Prolonged Exile: Long-Term Consequences of Contrasting Refugee Policies in Tanzania. By Mans Fellesson. Uppsala: University Publications, 2003. 275pp. + Appendix. Nps. ISSN 0585 5551; ISBN 91 554 5507 7.

Abstract

The changing political climate for long-term refugees in African host countries is a topic warranting careful analysis and lively thinking, but Mans Fellesson's dissertation on Tanzania is not that book. Tanzania is by now a very well researched host country, but Fellesson's monograph reflects no scholarship after 1999, perhaps because his dissertation, granted in 2003, was published without any attempt to update it. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides general background on refugee protection in the context of the ‘Human Security agenda’ of the 1990s, and some historical perspective on African refugee policy. There is little new here, mostly a literature review, with a mishmash of theoretical perspectives and bland generalizations that leave the reader at a loss over what to expect in the empirical research section that follows. Part II describes Tanzania's ‘two hosting policies’, as Fellesson conceives it: organized rural settlement schemes and assisted temporary camps. A chapter is devoted to each policy type, reviewing the history of the settlements (mainly Ulyankulu), and the camps of the 1990s in western Tanzania. Although there is some value to the historical account of Tanzania's refugee experience and policy response, the quality of the analysis is suspect. It was not clear where Fellesson acquired the survey data he cites, but after much searching of footnotes, it turns out that he is citing two surveys done by UNHCR's operational partner, Lutheran World Federation/Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service, in the 1990s. The first was of 100 ‘individuals’ (presumably refugees?), the second of 200, but there is no further information about these surveys—where they took place, under what circumstances, or who conducted them. Was the author himself involved in these surveys? We have no idea. Nonetheless, Fellesson uses these data repeatedly to confirm assertions about such issues as ‘resettlement’ (by which he means relocation within Tanzania) (p. 117), agricultural activities (p. 135), self-sufficiency (p. 137), income distribution (p. 139), perspectives on education (p. 146) and so forth. Refugees are frequently quoted without any indication of when or where the quote came from, to whom the refugee was speaking, or even whether the author himself was present. Is this entire section taken from existing sources, or did the author interview the refugees? There is no mention of research methods anywhere in the book. What is particularly troubling about this freewheeling use of survey data and quotes, is that given the general paucity of hard numbers on difficult-to-measure variables like refugee income and self-sufficiency, future scholars of Forced Migration Studies might use these data without much thought as to their validity or reliability. The author's failure to discuss his methods means that potentially interesting observations are undermined by our doubts about their validity. For example, in discussing refugee-host relations, Fellesson says (p. 161), ‘The presence of refugees in the region seem[s] to have had a marginal effect on the host society.’ He argues that the isolation of the settlement at Ulyankulu, and the ‘absence of competition for resources’ (p. 161) made for a sympathetic local attitude, as long as mobility restrictions on refugees continued. While this might be true, there is no evidence to back up such assertions and we wonder again if the author is simply speculating.