixed, in part also because of conceptual and methodological shortcomings of the methods generally applied to this subject matter, which often cannot handle the complex links and interactions between migration and development. This paper engages with the opportunities and challenges of investigating the migration–development nexus using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as a methodological approach to explore the complex configurational two-way relationship between migration and development processes. We hereby address a methodological gap in the scientific literature investigating the migration-development nexus and propose QCA as a method for enriching the empirical base and expanding our knowledge and understanding of this complex relationship.
Some complex legal questions examined from a legal perspective in a partial and passionate manner
On the 11th March 2021 Advocate General Hogan of the CJEU delivered his Opinion (Opinion Procedure 1/19, ECLI:EU:C:2021:198) on the European Parliament’s request for an advisory opinion on the accession of the EU to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. To prepare the reader concerned by the EU’s attempt to assume just a small selection of the legal obligations the Istanbul Convention imposes on its parties, the Advocate General cautions that: “While that [the Istanbul] convention seeks to advance the noble and desirable goal of combating violence against women and children, the question of whether the conclusion of that particular convention would be compatible with the EU Treaties presents complex legal questions of some novelty which must naturally be examined from a legal perspective in a detached and dispassionate manner.” (para 2) In this blog, I present my initial thoughts on the Advocate General’s Opinion and the implications that a CJEU judgment along the same lines could have for women in Europe. Detached and dispassionate I am not.
The Global Compact on Refugees and the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum: The Ripples of Responsibility-Sharing
Chapter 11 in ‘The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum in light of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees’, edited by S Carrera and A Gedes. What does ‘fair and equitable responsibility- and burden-sharing’ look like today, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a global recession and an ongoing climate crisis? One could argue that it has not yet manifested as envisioned in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) (UN, 2018) and is certainly not what the New Pact on Migration and Asylum appears to be.
Exiled within: Between citizenship and the struggle for return for internal Palestinian refugees in Israel
The internal Palestinian refugees represent an intriguing paradox of a people who have suffered displacement and dispossession but are today citizens of the colonial state that was built on their ruins. While there are well-established studies of the (external) Palestinian refugees’ impasse, the internal Palestinian refugees, defined as present absentees, have historically been omitted from these debates. In this paper, I challenge the preconceived assumption that citizenship is the most durable solution to cease the displacement and rectify the dispossession of refugees, demonstrating that, for internal Palestinian refugees, these processes continue to be a part of their ‘lived experience’ despite the legal status afforded to them in Israel. By applying theories and practices of citizenship and re-reading the history of Palestine and Israel since 1948, I argue that the provision of citizenship has served to maintain this population in a state of absentia. To illustrate this, I analyse two policies that continue to target the Palestinian community in general and the internal Palestinian refugees specifically: the present absentee land ownership law and the compulsory state education system. While the former ensured their displacement and dispossession from their lands, the latter has systematically targeted their history and identity. Finally, I study how the internal Palestinian refugees have also resisted these policies at the grassroots level by organising commemoration activities and marches to their destroyed villages, mounting a (symbolic) movement for the right of return to re-create spaces of legitimacy and subjectivity. I demonstrate that, ultimately, these acts of citizenship contestation are also employed to actively re-connect and communicate their struggle with the wider Palestinian diaspora – countering their absence by asserting their presence.
Mental health and psychosocial support, Data and displacement, Missing migrants
Forced Migration Review issue 66 includes three features. In the main feature, on Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), authors debate initiatives and challenges in this field, and advocate for strengthened collaboration and new ways of thinking. The Data and displacement feature examines recent advances in gathering and using data. Finally, the Missing migrants feature explores initiatives to improve data gathering and sharing, identification of remains, and assistance for families left behind.
Climate crisis and local communities / Trafficking and smuggling
Forced Migration Review issue 64 has two main feature themes, one on ‘Climate crisis and local communities’ and one on ‘Trafficking and smuggling’. It also has a short collection of articles presenting early reflections on COVID-19 in the context of displacement. The feature on climate crisis focuses on the impact of climate change on local communities, their coping strategies, lessons arising, and broader questions of access, rights and justice. The feature on trafficking and smuggling explores some of the current challenges, misconceptions, insights and innovations in these fields. Finally, the articles on COVID-19 offer preliminary reflections on the pandemic, focusing on the role of refugee-led organisations and the need for data to inform responses.
The Kurdish Women's Movement: History, Theory, Practice
The Kurdish women's movement is at the heart of the most exciting revolutionary experiment in the world today: Rojava. Forged over decades of struggle, most recently in the fight against ISIS, Rojava embodies a radical commitment to ecology, democracy and gender equality. But while striking images of Kurdish women in desert fatigues proliferate, a true understanding of the women's movement remains elusive. Taking apart the superficial and Orientalist frameworks that dominate, Dilar Dirik offers instead an empirically rich account of the women's movement in Kurdistan. Drawing on original research and ethnographic fieldwork, she surveys the movement's historical origins, ideological evolution, and political practice over the past forty years. Going beyond abstract ideas, Dirik locates the movement's culture and ideology in its concrete work for women's liberation and radical democracy. Taking the reader from the guerrilla camps in the mountains to radical women's academies and self-organized refugee camps, the book invites readers around the world to engage with the revolution in Kurdistan, both theoretically and practically, as a vital touchstone in the wider struggle for a militant anti-fascist, anti-capitalist feminist internationalism.
Overcoming the Nation-State: Women’s Autonomy and Radical Democracy in Kurdistan
About the book 'Gendering Nationalism - Intersections of Nation, Gender and Sexuality' (eds. Mulholland, J., Montagna, N, and Sanders-McDonagh, E.): This volume offers an empirically rich, theoretically informed study of the shifting intersections of nation/alism, gender and sexuality. Challenging a scholarly legacy that has overly focused on the masculinist character of nationalism, it pays particular attention to the people and issues less commonly considered in the context of nationalist projects, namely women and sexual minorities. Bringing together both established and emerging researchers from across the globe, this multidisciplinary and comparison-rich volume provides a multi-sited exploration of the shifting contours of belonging and Otherness generated by multifarious nationalisms. The diverse, and context specific positionings of men and women, masculinities and femininities, and hegemonic and non-normative sexualities, vis-à-vis nation/alism, are illuminated through a vibrant array of contemporary theoretical lenses. These include historical and feminist institutionalism, post-colonial theory, critical race approaches, transnational and migration theory and semiotics.
The Revolution of Smiling Women: Stateless Democracy and Power in Rojava
About the book 'Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Politics' (eds. Shilliam, R., and Rutazibwa O.): Engagements with the postcolonial world by International Relations scholars have grown significantly in recent years. The Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Politics provides a solid reference point for understanding and analyzing global politics from a perspective sensitive to the multiple legacies of colonial and imperial rule. The Handbook introduces and develops cutting-edge analytical frameworks that draw on Black, decolonial, feminist, indigenous, Marxist and postcolonial thought as well as a multitude of intellectual traditions from across the globe. Alongside empirical issue areas that remain crucial to assessing the impact of European and Western colonialism on global politics, the book introduces new issue areas that have arisen due to the mutating structures of colonial and imperial rule.
In the interest of saving: Refugee‐led microfinance in Kampala, Uganda
Motivation: While livelihoods are increasingly promoted for refugees in long‐term situations of displacement, refugees can rarely access microfinance loans—the very start‐up capital generally considered necessary for creating businesses. Yet across Kampala, Uganda, refugees meet to place small amounts of money into group savings and take out and repay microloans. Purpose: This article sheds light on this underexplored phenomenon through an empirical study of refugee‐led microfinance groups in Kampala and an overview of the existing local landscape of refugee‐serving organizations and microfinance institutions providing loans. We analytically reflect on the role of trust in executing microfinance programmes both for and by refugees. Approach and Methods: We conducted snowball and purposive sampling, semi‐structured qualitative interviews, focus group discussions, and non‐participant observation. Findings: Our study found that refugee‐led microfinance groups have created a loan structure that is successful for refugees—because it was developed by refugees—with low default rates. This success is underpinned by strong community trust between members. These groups access vulnerable populations important to humanitarian organizations, including women, single mothers, unregistered refugees and the very poor. However, despite filling an important gap in livelihoods assistance—the provision of business capital—refugee‐led microfinance groups lack large amounts of capital to loan members, and do not feel they provide adequate business, livelihoods and financial literacy trainings. Policy Implications: Our findings suggest that non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) should support existing groups through offering safe spaces to hold meetings, and with financial and business trainings. Debunking stereotypes of refugees held by financial providers, and advocating for refugees’ financial rights remains crucial. Providing loan capital to groups to enable members to take out larger loans may offer another means of support, but collaboration between formal microfinance institutions or NGOs and refugee‐led groups must reinforce rather than devalue the networks of trust that contribute to grassroots savings and loan groups’ success.
From Humanitarianism to Development: Reconfiguring the international refugee response regime
About the book 'Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development', T. Bastia and R. Skeldon (eds): The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development provides an interdisciplinary, agenda-setting survey of the fields of migration and development, bringing together over 60 expert contributors from around the world to chart current and future trends in research on this topic. The links between migration and development can be traced back to the post-war period, if not further, yet it is only in the last 20 years that the 'migration–development nexus' has risen to prominence for academics and policymakers. Starting by mapping the different theoretical approaches to migration and development, this book goes on to present cutting edge research in poverty and inequality, displacement, climate change, health, family, social policy, interventions, and the key challenges surrounding migration and development. While much of the migration literature continues to be dominated by US and British perspectives, this volume includes original contributions from most regions of the world to offer alternative non-Anglophone perspectives. Given the increasing importance of migration in both international development and current affairs, the Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development will be of interest both to policymakers and to students and researchers of geography, development studies, political science, sociology, demography, and development economics.
Places of Partial Protection: Refugee Shelter since 2015
About the book 'Structures of Protection?': Questioning what shelter is and how we can define it, this volume brings together essays on different forms of refugee shelter, with a view to widening public understanding about the lives of forced migrants and developing theoretical understanding of this oft-neglected facet of the refugee experience. Drawing on a range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, law, architecture, and history, each of the chapters describes a particular shelter and uses this to open up theoretical reflections on the relationship between architecture, place, politics, design and displacement.
Deprivation of Citizenship through a Political Lens
About 'The World's Stateless Report 2020: Deprivation of Nationality': Othering is on the rise around the world. Linked to the rise of nationalism, it is among the most pressing problems of the 21st century. In this era of rising authoritarianism, growth of the security state, increasing populism, xenophobia and racism, citizenship is under threat in ways not seen for generations. As more states instrumentalise nationality and treat it as a privilege that can be taken away, members of minority communities, human rights defenders, dissidents and suspected terrorists are all more likely to be stripped of their nationality – facing acute human rights depravations as a result. The growing (mis)use of citizenship stripping powers to target some, undermines the sanctity of citizenship for all. This edition of the flagship report of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless 2020 explores the issue of citizenship deprivation. Various experts and organisations have contributed material – essays, interviews, refections and more – collectively forming a truly interdisciplinary view on the subject. The report also includes the Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure. As with every edition, the report also offers an overview of the state of statelessness globally in 2020.
Only with you this broom will fly: Rojava, magic, and sweeping away the state inside of us
About the book 'Deciding for Ourselves', C. Milstein (ed.): In a time of social and ecological crises, people everywhere are looking for solutions. States and capitalism, rather than providing them, only make matters worse. There’s a growing sense that we’ll have to fix this mess on our own. But how? Deciding for Ourselves, in the spirit of the Zapatistas, demonstrates that “the impossible is possible.” A better world through self-determination and self-governance is not only achievable. It is already happening in urban and rural communities around the world—from Mexico to Rojava, Denmark to Greece—as an implicit or explicit replacement for nations, police, and other forms of hierarchical social control. This anthology explores this “sense of freedom in the air,” as one piece puts it, by looking at contemporary examples of autonomous, directly democratic spaces and the real-world dilemmas they experience, all the while underscoring the egalitarian ways of life that are collectively generated in them.
Victim or Perpetrator? The Criminal Migrant and the Idea of ‘Harm’ in a Labour Market Context
In A. Bogg, J. Collins, M. Freedland, and J. Herring (eds) 'Criminality at Work'. From the Master and Servant legislation to the Factories Acts of the 19th century, the criminal law has always had a vital yet normatively complex role in the regulation of work relations. Even in its earliest forms, it operated both as a tool to repress collective organizations and enforce labour discipline, while policing the worst excesses of industrial capitalism. Recently, governments have begun to rediscover criminal law as a regulatory tool in a diverse set of areas related to labour law: 'modern slavery', penalizing irregular migrants, licensing regimes for labour market intermediaries, wage theft, supporting the enforcement of general labour standards, new forms of hybrid preventive orders, harassment at work, and industrial protest. This volume explores the political and regulatory dimensions of the new 'criminality at work' from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, including labour law, immigration law, and health and safety regulations. The volume provides an overview of the regulatory terrain of 'criminality at work', exploring whether these different regulatory interventions represent politically legitimate uses of the criminal law. The book also examines whether these recent interventions constitute a new pattern of criminalization that operates in preventive mode and is based upon character and risk-based forms of culpability. The volume concludes by reflecting upon the general themes of 'criminality at work' comparatively, from Australian, Canadian, and US perspectives.
IDP-led women’s assistance: new roles for traditional groups
Despite the increased focus on forced migration worldwide, little attention has been given to the success and effectiveness of IDP- and refugee-led initiatives in addressing key challenges within their communities. Yet pre-existing traditional groups led by internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees offer pathways for social support, self-reliance, and integration. The IDP-led initiatives we identified in our research in Adama, Ethiopia, provide long-term support with minimum resources. More attention should be paid by policymakers and assistance agencies to support and collaborate with IDP groups such as these. Our research highlights the pivotal role of social groups created by IDPs.
Migration and Human Rights in Africa: The Policy and Legal Framework in Broad Strokes
Chapter in the book ‘African Migrants and the Refugee Crisis’, edited by Olayiwola Abegunrin and Sabella O. Abidde. Since most African states gained independence, immediately then and for so long afterward, the focus was dealing with the armed conflicts that were rampant across the continent. Consequently, the legal framework that first emanated from the regional governing body, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), with regard to migration, dealt with specific aspects of the refugee problem in Africa. Forced migration and how to deal with displaced populations was a pressing problem reflective of the political developments, thus soliciting coordinated responses from the regional political body, the OAU, which later metamorphosed into the African Union (AU). It was later recognized that while the continental legal framework recognized and sought to address aspects of external displacement, there was an even larger population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who without any legal and policy framework, not only internationally but also domestically were virtually lacking any form of protection and standards that would compel the respective governments to respond to their needs. Thirty-nine years after the adoption of the Refugees Convention, the AU, in 2009, adopted the Convention for the protection and assistance of IDPs in Africa. A vast improvement on the Refugees Convention that tends to be very sketchy on the rights of refugees and attendant duties of the government, the IDP Convention has been lauded as an instrument that ‘provides a roadmap that dignifies the rights of peoples forced to flee at all points of their displacement’.
The ‘mobility turn’: economic inequality in refugee livelihoods
About the book ‘Handbook of Culture and Migration’ edited by Jeffrey H. Cohen and Ibrahim Sirkeci: Capturing the important place and power role that culture plays in the decision-making process of migration, this Handbook looks at human movement outside of a vacuum; taking into account the impact of family relationships, access to resources, and security and insecurity at both the points of origin and destination.Utilising case studies from around the world, chapters look at migration from the perspectives of a broad range of migrants, including refugees, labour migrants, students, highly educated migrants, and documented and undocumented movers. The Handbook moves beyond an understanding of the economics of migration, looking at the importance of love, skilled movers, food and identity in migrants’ lives. It analyses the assumption that migrants follow direct pathways to new destinations where they settle, recognising the dynamic ways in which movers travel, following circular routes and celebrating new opportunities. Highlighting the challenges migrants face, disputes around belonging and citizenship are explored in relation to rising nationalism and xenophobia. The insightful studies of the choices migrants make around both perceived and real needs and resources will make this Handbook a critical read for scholars and students of migration studies. It will also appeal to policy makers looking to understand the complexity of the impetus to migrant movement, and the important role that culture plays.
Empowering refugees through cash and agriculture: a regression discontinuity design
Assistance to refugees is shifting from a humanitarian model, which focuses on protection, emergency relief, and shelter, to a development model promoting refugee self-reliance through income-generating activities, market development, and cash transfers. Evidence on the effects of this paradigm shift is limited. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design, this paper tests whether the adoption of a development approach to refugee assistance in a new settlement in Kenya has a positive impact. We find that refugees benefiting from the new approach have better diets and perceive themselves as happier and more independent from humanitarian aid. We find no effect on assets and employment. These effects appear to be driven by the switch from food rations to cash transfers and by the wider promotion of small-scale agriculture. Our findings argue in favor of the development approach to refugee assistance, which is cheaper and leads to better outcomes.