Perception of refugees in Nairobi goes beyond the generic and homogenizing term 'refugees' and the legal instruments guiding the hosting of refugees. Legal instruments such as the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 African Union Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa take the position that refugee hosting is humanitarian and apolitical. Based on the experiences and circumstances of Somali refugees in Nairobi, this paper takes a contrary view and argues that refugee hosting is political and shaped by interpretation of the conflict that the refugees fled and their perceived political implications for the host country. The paper locates accentuation and criminalization of Somali religious affiliation in the localization of global conflicts and globalization of local conflicts in which the predominantly Muslim Somali refugees become the local and regional epitome of contemporary global terrorism as the conflict in Somalia has global ramifications due to its association with global terrorism. Having demonstrated the role of regional and global politics in the hosting of Somalis in Kenya, the paper also argues that Somalis are not helpless victims of circumstances as they create counter-narratives that seek to de-legitimize politicization and criminalization of their religious and ethnic affiliations.
As the number of refugees has continued to grow in post-independence Africa, host governments across the continent have developed stringent refugee policies that are detached from historical transborder relationships in which refugees and host communities interact. The stringent policies are underpinned by the assumption that host communities view refugees from the state-centric perspective of non-citizens as undesirable foreigners or outsiders. Host governments’ insistence that the solution lies in refugees eventually repatriating to their countries of origin drives refugee policies that undermine solutions instead of building and capitalizing on solutions generated at the level of host communities. The exclusion of local histories and social dynamics in host regions has led to policies that neither hold up to humanitarian standards nor serve their intended non-integration objectives. Some host governments are reluctant to implement local integration and have maintained exclusionary policies for a long period of time when the realities in the host communities show that refugees are included and participate in various community activities. Host governments perpetuate this disjuncture between policy and local practice by assuming or pretending that refugees will wait for repatriation instead of finding solutions in the host countries where some of them have lived for decades. Contrary to the non-integration objectives of official encampment policies and scholarship that assumes that the absence of official integration policies deters integration, many refugees have defied the stereotypical portrayal of refugees as “bare life” which denotes prioritization of mere survival as opposed to the quality of life. They have managed to find solutions and live their lives as active and productive members of their host countries. This article specifically addresses the situation of Somali refugees in Ethiopia and Kenya. It argues that the absence of local integration policies or reluctance by host governments to implement them where they exist does not automatically mean that refugees are unable to integrate in their host countries. Host government policies against integration are mediated by refugees’ self-initiative and resourcefulness. These characteristics are facilitated by host communities whose ties and mutual dependence with refugees, cultivated pre- and post-flight, play an important role in engendering solidarity and circumventing policies that hamper refugees’ quest for long-term solutions. Based on the research findings, the paper recommends that host governments pursue policies that are informed by the shared needs and interests between refugee and host communities and that build on the social dynamics and relationships in refugee-hosting regions.
This article discusses femininities among East and Central African refugee women self-settled in Nairobi, Kenya. It argues that while normative approaches to refugee studies depict a homogeneous refugee femininity inherently synonymous with vulnerability and 'victimhood,' femininity among refugee women in Nairobi is heterogeneous, fluid, and complex. It is premised on individual refugee women's marital statuses in relation to economic situation. The article argues that femininity is a constraint in some instances and a resource in others, such that what exists among the refugee women is not a single femininity but a continuum of femininities. Specifically, the article conceptualizes femininity under three categories, namely: normative, agitated, and rebellious femininities.
This article discusses ethnicity and refugee status among Rwandan refugees self-settled in Nairobi, Kenya. It addresses conflation of Hutu fugitives who participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and refugees, and critiques perception of Hutu and Tutsi as mutually exclusive ethnicities with no points of intersection. Framed within the social constructivist approach to identity, the article problematizes ethnic essentialism and wholesale criminalization and stigmatization of Rwandan refugees and, in particular, Hutu ethnicity in ways that silence individual viewpoints emanating from personal experience. Conversely, the article highlights how Rwandan refugees deflect collective guilt and legitimize their refugee status under the shadow of the genocide which was committed by extremist Hutu on Tutsi and moderate Hutu. The refugees’ reaction to association with the genocide confounds theoretically irreconcilable extremes through self-representations centred on experiences that muddle the simplistic perpetrator – victim and guilty – innocent binary. The refugees’ narratives portray victimhood in Rwanda as complex, cyclical and heterogeneous.
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