Class in camps or the camped class? The making and reshaping of socio-economic inequalities in the refugee camps of north-western Tanzania

Abstract

ABSTRACT Can class help understand refugee camp dynamics? We mobilise the concepts of exploitation, life chances, and cultural and social capital to analyse socio-economic stratification and inequality in Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania. The research draws from a longitudinal survey with Congolese and Burundian refugee households and over 200 qualitative interviews carried out in 2017–2020. We show that camp residents, especially repeat Burundian refugees, are mostly from the poorest classes of their home countries. Inside the camp, however, we find socio-economic inequalities, partially driven by incentive aid workers and refugee ration traders who accumulate higher social and cultural capital and maintain their positions through exploitative terms of trade. The members of the camp ‘upper class’ have better life chances which affects their wealth, spatial mobilities, and migration possibilities. It emerges that the restrictive and often punishing encampment policy of Tanzania over time, which includes ration cuts and market shutdowns, erratically ‘flattens’ class. Zooming out to include social classes in the wider Kigoma region, we argue that the shared and distinctive experience of ‘refugeedom’ and access to humanitarian capital make the whole refugee camp a class of its own.