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- Convenors:
-
Hanno Brankamp
(University of Oxford)
Claire Walkey (University of Oxford)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- Politics and International Relations
- Location:
- David Hume, LG.09
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 12 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
African states have an intricate relationship with processes of asylum and displacement. This panel seeks to disentangle the multiple forms and scales of state engagement in managing refugees in Africa, from 'street-level bureaucracies' to national policies.
Long Abstract:
Africa's postcolonial states have a double-edged relationship with processes of displacement - playing a key role in the management of refugee affairs or becoming themselves a driving force in displacing populations. States are therefore central in shaping the experiences of displacement, the impact of refugees on receiving societies, and the forms that displacement takes. The last two decades have seen African states take a more active role in refugee affairs, taking over responsibilities from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) that was long seen as a 'surrogate state' (Slaughter and Crisp 2009) on the continent. Notions of political (un)willingness, capacity and compliance with (inter)national law, however, continue to frame states' engagements in managing displacement. Moreover, frequently conflicting norms, such as national security and refugee rights, create contested and complex areas of engagement. This panel seeks to disentangle these phenomena through taking a closer look at how African states are involved in refugee affairs. We are interested in the multiple and interrelated scales of African state involvement, from 'street-level' bureaucracies (Lipsky 1980) to national policies.
We invite papers addressing (but not limited to) the following themes:
• Explorations of contemporary and historical politics of refuge and asylum in Africa
• Different forms of African state engagement, including bureaucracies, the law, policing and community participation
• The role of norms and interests in shaping policy, the law and everyday state practice
• The impact of external relations, including international agencies, intergovernmental organisations, non-state actors and displaced persons, shape state policy and practice
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 12 June, 2019, -Hanno Brankamp (University of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
This paper 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.
Paper long abstract:
This paper 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 paper provides an alternative reading of the violent spatialities of the camp, in which Kenya's (post)colonial disposition for militarised state violence has merged indistinguishably with the contemporary securitisation of refugees, and the
humanitarian need for unobstructed management of aid operations. This paper proposes that these converging trajectories have transformed the refugee camp into a zone under military-style occupation: an 'occupied enclave'. 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 freedom of movement. This is analysed through four domains of occupation - architecture, bureaucracy, physical force, and material extraction - 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.
Claire Walkey (University of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the everyday refugee registration practices of the Refugee Affairs Secretariat, Government of Kenya. It shows the surprising indifference embedded in registration practices and argues that this is a reflection of the limits of bureaucratic knowledge for state power.
Paper long abstract:
The state is central in determining the experience and rights of refugees and yet ethnographic accounts of African states' engagement in refugee affairs remains limited. This paper draws on participant observation within the offices of the Refugee Affairs Secretariat, Government of Kenya, in order to understand its everyday, street-level bureaucratic practices. It focuses, in particular, on the government's engagement with refugee registration. The paper reveals a surprising procedural indifference embedded in registration practices - how, despite the enumerative function of registration, offices enact little interest in the profile and characteristics of the refugees before it. The paper argues that registration takes place in this indifferent manner in response to donor pressure and incentives to carry out registration. It further argues that the government's indifference is rooted in the limited role registration has played in the state's development. It shows that African states have often developed without strong administrative infrastructures, challenging the presumed centrality of population legibility and control of cross-border movement to state power. It argues that states are instead often resistant to registering populaces, especially refugees, because registration can offer greater legal empowerment and increase the ability to make claims of the state. This paper therefore looks at the limits of what bureaucratic knowledge about populations can mean for state power.
Clayton Boeyink (University of Edinburgh)
Paper short abstract:
Under Tanzanian President John Magufuli, the Tanzanian state has had a proclivity to abruptly shut down progressive refugee initiatives. This paper interrogates the motives of shutdown politics, and recounts the consequences for refugees living in refugee camps.
Paper long abstract:
The space of asylum in Tanzania has been constricting under President John Magufuli. In a year's time, the government has shut down, without warning, three progressive initiatives designed to benefit refugees and their integration into host communities in Western Tanzania. President Magufuli met with Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza declaring to Burundian refugees in Tanzania that it is safe to return to Burundi, contradicting reports from human rights organisations. Two weeks after this speech in August 2017 he promptly shut down a popular World Food Programme cash transfer programme giving cash as a replacement to food allowing for choice for refugees and a boost for the local economy. In February 2018, President Magufuli abruptly pulled out of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), a pilot programme Tanzania volunteered for to receive international aid in exchange for reforming national refugee law to increase freedom of movement and employment for refugees. Finally, in July 2018 the decision was made to shut down common market activities in all three refugee camps in Tanzania. In a climate of inadequate international funding and food ration reductions these shutdowns have been devastating. Moreover, for many Burundians who had lived as refugees in Tanzania before, they are interpreting these events as signs of an imminent forced repatriation similar to when Mtabila refugee camp was violently closed in 2012. Drawing from doctoral fieldwork in 2017 and 2018 during these events, this paper examines the role of the Tanzanian central state and its consequences in Western Tanzanian refugee camps.
David Baganda
Paper short abstract:
Uganda is hailed as country with the best refugee policy in the World (GoU & UNHCR, 2017).Of late, accusations of kidnap and forceful repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers have been rife. Thus need for an assessment of policy and practice to know the role of norms and interests in place.
Paper long abstract:
Rather formidable arguments have emerged, posturing Uganda as a country with the best refugee policy in the world. Currently hosting 1,252,470 refugees and asylum seekers, Uganda is arguably the largest refugee hosting country in Africa and the third largest in the world (GoU and UNHCR, 2017). But to earn this reputation, Uganda has had to struggle to justify and explain (sometimes unconvincingly) aspects of its foreign policy and interventionist practices towards several of its neighbouring states. Controversies ranging from accusations involvement in the kidnap and forceful repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers, to supporting a myriad of rebel militias is some states, have been hailed back and forth. One therefore needs to transcend the conventional avowed foreign policy declarations to pry into the insidious and unstated actions that have characterized Uganda's immediate past. While it is important to review the national policy and legal framework in relation to international treaties and conventions to which Uganda is a signatory, it is equally advisable to excavate beneath the publicly declared motives and noble ideals and weigh them against the limited capacity and means Uganda has to work round to retain its image as a regional icon guarantor and protector of such a vulnerable category. It is only by doing this that a balanced and objective assessment of the role of norms and interests in shaping policy, the law and state practice can hopefully be achieved.
Franzisca Zanker (Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute)
Paper short abstract:
This paper seeks to understand African state interests in protecting refugees as a part of a broader migration regime with external and internal pressures. It highlights the politics behind refugee protection as part of a (re)new(ed) interests in dealing with refugees and other migrants.
Paper long abstract:
Ethiopia just amended a pre-existing refugee law, making into one of the most progressive ones worldwide: refugees are allowed obtain work permits, open bank accounts and obtain drivers' licences. Hailed as 'historic', the law is linked to the 'job compact', a $550 million agreement between the Ethiopian Government and external donors (the UK, EU and the World Bank) set to create 100,000 jobs. On the one hand, African institutional frameworks for protecting refugees and displaced persons are amongst the strongest around the word including the Kampala Convention and the 1969 Refugee Convention. On the other hand, European governments and international organisations are increasingly looking for partnerships on the African continent in efforts to externalise their southern borders and reduce irregular migration towards Europe. How relevant are African refugee protection norms for African states and what are the political stakes in implementing them? This paper seeks to understand African state interests in protecting refugees as a part of a broader migration regime as well as the external and internal pressures to do so. Externally, how do pressures from international institutions increase pressure to protect refugees? Have refugee protection schemes been affected by European interests in migration governance on the African continent? Do African states act collectively in (regional) patterns or do they standalone? Internally, how much impact do civil society actors have in ensuring implementation? Drawing on interviews with relevant stakeholders this explorative paper argues that the political context of refugee protection should not be underestimated.
Markus Rudolf Clara Schmitz-Pranghe (BICC)
Paper short abstract:
This paper assesses different East African camp and settlement policies. It contextualizes Uganda's self-reliance model by looking at other historical and regional approaches. Research is based on a multi-sited field research (between 2015 and 2018).
Paper long abstract:
Uganda has been a pilot country of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF). It currently hosts the largest refugee population in Africa. Political and humanitarian actors have widely praised Ugandan refugee policies because of their progressive nature. In contrast to many other countries that host refugees, refugees in Uganda are de jure allowed to work, to establish businesses, to access public services such as education, to move freely and have access to a plot of land.
This paper assesses Uganda´s self-reliance and settlement approach. It scrutinizes Uganda's aspiration to provide refugees and host communities with opportunities to become self-reliant by focusing on three aspects: Access to land, access to employment and education, and finally intra- and intergroup relations. Looking at other historical and regional approaches of self-reliance of refugees, the findings show that refugees in Uganda are currently neither truly self-reliant nor de facto socially integrated. The findings illustrate how nominal self-reliance does not ensure local integration. Uganda's refugee policy has progressed and is providing refugees more opportunities than countries such as Kenya or Tanzania allow today. Yet it is dubious whether it is fully a role model for the local integration of refugees. The lessons to be learnt are rather both negative and positive. The paper draws on a multi-sited, socio-anthropological orientated field research of several months between 2015 and 2018.