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Community policing has become a popular way of promoting local ownership of security in refugee camps in Kenya and more widely, but it can also fall victim to its ambivalent position at the intersection of refugee communities and state policing.
\n \n\n \n \nThis article transports discussions on the geographies of occupation to the refugee camp and infers that rethinking militarised policing in camps as a form of occupation brings into sharper relief the everyday violence of humanitarian governance. While most research on the administration of camps has focused on the biopolitical control of humanitarian agencies and NGOs that register, sustain, and manage refugee lives in exile, far less is known about the role of the police and paramilitary. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya, this article provides an alternative reading of the militarised spatialities of the camp, in which Kenya's (post)colonial disposition for state violence has merged indistinguishably with the contemporary securitisation of refugees, and the humanitarian need for unobstructed management of aid operations. This article proposes that these converging trajectories have transformed the refugee camp into a zone under military-style occupation: an \u2018occupied enclave\u2019. In this tightly controlled space, Kenyan police act as enforcers of humanitarian violence that is inflicted on a civilian population of refugees with precarious life chances and limited freedom of movement. This is analysed through four domains of occupation \u2013 architecture, bureaucracy, physical force and material extraction \u2013 that work in conjunction to produce violent spatial effects of immobility, exclusion, and exception. Revisiting the camp through this lens bridges the gap between the literatures on humanitarian governance and military occupation and reiterates the continuing importance of enclave spaces for governing mobile and unwanted populations.
\n \n\n \n \nThis article examines the ways in which both colonial and postcolonial migration regimes in Kenya and Tanzania have reproduced forms of differential governance toward the mobilities of particular African bodies. While there has been a growing interest in the institutional discrimination and \u201cothering\u201d of migrants in or in transit to Europe, comparable dynamics in the global South have received less scholarly attention. The article traces the enduring governmental differentiation, racialization, and management of labor migrants and refugees in Kenya and Tanzania. It argues that analyses of contemporary policies of migration management are incomplete without a structured appreciation of the historical trajectories of migration control, which are inseparably linked to notions of coloniality and related constructions of (un)profitable African bodies. It concludes by recognizing the limits of controlling Africans on the move and points toward the inevitable emergence of social conditions in which conviviality and potentiality prevail.
\n \n\n \n \nCommunity policing has been a popular paradigm for local anti-crime activities in Africa since the 1990s and spread rapidly across the continent. Humanitarian agencies have increasingly embraced versions of the framework to administer refugee camps and ostensibly foster security, protection and peaceful co-existence among residents. This article demonstrates that the deployment of community policing in Kakuma camp in north-western Kenya has been far more contested. Aid organisations and Kenyan authorities have competed in determining the orientation and implementation of community policing at a time when the government was intensifying both securitisation of refugees and counter-terrorism measures. Kakuma\u2018s Community Peace and Protection Teams (CPPTs) were therefore torn between humanitarian conceptions of localised refugee protection and more illiberal forms of security work which bound them closer to the Kenyan state. The permanent negotiation between these parallel \u2018technologies of government' was reflected in contestations over uniforms, trainings and everyday practices. Powerful institutions attempted to script refugee conduct and thus discipline the camp's pluralistic social networks and forms of counter-organisation embedded in a \u2018deep community\u2019. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the article illustrates that governing refugees through community policing blurs the lines between humanitarian protection, domesticating local systems of governance, and expanding the security state.
\n \n\n \n \nKenya'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 \u2018otherness\u2019 and moral degeneracy of the displaced. Refugees are thus portrayed as criminals and crooks, sexually deviant and idle, as well as \u2018mad\u2019 and uncivilized. Together, these tropes constitute a cultural text of encampment that reproduces postcolonial imaginings of difference and engrains the notion that \u2018refugeeness\u2019 equates to a state of \u2018moral disorder\u2019. 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 \u2018civilized\u2019 and \u2018uncivilized\u2019 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.
\n \n\n \n \nUnder 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\u2013development 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.
\n \n\n \n \nOn 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\u2019s 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.\r\nTo prepare the reader concerned by the EU\u2019s attempt to assume just a small selection of the legal obligations the Istanbul Convention imposes on its parties, the Advocate General cautions that:\r\n\u201cWhile 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.\u201d (para 2)\r\nIn this blog, I present my initial thoughts on the Advocate General\u2019s Opinion and the implications that a CJEU judgment along the same lines could have for women in Europe. Detached and dispassionate I am not.
\n \n\n \n \nChapter 11 in \u2018The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum in light of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees\u2019, edited by S Carrera and A Gedes. What does \u2018fair and equitable responsibility- and burden-sharing\u2019 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.
\n \n\n \n \nThe 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\u2019 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 \u2018lived experience\u2019 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 \u2013 countering their absence by asserting their presence.
\n \n\n \n \nForced 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.
\n \n\n \n \nForced Migration Review issue 64 has two main feature themes, one on \u2018Climate crisis and local communities\u2019 and one on \u2018Trafficking and smuggling\u2019. 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.
\n \n\n \n \nThe 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.\r\n\r\nTaking 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.\r\n\r\nTaking 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.
\n \n\n \n \nAbout 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-\u00e0-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.
\n \n\n \n \nAbout 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.
\n \n\n \n \nMotivation: \r\n\r\nWhile livelihoods are increasingly promoted for refugees in long\u2010term situations of displacement, refugees can rarely access microfinance loans\u2014the very start\u2010up 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.\r\n\r\nPurpose: \r\n\r\nThis article sheds light on this underexplored phenomenon through an empirical study of refugee\u2010led microfinance groups in Kampala and an overview of the existing local landscape of refugee\u2010serving organizations and microfinance institutions providing loans. We analytically reflect on the role of trust in executing microfinance programmes both for and by refugees.\r\n\r\nApproach and Methods: \r\n\r\nWe conducted snowball and purposive sampling, semi\u2010structured qualitative interviews, focus group discussions, and non\u2010participant observation.\r\n\r\nFindings: \r\n\r\nOur study found that refugee\u2010led microfinance groups have created a loan structure that is successful for refugees\u2014because it was developed by refugees\u2014with 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\u2014the provision of business capital\u2014refugee\u2010led microfinance groups lack large amounts of capital to loan members, and do not feel they provide adequate business, livelihoods and financial literacy trainings.\r\n\r\nPolicy Implications: \r\n\r\nOur findings suggest that non\u2010governmental 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\u2019 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\u2010led groups must reinforce rather than devalue the networks of trust that contribute to grassroots savings and loan groups\u2019 success.
\n \n\n \n \nAbout 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\u00a060 expert contributors from around the world to chart current and future trends in research on this topic.\r\nThe 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\u2013development 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.\r\nGiven 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.
\n \n\n \n \nAbout 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.
\n \n\n \n \nAbout '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 \u2013 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\u2019s Stateless 2020 explores the issue of citizenship deprivation. Various experts and organisations have contributed material \u2013 essays, interviews, refections and more \u2013 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.
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