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Rwanda: the way forward
Rwanda represents an important innovation for the Commonwealth. Previously an informal club with no specified entry criteria, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) developed rules for entry in 1997 in response to interest in membership expressed by countries with no historical connection to British imperialism. These rules state any entrant must abide by the principles set out by the Harare Declaration of 1991, which amount to the usual commitments to democracy, human rights, and international peace and order. Rwanda became the first country to join the Commonwealth under these new rules in 2009.2 As such, it is an important test case for the Commonwealth’s ongoing attempted transformation into a relevant international organisation animated by adherence to principles of liberalism and democracy, particularly because Rwanda continues to polarise debate. Rwanda is mercurial, and probably does lie somewhere between the inspirational feel-good account of President Paul Kagame’s groupies and the African North Korea envisioned by its critics.
UNHCR in Uganda: better than its reputation suggests
Nakivale Refugee Settlement on Uganda’s border with Rwanda is one of Africa’s oldest refugee camps. Rwandans first fled there following the ‘Hutu Revolution’ of 1957 and it now contains roughly 60,000 Rwandans, Congolese and Somalis along with many other nationalities (some of its residents like to say they live in the real Organisation of African Unity). This is not the choked ghetto usually evoked by media representations. Nakivale is a confederation of villages and contains enough farming and animal husbandry to feed itself and still produce surplus to export further afield. And though Nakivale is in the middle of nowhere, it is anything but isolated from cultural, social and economic activity; there are markets, several cinemas and plenty of smartphones in evidence taking advantage of the new mobile phone mast erected in the centre of the settlement.
The making of a cosmopolitan quarter: Sha'laan in the 20th century
In 2001, the French Institute in Damascus (IFPO), in collaboration with the Maison de l’Orient de la Méditerranée/Université de Lyon 2 (GREMMO), and the Faculty of Architecture and Geography at the University of Damascus, began a multidisciplinary study of Damascus which undertook to examine the architecture, and the socio-economic development of Sha’laan. Dr Anne-Marie Bianquis, a geographer at GREMMO, began the scoping study of the Sha’laan quarter in that year. This included an examination of cadastral surveys, satellite photographs and detailed descriptions of the quarter by French bureaucrats, visitors’ reports and private diaries. In June 2006, with the mission of Dr Françoise Metral, some of the notable families of this quarter were identified and interviewed. Dr Metral’s survey highlighted the fact that the extended family of the Ruwalla Bedouin tribal leader, Emir Nuri Sha’laan, had played a significant part in establishing this once late Ottoman agricultural settlement into an important political and economic centre of Damascus. My role in the project was to contribute to the ethnographic history of the quarter through the personal testimonies of its inhabitants. With the support of a grant from the Council for British research in the Levant (CBRL), I made three research trips to Damascus between May 2008 and April 2009 seeking out a representative sample of the oldest living residents of the quarter who could contribute to an anthropology of this quarter. I engaged a research assistant, Jihad Darwaza, who ably sought out and negotiated informed consent with potential interviewees. Over three two-week periods I conducted a total of 22 interviews with a wide range of current and former residents in the quarter from the grandson of the Emir Nuri Sha’laan to a retired geography teacher turned bookseller. We interviewed shopkeepers and merchants who had maintained business in the quarter for over a half century and others who had been present in the quarter for decades but had recently sold up and moved to outlying suburbs of the city to take advantage of soaring real estate prices in Sha’laan.
Book Review: Legal Institutions and Collective Memories
In discussions around post-conflict justice and truth recovery it is commonly claimed that a criminal trial or truth commission will contribute to the formation of a ‘collective memory’, a historical record of events which is agreed by all sides. Typically absent from these claims is a critical interrogation of what collective memory is, whether it is necessarily benevolent or even whether the deliberate construction of such a collective memory is a legitimate function of legal process. Legal Institutions and Collective Memories engages with such dilemmas in 17 essays which include descriptive case studies and more abstract reflections on memory, justice, truth and transition.
A Tamil Asylum Diaspora: Sri Lankan Migration, Settlement and Politics in Switzerland
During twelve years of ethno-nationalist secessionist violence in the north and east of Sri Lanka, insurrection in the south, and island-wide state repression, many Tamils were forced to seek political asylum overseas. At least 200,000 Tamils, primarily from the Jaffna Peninsula, have escaped to Europe of whom ca. 25,000 (the largest group relative to the population) have settled in Switzerland, the focus of this study. The author examines the conditions in Sri Lanka that led to the flight, the phases and technicalities of the emigration and resettlement in Switzerland. Based on anthropological fieldwork and on completely new archival material, the author not only looks at the development of the Tamil community in all its diversity but also at the impact of federal and cantonal policy and practice, at the economic situation and broader changes in Switzerland which led to demands for reforms to the country's asylum and immigration rules. In this respect, Switzerland set an example that other governments were soon to follow.
Understanding Impoverishment: The Consequences of Development-Induced Displacement
Infrastructure development projects are set to continue into the next century as developing country governments seek to manage population growth, urbanization and industrialization. The contributions in this volume raise many questions about 'development' and 'progress' in the late twentieth century. What is revealed are the enormous problems and disastrous affects which continue to accompany displacement operations in many countries, which raise the ever more urgent question of whether the benefits of infrastructure development justify or outweigh the pain of the radical disruption of peoples lives, exacerbated by the fact that, with some notable exceptions, there has been a lack of official recognition on the part of governments and international agencies that development-induced displacement is a problem at all. This important volume addresses the issues and shows just how serious the situation is.
The End of the Refugee Cycle: Refugee Repatriation and Reconstruction
At the start of the 1990s, there was great optimism that the end of the Cold War might also mean the end of the "refugee cycle" - both a breaking of the cycle of violence, persecution and flight, and the completion of the cycle for those able to return to their homes. The 1990s, it was hoped, would become the "decade of repatriation." However, although over nine million refugees were repatriated worldwide between 1991 and 1995, there are reasons to believe that it will not necessarily be a durable solution for refugees. It certainly has become clear that "the end of the refugee cycle" has been much more complex, and ultimately more elusive, than expected. The changing constructions and realities of refugee repatriation provide the backdrop for this book which presents new empirical research on examples of refugee repatriation and reconstruction. Apart from providing up-to-date material, it also fills a more fundamental gap in the literature which has tended to be based on pedagogical reasoning rather than actual field research. Adopting a global perspective, this volume draws together conclusions from highly varied experiences of refugee repatriation and defines repatriation and reconstruction as part of a wider and interrelated refugee cycle of displacement, exile and return. The contributions come from authors with a wealth of relevant practical and academic experience, spanning the continents of Africa, Asia, Central America, and Europe.
Losing Place: Refugee Populations and Rural Transformations in East Africa
Refugee flight, settlement, and repatriation are not static, self-contained, or singular events. Instead, they are three stages of an ongoing process made and mirrored in the lives of real people. For that reason, there is an evident need for historical and longitudinal studies of refugee populations that rise above description and trace the process of social transformation during the "full circle" of flight resettlement, and return home. This book probes the economic forces and social processes responsible for shaping the everyday existence for refugees as they move through exile.
Engendering Forced Migration: Theory and Practice
At the turn of the new millenium, war, political oppression, desperate poverty, environmental degradation and disasters, and economic underdevelopment are sharply increasing the ranks of the world's twenty million forced migrants. In this volume, eighteen scholars provide a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary look beyond the statistics at the experiences of the women, men, girls, and boys who comprise this global flow, and at the highly gendered forces that frame and affect them. In theorizing gender and forced migration, these authors present a set of descriptively rich, gendered case studies drawn from around the world on topics ranging from international human rights, to the culture of aid, to the complex ways in which women and men envision displacement and resettlement.
Refugee Policy in Sudan 1967–1984
Based on the work of Ahmed Karadawi, Refugee Policy in Sudan discusses Sudanese government policy towards the refugee flows from Ethiopia into the Eastern Region of Sudan in theperiod 1967 to 1984, arguing that there were two underlying assumptions behind successive governments' policies: that refugees were considered a security threat and a socio-economic burden. In response,the policies incorporated the Organization of African Unity norms, which offered a platform to depoliticise the refugees, equally with the international conventions relating to refugees, which assured the externalization of responsibility and access to aid. This prescription, however, ignored the dynamism of the conflict that continued to generate refugees - and, as numbers accumulated in Sudan, the international aid regime did not act as a willing partner of the government. The consequences of a sizeable refugee population revealed a serious conflict of priorities, not only within the Sudanese government of the day, but also between the government and aid donors - thus, the objectives of the government policy were seriously undermined.
The Psychosocial Wellness of Refugees: Issues in Qualitative and Quantitative Research
In recent years, scholars in the fields of refugee studies and forced migration have extended their areas of interest and research into the phenomenon of displacement, human response to it, and ways to intervene to assist those affected, increasingly focusing on the emotional and social impact of displacement on refugees and their adjustment to the traumatic experiences. In the process, the positive concept of "psychosocial wellness" was developed as discussed in this volume. In it noted scholars address the strengths and limitations of their investigations, citing examples from their work with refugees from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Palestine, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Eastern Europe, Bosnia, and Chile. The authors discuss how they define "psychosocial wellness," as well as the issues of sample selection, measurement, reliability and validity, refugee narratives and "voices," and the ability to generalize findings and apply these to other populations. The key question that has guided many of these investigations and underlies the premise of this book is "what happens to an ordinary person who has experienced an extraordinary event?" This volume also highlights the fact that those involved in such research must also deal with their own emotional responses as they hear victims tell of killing, torture, humiliation, and dispossesion. The volume will therefore appeal to practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, social work, nursing, and anthropology. However, its breadth and the evaluation of the strengths and disadvantages of both qualitative and quantitative methods also make it an excellent text for students.