Displacement, Belonging, and Land Rights in Grand Gedeh, Liberia: Almost at Home Abroad?

Abstract

Abstract:Conflicts over local land rights between groups considered as “sons of the soil” and newcomers such as refugees can trigger autochthony-inspired violence. However, such conflicts are not always manifested, even when the conditions are in place. The question we explore in this article is whether such conflicts are less likely to emerge if the “other” is from a group with a longstanding bond of interethnic allegiance with the host community. Based on ethnographic data from host–refugee communities in Grand Gedeh, Liberia, we revisit previous attempts to explain economic and social relations between majority and minority groups. Our main finding is that in this part of Africa no prior special status will fundamentally alter the established ways of incorporating strangers into the community.

Revisiting the Refugee–Host Relationship in Nakivale Refugee Settlement: A Dialogue with the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre

“… 5 The research presented in this article — in which I participated — explored the economic conditions of displacement and how the interactions between refugees and the national population can create a social system of relative winners and losers in economic terms (Bjørkhaug 2017; Bjørkhaug, Bøås, and Kebede 2017; Bøås 2015; Bøås and Bjørkhaug 2014) and described the phenomenon as a displacement economy (Hammar 2014). …”

Refugees, Identity, and the Limits to Inclusion: Revisiting Landlord-Stranger Reciprocity Relations in Contemporary Liberia

“…This leads her to conclude that landlords and big men do not simply accumulate for the sake of having the larger group of followers. In line with this argument, I argue that many of the refugees, as reflected in the narrative of Tarkpor, have little to offer to the local community where they reside, and that they therefore find limits to the hospitality that is extended to them (Bjørkhaug et al 2017).…”

“…Most of the refugees in Liberia were Guere and Yacouba individuals who feared retribution for their political choices (Bjørkhaug et al 2017). Most people who settled in and around Karnplay were Yacouba (see Figure 1).…”

“…People residing in the camps reported preferences for staying among their own kin (Bjørkhaug et al 2017), whereas those who decided to live among the communities expressed a desire for more freedom and for opportunities to create a life for themselves. The technologies of control that are characteristic of refugee camps (Malkki 1995:498) were, in this case, being reproduced outside the borders of the camp also.…”