Protracted Exile Research Articles

Urban Refugees in Nairobi: Problems of Protection, Mechanisms of Survival, and Possibilities for Integration

This article examines the legal status and economic livelihoods of refugees in Nairobi, focusing on Somalis, the largest urban population residing in the city. The results of the study challenge the Government of Kenya's (GOK) official position and the popular local perception that refugees are an economic burden, and show instead that these urban refugees are economically self-sufficient. Despite this economic independence, conditions for most refugees in Nairobi are extremely difficult. Urban refugees live largely without material assistance or legal protection from the GOK or UNHCR, are vulnerable to police arrest at any time and face high levels of xenophobia from the local population. By highlighting refugee self-sufficiency in Nairobi, this article lends support to the idea of local integration as a viable, durable solution to their situation of protracted exile.

The Greek-Cypriot Refugees: Perceptions of Return under Conditions of Protracted Exile

Constituting a crucial element in the search for a permanent solution to the Cyprus problem, the needs and aspirations of the 180,000 refugees are examined in this article. Of the three durable solutions to refugee crises, repatriation has consistently been advocated as the only option for the Cypriot situation. Contrasting the images of temporariness and permanency of exile, the article examines the extent to which the refugees, in the light of the dramatic social and economic changes that have taken place in the refugee community since the exodus of 1974, might perceive of return as their sole feasible or potential objective. The article argues that the ambiguous identity of the refugees, as both insiders and outsiders, and the protracted political uncertainty of their status give contradictory messages about the likely scale, processes, and success of their return.

The Greek-Cypriot Refugees: Perceptions of Return under Conditions of Protracted Exile

The Greek-Cypriot Refugees: Perceptions of Return under Conditions of Protracted Exile

Four Gallican Bishops in Exile: Concepts of Episcopacy in the Face of Revolution

WHEN THE BISHOPS of the French Church were confronted with the final form of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790 they presented an almost united front of opposition to the new order. Their ideological and social solidarity remained substantially intact in the protracted exile which, with the victory of the revolutionary party, was the almost inevitable consequence of their shared refusal. This was nowhere more apparent than in London where the largest single concentration of exiled bishops gathered. But, given the general concord, there was a subtle variety of response, a continuation of the debate leading up to the Civil Constitution in which many of the bishops had taken part, to the events beginning with the Civil Constitution and ending with the Napoleonic Concordat, which throws some light on the attitudes of these men to their office of bishop. This paper focuses attention on four of the London bishops: La Marche, Dillon, Thémines and Boisgelin; and suggests, from their example, four possible views of, or approaches to, the episcopate.