Sahrawi Refugee Research Articles

Repertoire as Infrastructure for Architectural Historiographical Crafts in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps

This article retraces a discussion with Gurba M. L., a Sahrawi activist who participated in building the refugee camp of Smara near Tindouf, Algeria, and Lahsen S. S. B, a Sahrawi researcher and collaborator in the Oral Memory Conservation project of the Ministry of Culture. Drawing on fieldwork and recent scholarship in performance studies and architectural history, it describes the repertoire as an infrastructure for historiographical crafts and alternative to the archives in transmitting and preserving gestures, movements and orality for the Sahrawi people. As performed ephemerally through distinct spatial practices in the domesticities of the camp, the repertoire constructs space and history outside of prevalent judiciary and nation-state paradigms that bias documentary evidence to legitimize claims to space and land. Gurba’s performance of nomadic spatial practices illuminates broader Sahrawi resistance efforts seeking to realize epistemic and reparative justice, maintaining the futurities preempted by war and colonialism, while conflict is ongoing, refugees displaced, and Western Sahara’s plentiful deserts plundered.

Digital emotivescapes: Everyday media practices of Sahrawi refugee diasporic women in Spain and Mauritania

AbstractThis article evaluates the concept of ‘emotivescapes’ as a way of addressing digitally emotional processes of belonging among conflict-generated diasporas. It examines the empirical potential of the concept based on the Sahrawi refugee diaspora in Spain and Mauritania and the connection of its members with their ‘home-camps’ in Algeria. To this end, the article explores everyday digital media practices that reveal the circulation of emotions among the Sahrawi community outside of the refugee camps at the intersection of intimate, community, and national spheres. The research focuses on the experiences of 32 women, considers Sahrawi gender roles, and argues for enriching emotional debates in the diaspora space. The findings demonstrate how female media practices in protracted situations of displacement are negotiated through emotional attachments in not only direct social interactions but also memories and imaginations that are reformulated from the intimate to the national levels.

Participatory Methodologies for Self-Management of Waste: Case Study for the Reduction of Plastics in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps

According to the United Nations, if measures are not taken by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than there are fish. This work addresses this issue by proposing an adaptation of the CLTS, a methodology used in sanitation to promote behavioural changes, to the waste management sector. The methodology is applied in the Sahrawi refugee camps through two phases: a first one in which the specific context is analysed to achieve a real diagnosis of the problem and a second phase in which the CLTS is adapted proposing the use of various participatory techniques in order to reduce the use of plastic bags. The analysis of the information collected in the first phase shows that plastic bags constitute the highest percentage of waste and that the best solution to reduce the consumption of plastic bags is by actively raising awareness among the community through training and talks. This justifies the second phase where a practical guide is provided on how Sahrawi people themselves can become aware of the problem and triggering the desire for change in the community. Thus, the philosophy of the methodology proposed here is that people are capable of self-organising and solving their own problems.

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.

One Health approaches to improve refugee health

One Health approaches to improve refugee health

Undrawn Spatialities. The Architectural Archives in the Light of the History of the Sahrawi Refugee Camps

What happens if architectural knowledge is not mediated through drawing or does not produce any type of record? How can an architectural archive exist and make sense in a context where the circulation of knowledge and the emergence of spatialities leave no physical traces? This essay offers insights into the traces left by undrawn spatialities and how they could be recorded and interpreted in architectural archives based on observations on the history of the Sahrawi refugee camps in archiving oral memories in collaboration with the Sahrawi Ministry of Culture. A project was launched to archive and maintain nomadic knowledge circulation that has been short-circuited by protracted immobilization. This essay proposes that gestures, words and bodies- as producers of undrawn architecture -allow other regimes and traces of spatialities to emerge.

Insufficient physical activity level among Sahrawi adults living in a protracted refugee setting

BackgroundThe Sahrawi people fled their homes in 1975 as the conflict in Western Sahara escalated and settled down near Tindouf, Algeria, where they still live. High prevalence of overweight and obesity and type 2 diabetes had been found in this protracted refugee setting. Scaling up national policy efforts to promote physical activity (PA) is critical to reducing the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the near future. One possible barrier to the inclusion of PA in NCD prevention strategies is the lack of research on PA level, which may reduce political support and policy development for PA. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the PA level among adults living in Sahrawi refugee camps and socioeconomic factors associated with PA.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was carried out in 2014 in five refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria. A total of 180 women and 175 men were included. PA was measured using the international physical activity questionnaire short form (IPAQ-SF).ResultsThere was a large amount of variance in reported PA for both genders, ranging from 10 min of total PA per week to above 40 h. Forty-three percent of the participants had a low PA level (defined as not meeting the PA recommendations of 150 min of moderate to vigorous PA per day). The chi-square test of independence showed that males, those aged ≥ 60 years and people with higher education were more likely to be in the low PA level category. No significant relationship was found between PA level and BMI status. Most of the participants thought that engaging in PA would be wise, valuable, right and good but thought to a lesser degree that PA would be easy, comfortable and interesting.ConclusionsAlmost half of the participants were categorised as insufficiently physically active, however, most of the Sahrawi refugees express a positive attitude towards PA. PA is a low-cost approach to reducing deaths and NCDs, government initiatives to increase PA levels in refugee camps are advised.

Analysis of daily occupations and engagement in Sahrawi refugee camps

ABSTRACT Given the conditions under which they live, the Sahrawi refugee population in the Algerian Hamada region are deprived of taking part in social, health, and economic systems, leading to occupational apartheid. This study applied the WHODAS 2.0 questionnaire to a total of 33 Sahrawi people of an average age of 39.3 years, living in different wilayas (large camps), with the purpose of learning about their health status and functioning in the past 30 days concerning cognition, mobility, self-care, social relations, life activities, and community participation. Overall, participants faced difficulties in terms of functioning (WHODAS 2.0), particularly in their daily occupations, and even more so in their social participation. This is explained both by the occupational deprivation and apartheid they have faced for more than 40 years due to their refugee status, and by the sociopolitical factors involved, in addition to their full dependence on humanitarian aid. Accordingly, the environment and context of the Sahrawi population are particularly important in terms of their engagement in occupations.

Making digital ‘home-camps’: Mediating emotions among the Sahrawi refugee diaspora

The concept of home relates to feelings of belonging coupled with emotionally meaningful relationships. In protracted refugee situations, the concept of home is re-signified by the material and symbolic conditions of living in exile. This article focuses on the Sahrawi refugee diaspora in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria to examine the role of emotions in the relationship between home and digital technology practices. Based on the narratives of Sahrawi refugees who were living in the camps at the time of the research fieldwork in 2016 as well as interviews with media activists, this article details Sahrawi refugees’ transnational dynamics in consolidating their camps as a home through feelings of digital connectivity. Thereby, it analyses multiple scales of digital home-making among Sahrawi refugees while exploring the ways in which refugees have generated emotional strategies to create a sense of home through their everyday digital practices.

Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria: How Do “The People in Exile” Live?

The article is devoted to the study of the conditions of life of the Sahrawi people who live in refugee camps in Algeria since 1970s due to the Western Sahara conflict. The process of political settlement of the Western Sahara conflict has been de facto suspended, however the situation in the Sahrawi refugee camps remains unstable and requires new solutions and international cooperation. The article provides a historical overview of the emergence of the refugee camps in Tindouf and examines existing mechanisms for international supporting the Sahrawi people. The author tends to analyze activities of the UN system organizations and agencies. Annual events within the framework of the FiSahara Film Festival to support Sahrawi are reported. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of Islam in Sahrawi society and the possibilities to benefit from the Islamic identity of the Sahrawi people to the Islamic cooperation and helping for refugees from Muslimmajority states. It is shown that the authorities of the unrecognized Sahara Arab Democratic Republic (the front POLISARIO) create the image of the secular Sahrawi community to overcome Islamophobia and receive humanitarian aid from a wide range of non-governmental organizations, including Christian and secular ones. At the same time, the true religious component of refugees’ life is hidden from the international community.

Medicines in Western Sahara Refugee Camps in Tindouf: Prescriptions and self-medication mixing in the drawer

ABSTRACT Problems with access to medicines, either by shortage or excess can be especially relevant in refugee camps. In the present study, we describe the medicines found in a sample of the Western Sahara refugee households, with special emphasis on antimicrobials and their use. All households of the 2nd district of Mahbes daira, in the Smara wilaya of the Sahrawi Refugee Camps in Tindouf (Algeria) were visited during 10 days in April 2019 in order to know which medicines are kept at home. Seventy-six families were included in the study and 269 medicines were found. Eight (10.5%) did not have any medical product at home and the remaining 68 (89.5%) had a median of 3 drugs, ranging from 1 to 13. The most consumed drugs were analgesics (35.7%) and antimicrobials (15.6%). Most medicines had been prescribed, but in the case of antimicrobials, an incomplete consumption pattern was observed in 42.9% of the cases and, more worrying, one-third of them were used to treat viral or non-infectious diseases. This first drug utilization study in the Saharawi population highlighted the importance, not only to ensure appropriate access to medicines in refugee’s camps, but also to watch over their appropriate use.

Under the same sky with Amanar

Due to its technological, scientific and cultural dimensions, astronomy is a unique discipline to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are currently nearly 30 million refugees in the world. While there are many (and very necessary) programmes supporting their basic needs, different indicators suggest that the resolution to refugee and internal displacement situations require not only humanitarian interventions, but also development-led actions. One of these initiatives is Amanar: Under the Same Sky, a project designed to support the Sahrawi refugee community by using astronomy to enhance their resilience and engagement in the community, through skill development and self-empowerment activities.

Connected Sahrawi refugee diaspora in Spain: Gender, social media and digital transnational gossip

While there is increasing scholarly attention given to the impact of digital technologies on forced migration, the points of view and situated experiences of refugees living in the diaspora are understudied. This article addresses Sahrawis refugee diasporas, which have close ties with the Sahrawi political cause. Resulting from the unresolved Western Sahara conflict, Sahrawi forced migrants are at the eye of one of the world’s most protracted refugee situations. While most Sahrawis live in refugee camps in Algeria, some Sahrawis have managed to travel onwards. Social media allows those living elsewhere to maintain connections with contacts living in their original refugee camp. However, Facebook has become a complex environment, particularly for Sahrawi women. Gendered mechanisms of control, such as digital transnational gossip, result in a paradoxical politics of belonging: these women simultaneously desire to keep in touch but do not want to become a subject of gossip. From narratives of Sahrawi young women based in Spain gathered through interviews between 2016 and 2018, as well as a specific Facebook campaign and fan page, the focus is on strategies Sahrawi women develop to avoid and confront digital transnational gossip.

Active Women and Ideal Refugees: Dissecting Gender, Identity and Discourse in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps

Since the Moroccan invasion in 1975, official reports on visits to Sahrawi refugee camps by international aid agencies and faith-based groups consistently reflect an overwhelming impression of gender equality in Sahrawi society. As a result, the space of the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and, by external association, Sahrawi society and Western Sahara as a nation-in-exile is constructed as ‘ideal’ (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2010, p. 67). I suggest that the ‘feminist nationalism’ of the Sahrawi nation-in-exile is one that is employed strategically by internal representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (POLISARIO), the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and the National Union of Sahrawi Women (NUSW), and by external actors from international aid agencies and also the colonial Moroccan state. The international attention paid to the active role of certain women in Sahrawi refugee camps makes ‘Other’ Sahrawi invisible, such as children, young women, mothers, men, people of lower socio-economic statuses, (‘liberated’) slave classes and refugees who are not of Sahrawi background. According to Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh ( ibid.), it also creates a discourse of ‘good’, ‘ideal’ refugees who are reluctant to complain, in contrast to ‘Other refugees’. This feminisation allows the international community not to take the Sahrawi call for independence seriously and reproduces the myth of Sahrawi refugees as naturally non-violent (read feminine) and therefore ‘ideal’. The myth of non-violence accompanied by claims of Sahrawi secularity is also used to distance Western Sahara from ‘African’, ‘Arab’ and ‘Islamic’, to reaffirm racialised and gendered discourses that associate Islam with terrorism and situate both in the Arab/Muslim East. These binaries make invisible the violence that Sahrawis experience as a result of the gendered constructions of both internal and external actors, and silence voices of dissent and frustration with the more than forty years of waiting to return home.

Rethinking the Concept of a “Durable Solution”: Sahrawi Refugee Camps Four Decades On

The Sahrawi people, who have long lived in the western part of the Sahara, have been housed in refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, since 1975—the year that Morocco took de facto control of Western Sahara. Their situation poses many questions, including those regarding the status of their state-in-exile, the role of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and the length of their displacement. The conditions in the Tindouf camps present a paradigmatic case study of the liminal space inhabited by long-term refugees. Over the decades, residents have transformed these camps into a state-like structure with their own political and administrative institutions, which has enabled the international community to gain time to search for an acceptable political solution to the long-term conflict between the Polisario Front (the Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement) and the Moroccan government. The existence of a state-like structure, however, should not itself be understood as the ultimate solution for the thousands of people in these camps, who are currently living in extreme poverty, surviving on increasingly meager international aid, and enduring an exceptionally long wait for the favorable conditions whereby they may return to their place of origin.

Nutritional Characterization and Phenolic Profiling of Moringa oleifera Leaves Grown in Chad, Sahrawi Refugee Camps, and Haiti.

Moringa oleifera is a plant that grows in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Its leaves are rich of nutrients and bioactive compounds. However, several differences are reported in the literature. In this article we performed a nutritional characterization and a phenolic profiling of M. oleifera leaves grown in Chad, Sahrawi refugee camps, and Haiti. In addition, we investigated the presence of salicylic and ferulic acids, two phenolic acids with pharmacological activity, whose presence in M. oleifera leaves has been scarcely investigated so far. Several differences were observed among the samples. Nevertheless, the leaves were rich in protein, minerals, and β-carotene. Quercetin and kaempferol glycosides were the main phenolic compounds identified in the methanolic extracts. Finally, salicylic and ferulic acids were found in a concentration range of 0.14–0.33 and 6.61–9.69 mg/100 g, respectively. In conclusion, we observed some differences in terms of nutrients and phenolic compounds in M. oleifera leaves grown in different countries. Nevertheless, these leaves are a good and economical source of nutrients for tropical and sub-tropical countries. Furthermore, M. oleifera leaves are a source of flavonoids and phenolic acids, among which salicylic and ferulic acids, and therefore they could be used as nutraceutical and functional ingredients.

Walking Through the Sahrawi Refugee Camps with Judith Butler

This article considers the role that irredentist nationalist Moroccan and Sahrawi discourses have played in the current stalemate in the negotiations in the Western Sahara conflict. Despite this, Morocco has seen a series of revolutionary and reformist movements prior to and in the wake of the 2010 Arab Spring. Although these movements have often been outmaneuvered by the Moroccan monarchy, they have managed to force a realignment of forces as exemplified by the Moroccan 2011 Constitution. I draw on Judith Butler’s critique of identitarian discourses to suggest that women’s rights may be a productive platform for Sahrawi women to establish equally efficient coalitions with other women in Morocco, and work to break the current stalemate.

Africa’s Last Colony

Africa’s Last Colony

The ideal refugees: gender, Islam, and the Sahrawi politics of survival

Refugee camps are typically perceived as militarised and patriarchal spaces, and yet the Sahrawi refugee camps and their inhabitants have consistently been represented as ideal in nature. Drawing on extensive research the author explores to what effect such idealised depictions have been projected onto the international arena.

The Inter-generational Politics of ‘Travelling Memories’: Sahrawi Refugee Youth Remembering Home-land and Home-camp

Drawing on primary research conducted with Sahrawi children and youth in the Sahrawi refugee camps, Cuba, Spain and Syria between 2001 and 2009, this article explores the Sahrawi politics of ‘travelling memories’, assessing how, why and to what effect memories of both the Western Saharan home-land and of the Algerian-based home-camps ‘travel’ between older and younger generations and across geographies in contexts of ongoing mobility. I start by exploring the ways in which Sahrawi children and youth ‘inherit’ and negotiate memories of their home-land and home-camps when they are temporarily separated from their families for educational purposes. In particular, this raises the question of whether the transmission of memories in such contexts of separation takes place in spite of children's distance from their families and home-camps, or because of this. I then examine the ways in which youth's memories ‘travel’ with them to their refugee home-camps upon graduation, analysing how their memories relate to those memories prioritised both by the international community mandated to secure a political solution to the protracted conflict, and by the older Sahrawis who monopolise not only the political infrastructure in the refugee camps, but also the ‘official memory’ of home-land and home-camps alike. Overall, I argue that the transmission of memories of the home-land are complemented and at times superseded by the development of and longing for memories of youth's home-camps. As such, multiple processes of memory-making and memory-recuperating underpin diverse political commitments to a plurality of home-spaces, including both the home-land and the home-camp. Recognising the intersecting and at times conflicting nature of memories of home-land and home-camp leads us to question the implicit assumption that political mobilisation revolves around memories of the home-land alone, or that the home-land should itself be the focus of political action and change.