Protracted Exile Research Articles

Protracted Exile and Active Pariahdom: Turkey’s Kurdish Refugees in Rome

This article examines various stages of Kurdish refugees’ protracted exile in Rome. Protracted exile is characterized by refugees’ experiences of displacement, permanent abandonment, a futureless life and pariahdom. I argue that governments’ approaches, policies, and measures shape refugees’ protracted exile. Additionally, this study focuses on how refugees, as active pariahs, exercise agency to navigate through protracted exile. Informed by the concepts of permanent liminality and pariahdom and based on data collected from ethnographic fieldwork and 24 in-depth interviews, the study explores how refugees’ contextual and causal conditions generate protracted exile. It also illuminates how refugees, as active pariahs, negotiate their everyday protracted exile circumstances.

Questioning the Meaning of Place in Extended Exile: The Cases of the Balata and Jenin Refugee Camps

Within the context of extended displacement, this research examines the meaning of ‘place’ as perceived by long-term Palestinian refugees residing in two prominent West Bank camps, Balata and Jenin. The study delves into the complex dynamics of place within the context of protracted exile. Using a robust constructivist grounded theory approach, it enables theoretical revelations to surface from empirical evidence collected in the field. Fieldwork was performed, employing a mixed-methods strategy that incorporates a Likert scale questionnaire and in-depth interviews with three different generations of displaced individuals. Despite the crises induced by forced displacement and its influence on place identity, the research illuminates the ability to form place attachments to these temporary settlements. Notably, this attachment is unique in its dependence on memories and connections to a lost homeland rather than the physical attributes of the current living environment. The findings of the study contribute to the theoretical exploration of place attachment, place identity, and place dependence, specifically in contexts of extended displacement. Moreover, the insights derived from the research have practical implications for the management and planning strategies within such refugee settlements.

Many a Slip between Cup and Lip: Navigating Noncitizenship and School-to-Work Transitions in Kakuma Refugee Camp

Abstract This article draws from curricular analysis and ethnographic methods in school and community spaces where young people live, learn, and work in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp. We describe how formal citizenship education intended for Kenyan citizens is mediated by teachers working in refugee-serving schools. Our analysis shows how these messages, often scarce and decontextualized, orient refugees to project an imagined future of stability, obscuring the skills needed to navigate the uncertainty they will encounter as noncitizens enduring protracted exile. Examining refugee youth transitions after completing their schooling, we document ‘slips’ in the gaps between the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions promoted in schools and those required within a limited opportunity structure dominated by a relief economy. Beyond school, we examine pathways that young refugees charted through apprenticeships within the informal economy, leveraging their social networks, gaining life skills, and enacting civic commitments while honing more sustainable livelihoods in exile. We argue that education’s value cannot be contingent on belonging or citizenship status and suggest that the contextualized nature of practice-based learning entailed through apprenticeships enables young refugees to create community through everyday participation, where social relationships both facilitate civic learning and are an outcome of that learning.

Imagining an agrarian future in rural Rwanda: Evidence from Congolese refugees at Mahama camp

Congolese refugees in Rwanda constitute one of the most protracted displaced populations in the world. As durable solutions remain evasive, this article presents Congolese’ own vision for life beyond the camp. Wanting to return to peasantry, their utopian agrarian landscape is articulated as an intentional community where subsistence and autonomy exist within a common property space shared peacefully with now-landless Rwandans. By exploring the archaeologies and ontologies that lay the architectural foundations of this utopia, key assumptions are subverted – notably, that refugees in protracted exile have a limited sense of futurity, and that their return to land within rural Rwanda would necessarily lead to conflict.

Boundary-Making and Political Activism in Protracted Exile: Second-Generation Tibetan Refugees in India

AbstractFor over six decades the Tibetan diaspora in India has followed a strategy of ‘non-assimilation’ towards Indian society. A majority of Tibetans still reside in self-governed settlements and maintain their self-imposed statelessness. Tibetan refugees have constructed boundaries that—according to the diaspora leaders—enable them to continue their political struggle for a free Tibet while in a state of protracted exile and imposed waiting. In this article, based on long-term ethnographic research, I discuss the mechanisms and rationale of this boundary-making by exploring its spatial, educational, and political dimensions. I then analyse the political activism which takes place within those boundaries, with a special focus on second-generation Tibetan refugees. I scrutinize the internal divisions in the Tibetan freedom movement, the radicalization of struggle, and the everyday patriotism practiced by generations born in exile, demonstrating that waiting has the potential to produce resistance.

Hijos de las nubes i 45 lat marzeń: uchodźcy Saharawi na terytorium Algierii

Hijos de las nubes and 45 Years of Dreams: Saharawi Refugees in Algeria Over the years, the issue of the protracted exile of the Saharawi people in Algeria as a consequence of the so far unresolved conflict over the Western Sahara has become a highly politicized problem. The protracted standstill and the lack of clear prospects for a referendum that would ultimately end the conflict make it questionable that the Sahrawi refugee situation will change quickly. The article attempts to analyse the status of the Sahrawi people, taking into account the uniqueness of the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and their importance for the still unsolved problem of Western Sahara. It is based largely on qualitative data collected from fieldwork in Algeria (including Sahrawi refugee camps), Mauritania and Morocco, and the Rabat-controlled territory of Western Sahara, as well as interviews and conversations with representatives of Spanish NGOs involved in helping Sahrawi refugees, Sahrawi living or temporarily staying in Spain and researchers working at Spanish universities.

Multilocality and the Politics of Space in Protracted Exile

This article employs the concept of multilocality to analyze the politics of space under the condition of protracted encampment. Rather than adopting a common synchronic approach to how refugees relate to space, the theoretical lens of multilocality grasps the diachronic dimension of protracted camps understood as places that encompass multiple attachments across time and space: the remembered and imagined places of origin, sites of residence in exile, and future geographies of hope or anticipation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in al-Am’ari, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, I analyze multilocality as a political practice whereby local residents and organizations nurture the refugee identity of their communities, resist the permanence of protracted exile, and manifest the necessity for political change.

Syrian refugees\u2019 perspectives and service providers\u2019 viewpoints on major needs and future plans in Jordan

The ongoing civil war in Syria created the world’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. As exile continues for many Syrians, this study aimed to explore what refugees perceive as their major needs and plans for the future in comparison to what service providers believe is needed and should be planned in Jordan. Phenomenological design and inductive reasoning were used in this study to explore refugees’ needs and future plans from the etic view by interviewing key informants and from the emic view by analyzing interviews with refugees. After coding and comparing the key informants’ interviews and refugees’ narratives, six main themes emerged: (1) gap between refugees’ expectations and reality of humanitarian services; (2) rent as a major but neglected challenge; (3) older adults: vulnerable and at the back of the queue for services; (4) mental health of adults as an overlooked need; (5) education: hard to access for extremely poor and adults; and (6) an uncertain and unplanned future. Findings suggest a need for better information sharing strategies about services, targeted programs for urbane refugees and older adults, awareness-raising about importance of the mental health and protracted exile, and long-term planning.

Palestinian Refugees between the City and the Camp

AbstractThe camp and the city are both important for understanding the relationship between space and identity in the refugee experience of exile. In the Palestinian example, the camp has emerged as a potent symbol in the narrative of exile although only a third of refugees registered with UNRWA live in camps. Moreover, the city and urban refugees remain missing in most of the scholarship on the Palestinian experience with space, exile, and identity. Furthermore, there is little attention to how refugees understand the concept of the city and camp in their daily life. This article examines how Palestinian urban refugees in the Old City of Damascus conceptualized the relationship between the camp and the city. It illustrates how the concept of the camp remained necessary for the construction of their collective national identity while in Syria. However, the city was essential in the articulation of individual desires and establishing social distinction from other refugees. Thus, during a protracted exile it is in the interstice between the city and the camp, where most urban refugees in the Old City situated themselves, that informed their national belonging and personal aspirations.

Emotional identity and pragmatic citizenship: being Palestinian in Sweden

ABSTRACT How is identity claimed and created in communities that have experienced multiple processes of refugeeness and patterns of mixed migration? This article explores how Palestinian national identity is moulded, influenced, experienced and lived in a context of protracted refugeeness, exile and diaspora in Sweden. Departing from literature on diaspora and Palestinian identity formation and based on the collection of narratives from Palestinians residing in Sweden, the article sheds light on the processes through which Palestinian identity is strongly related to a moral and political commitment to the homeland lost and to issues of solidarity. Palestinians in Sweden also reveal a strong embracement of Swedish citizenship related to aspects such as the passport, the right to vote, security, liberalism and the welfare system. As Palestinians have arrived to Sweden from different instabilities in the Middle East and in different times, there are also affiliations and links to other spatial surroundings such as refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. The paper also illuminates how multiple refugeeness create both a shared understanding of identity, but also internal rifts and contradictions, relating to former places of residence, to increasing racism and enforced social boundaries in Sweden, and to the different processes of displacement that have brought them to Sweden.

Interview with Filippo Grandi

The tradition of providing refuge to people who are fleeing and in need of protection is a long-standing one, present throughout history and in various contexts, and now embedded in international law. The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2016, reaffirmed international refugee protection standards and provided a model for a more comprehensive response to large-scale refugee movements, based on shared global responsibility for refugees. It represented a critical development at a time when international cooperation aimed at preventing, responding to and resolving conflicts is proving inadequate, and an increasing number of people are being internally displaced, forced across borders or left in protracted exile as a result of conflict, violence and persecution. In this interview, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees shares his thoughts on some of today's most significant forced displacement challenges, and the prospects presented by the New York Declaration.

Home-making during protracted exile: Diverse responses of refugee families in the face of remigration

Through in-depth case studies about repatriation decision-making among Liberian refugees, this article examines how different processes of home-making during prolonged exile affects their return decisions and result in diverse familial responses to repatriation. Conceptualizations of forced displacement are often tied to notions about “loss of homeland” and exile, with references made to being literally “out of place.” This, however, ignores the reality that during protracted exile in a refugee camp refugees also establish links to new places and become “emplaced,” creating a new “home” that is meaningful to them. Importantly, even among those living in the same refugee camp, this process of emplacement is experienced differently, mediated by age, gender, marital status, and personal goals. When refugees consider returning to their country of origin, refugee families often struggle to come up with unified agreements about remigration decisions, leading to internal contestation among family members...

Aid and the Perpetuation of Refugee Camps: The Case of Dadaab in Kenya 1991–2011

The refugee complex at Dadaab in North Eastern Kenya was established in the early 1990s. It has become known as the largest refugee settlement in the world since renewed fighting in south and central Somalia in 2006 pushed yet more Somalis into these long-established camps. Marked by problems related to poor living conditions and economic circumstances, camps of this size are very often a source of instability and insecurity, and their management has been widely discussed in the scholarly as well as policy literature. This article examines the role and responsibility of aid organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres in the establishment and perpetuation of camps. When refugee camps become restrictive and repressive, the article asks, are aid agencies necessarily exempt from responsibility? Drawing on the Medecins Sans Frontieres’ archives regarding their Dadaab operations up to 2011 and direct professional experience in this refugee camp, this article illuminates humanitarian complicity in situations of containment and protracted exile, arguing that this can have wider implications for the management of refugee populations all over the world.

Liminal Space in Protracted Exile: The Meaning of Place in Congolese Refugees’ Narratives ofHomeandBelongingin Kampala

This article aims to advance the discussion on the relationship between people and places in the context of protracted exile. It analyses narratives of home and belonging of protracted Congolese refugees in Kampala and argues for a dynamic and changing notion of home that takes place in protracted exile. Conditions in exile lead to a profound feeling of being out of place and fuel an antagonistic sense of home. This does not mean, however, that all refugees share a strong attachment to their homeland, or that their desire to return is a natural given. Indeed, this article argues that the home of Congolese refugees is not only left behind in another place, it has also been left behind in another time and is therefore experienced as a previous and irretrievable home. Triggered by remittances and information, refugees’ search for home is translated into a desire to be resettled, and thus the idea of home becomes stronger. This is also reflected in refugees’ notion of home as a spiritual place, transcending both time and space.

Microbuses and Mobile Homemaking in Exile: Sudanese Visiting Strategies in Cairo

Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain networks is an established cultural pattern in Arab countries. Northern Sudanese displaced in Cairo in the 1990s made significant efforts to continue visiting each other in their temporary homes, despite having to travel long distances to members of their widely scattered networks. The deterioration of the legal and political status of Sudanese living in Egypt during the 1990s contributed to longer-term uncertainty for those who sought safety and security in Cairo. In this article, I argue that this long-term uncertainty constitutes a protracted refugee situation, and that Sudanese visiting practices constituted a mobile homemaking strategy that actively contributed to the negotiation of a complex ethnic identity in their protracted exile. Ranging across space and connecting people through experiences and values of Sudanese “homeyness,” visiting during these fraught years connected individuals and networks into constellations that recreated familiar patterns of homemaking but also encouraged new meanings granted to homeland and belonging. Woven through the more familiar relationship between “home” and “away” were the policy positions about urban refugees taken by the Egyptian government, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, International Organization for Migration, and other humanitarian aid and resettlement agencies, which produced a state-centred view of “home” for Sudanese.

The Complexity of Refugees' Return Decision-Making in a Protracted Exile: Beyond the Home-Coming Model and Durable Solutions

This article challenges the static conception of repatriation by demonstrating the dynamic and complicated nature of refugees’ return decision-making through in-depth case studies of Liberian refugees in Ghana. Institutions dealing with refugees tend to depict repatriation as a ‘home-coming’, a natural return movement driven by refugees’ desire to go back to a homeland following the termination of the root causes of their forced displacement. Given the significant changes in their life during prolonged exile in Ghana, however, for the majority of Liberian refugees, the decision to repatriate or not is a complex interplay of their current social, familial, economic and political circumstances, in which nostalgic longing for a homeland has little space. The article argues for the necessity of replacing the sedentarist perception of repatriation with a more holistic understanding that captures the untidy and negotiated nature of refugees’ return decision-making. It also highlights temporary strategies employed by Liberian refugees in response to the repatriation pressure from refugee-policy-makers and invites recognition of the critical gap between refugees and UNHCR about what stands as a ‘solution’ for refugees’ protracted exile.

Beyond Basic Education: Exploring Opportunities for Higher Learning in Kenyan Refugee Camps

This paper seeks to elucidate the socio-cultural and economic benefits of higher education in refugee contexts. NGO and UNHCR initiatives in Dadaab and Kakuma camps are used as a reference point for discussing the challenges, best practices, and potential of higher and adult learning in contexts of protracted exile. This small-scale, qualitative study seeks to understand what opportunities for higher education exist for those living in Kenyan refugee camps, and do existing opportunities yield “social benefits” beyond those accrued by the refugees themselves? Drawing upon interviews with practitioners, observation in schools and learning centres, and data from refugee-service providers, our findings are primarily descriptive in nature and explore the myriad ways in which opportunities for higher learning can strengthen refugee communities in countries of asylum. We contend that although Kenya’s encampment policies limit the potential economic and social benefits of refugee education on a national level, opportunities for refugees to pursue higher education are still immensely valuable in that they bolster refugee service provision in the camps and provide refugees with the skills and knowledge needed to increase the effectiveness of durable solutions at both an individual and societal level, be they repatriation, local integration, or third-country resettlement.

Unlocking the Protracted Displacement of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: An Overview

The protracted displacement of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) constitutes a pressing yet seemingly intractable challenge facing the international community.1 In countries where state fragility, conflict, and persecution have persisted for years, the majority of the world's refugees and internally displaced people live in conditions of protracted exile with little or no prospect of a durable solution to their predicament. Usually marginalised and often subject to the violation, or a lack of protection of human, economic, social, and cultural rights, well over half the world's 10 million refugees are currently to be found in protracted exile. Enduring conditions of internal displacement persist in over 40 countries including three (Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Sudan), each with over one million IDPs throughout the decade ending in 2010.2 Conceiving a label “protracted displacement” implies a “state of exception”, situations which somehow depart from a more “normal”...

Dispersal, division and diversification: durable solutions and Sudanese refugees in Uganda

Questions over durable solutions in the social, political and security terrain of southern Sudan and northern Uganda invite recognition that simple delineations between “home” and “exile” are inadequate for an understanding of displacement and refugee status. Contrary to existing policies that assume an unproblematic repatriation of Sudanese refugees from their protracted exile in Uganda to a “post conflict” Sudan, the emerging reality is that multiple strategies of survival, self-protection and development are being employed. This paper explores the variety and ingenuity with which refugees address challenges to livelihoods, identities and security with a portfolio of responses which render the notion of a straightforward cross-border movement “home” largely notional. Drawing on long-term research in a number of Sudanese refugee settlements in northern Uganda since the mid-1990s, this article emphasizes the need to recognize that durable solutions should not be constructed as single and fixed in contexts where individuals and groups may continue to migrate so as to meet their family's collective needs. It also invites recognition of the extent and ways in which re-crossing international borders has particular meaning for refugees given their specific legal status, as well as the additional relevance and significance of physical, social and symbolic boundaries in such a context.

Giving Peace a Chance: Displacement and Rule of Law During Peacebuilding

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) works increasingly in societies where conflict or human rights violations of massive proportions have very much relativized the notion of rule of law. These are situations in which the basic components of the machinery of protection and justice simply do not exist, or where they do exist, have lost their legitimacy. In terms of practical outcomes for their persecuted, attacked, or terrorized populations, the relevance of rule of law has to be painfully reconstructed, institution by institution, law by law, and capacity by capacity. UNHCR contributes to this effort, because it can make the difference between solutions or protracted exile for refugees, and if refugee issues go unresolved, the prospects for real and lasting peace are much diminished. The article gives a brief overview of recent developments in this area, examines the challenges the UNHCR faces, stresses the importance of prioritizing the reestablishment of the rule of law, and outlines some lessons learned. Particular challenges include competing justice systems, the tensions between “top down” and “bottom up” approaches, and the issues of land rights and the fight against impunity.