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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Airlift form the Desert: the dreams and effects of resettlement programs in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya
| Panel |
80. Memories of own country: maintaining social networks across boundaries
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| Paper ID | 478 |
| Author(s) |
Jansen, Bram
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Kakuma refugee camp is located in North-Western Kenya, near the borders of Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia. It hosts refugees from Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea and DRCongo. From 1992 until now the camp has been growing to accommodate approximately 100.000 refugees, making it one the biggest camps in the world. More than 20.000 refugees have been resettled to ‘Western’ countries in the past five years.
Large scale resettlement programs result in unintended consequences for those who remain or are (not yet) eligible for this durable solution. Desires for better life and opportunities, for those who have been empowered by, and have learnt from, the refugee regime that they are entitled to protection, makes that for many young people home becomes a second option, while moving on becomes an ideal. This is partly due to access to modern facilities and services such as media and education in the camp, but perhaps more importantly to the everyday examples of resettlement screening and departures, and communication with friends and relatives already abroad. Communities are reinventing present cultural identities and past experiences with insecurity and violence to be considered for the resettlement schemes, and actively engage in lobbying for this with the UN, embassies and other international bodies. Linkages with people abroad stimulate the refugees’ desire to follow, by the stories they tell and the pictures they bring, resulting in imaginations of the West.
What was intended as a temporary solution for forced migrants has become a ‘city’ in its own right, characterized by, among other things: identity change, a re-appropriation of ‘home’ and the future, and the infrastructure that allows communication and the transfer of ideas and money. This paper explores this transformation to an urbanized transit center, and the effect on the notion of home for young people who live and grow up in this environment. It will focus on how refugees and their communities negotiate positions of vulnerability and insecurity, based on the imposed protection rationale of the camp, to become eligible for the durable solution of resettlement, and make the possibility of returning home a less desired option.
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