Dr Cory Rodgers has written a blog for the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. In ‘A tale of two camps’ he examines the “perplexing duality” of the public narratives on refugees in Kenya. He writes, “on the one hand, the government has declared refugees a threat to national security” and threatened to close the Dadaab camps, but it has also made “substantial pledges” to make Kenya “a more open and inclusive host country”, supporting the construction of the Kalobeyei refugee settlement close to Kakuma camp.
Cory is presenting on a panel entitled ‘Regional Trends in the Pursuit of Durable Solutions in Eastern Africa’ at the upcoming RLI 4th Annual Conference in June. His paper will explore the question of whether Kenya is shirking its international responsibility to refugees, or embracing a more inclusive approach to refugee protection. Drawing upon his research, he will describe the dissociation of the security and self-reliance narratives in Kenya, which have been anchored spatially in Dadaab and Kakuma/Kalobeyei.
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