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106 results found
Research paper
More than mere survival: violence, humanitarian governance, and practical material politics in a Kenyan refugee camp
This paper frames the political import of refugees’ material practices in Kakuma Refugee Camp through critical reflection on Eyal Weizman’s notion of the humanitarian present. To begin, I explore how the production of the refugee camp as a space of…
Research paper
Resistant Resilience: Agency and Resilience Among Refugees Resisting Humanitarian Corruption in Uganda
Resilience is a dominant humanitarian-development theme. Nonetheless, some humanitarian-development programmes have demonstrably negative impacts which encourage vulnerable people to actively resist these programmes. Based on 12 months ethnographic fieldwork in a Ugandan refugee settlement during 2017–18, this paper argues refugee residents…
Working paper
Going home? A systematic review of the literature on displacement, return and cycles of violence
Starting from the complex reality of return, this paper recognizes that cycles of violence, displacement and return are intimately related and often inherently part of one another. This paper offers a critical overview and discussion of scholarly and policy-oriented literature…
Research paper
Fettered Self-determination: South Sudan’s Narrowed Path to Secession
The interpretation of self-determination as a vote for secession shaped the state that South Sudan has become since the 2011 referendum. Self-determination, this paper argues, is a democratic political process in which citizens determine their preferred form of statehood and…
Research paper
The Priest’s Soldiers: HIV Therapies, Health Identities, and Forced Encampment in Northern Uganda
In this article, I analyze how antiretroviral therapy and associated HIV support programs engendered HIV-based health identities in displacement camps in conflict-affected northern Uganda. Drawing on multisited ethnographic fieldwork I conducted between 2006 and 2009, I argue that these health…
Communicative Health Promotion for Refugee Children in Uganda
Uganda’s refugee policy framework seeks to cover health care needs of refugees within a dynamic social context. Focusing on the ecosystem of urban refugees, the authors examine refugee health care expectations, support networks, and how health communication traditions and perspectives…
Working paper
Figurations of displacement in the DRC: empirical findings and reflections on protracted displacement and translocal connections of Congolese IDPs
This working paper is based on empirical research on translocal figurations of displacement in the DRC, and reports findings from eastern DRC, where many internally displaced persons (IDPs) seek refuge in host communities. It explores the central question: “How are…
Report
Driven apart: How repeated displacement changes family dynamics in eastern DRC
This paper considers how the phenomenon of repeated displacement affects dynamics within displaced families and their ability to cope with the consequences. The analysis is based on data collected in Masisi (North Kivu) and Fizi (South Kivu) in 2015, including…
Research paper
Everyday Justice for the Internally Displaced in a Context of Fragility: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Bukavu is a rapidly growing city in the conflict-affected east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is home to large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This article looks at these IDPs and explores the strategies they use to…
Research paper
Family planning knowledge and use among women in camps for internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
This study describes family planning awareness and needs among internally displaced women residing in the Mugunga camps in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. A cross-sectional survey of women from the Mugunga camps in March 2014 revealed that…
Working paper
Hosting New Neighbors : Perspectives of Host Communities on Social Cohesion in Eastern DRC
Situations of forced displacement create unique challenges for social cohesion because of the major disruption of social dynamics among both displaced persons and host communities. This paper uses a sequential mixed method approach to analyze the relationship between hosting displaced…
Research paper
A Hard Homecoming: Lessons Learned from the Reception Center Process in Northern Uganda: An Independent Study
This independent report has been commissioned by USAID and UNICEF to examine assumptions and evidence about the needs and experiences of children and adults who have been forced to serve under the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and have subsequently escaped,…
Background report
Livelihoods, Access to Services and Perceptions of Governance: An Analysis of Pibor County, South Sudan from the Perspective of Displaced People
Based on qualitative interviews in Juba with displaced people from Pibor County in 2013, this article examined internal state-building processes, international engagement with the state, and livelihoods and response in rural Pibor County. The authors focus in particular on how…
Research paper
Interethnic Relations in Exile: The Politics of Ethnicity among Sudanese Refugees in Uganda and Egypt
Refugees are diverse and often politically active. The case of Sudanese refugees forced into exile by civil conflict illustrates these characteristics. Sudanese belong to various ethnic groups that became highly politicized by conflict. Sudanese identities are also politicized in exile…
Research paper
Population Displacement and Sustainable Development: The Significance of Environmental Sustainability in Refugee–Host Relationships in the Congo−Brazzaville Crises
The Republic of Congo experienced repeated outbreaks of armed conflicts between militiamen affiliated to three main political factions, which affected the socioeconomic fabrics of the Congolese society until late 2000. This paper examines the socioeconomic and environmental impact of interactions…
Book chapter
Life Beyond the Bubbles: Cognitive Dissonance and Humanitarian Impunity in Northern Uganda
International humanitarians work within bubbles. Humanitarians rely on rules and norms—from laws or principles, to religious and biomedical values, to best practice and ethical guidelines. The rules and norms create apparently coherent and predictable spaces.
Book chapter
Urbanizing Kitchanga: Spatial Trajectories of the Politics of Refuge in North Kivu, Eastern Congo
This article presents the historical and political trajectory of Kitchanga town in North Kivu, to demonstrate how current processes of urbanization in a context of civil war in Eastern Congo are strongly intertwined with regional politics of refuge. Kitchanga, an…
Research paper
Humanitarian Fables: Morals, Meanings and Consequences for Humanitarian Practice
This article describes how events are turned into fables in humanitarian organisations. It explores how these fables circulate, the lessons they come to embody and their influence in maintaining an organisational status quo. The article argues that such stories teach…
Research paper
Humanitarian Shapeshifting: Navigation, Brokerage and Access in Eastern DR Congo
This article examines the experience of Congolese humanitarians negotiating access with armed groups in eastern DRC. It describes how humanitarians become shapeshifters: they play different roles for different audiences as a tactic of social navigation in a context of uncertainty.…
Research paper
From Rebel to Humanitarian: Military Savoir Faire and Humanitarian Practice in Eastern DR Congo
This article explores the experience of ex-rebels who have become humanitarians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It describes how rebel-cum-humanitarians navigate a turbulent political environment, integrating the knowledge they acquired through military experience into a career in…
Blog
Humanitarianism in Uganda: Outcast in your own Home
Through the accounts of Evelyn and Mary’s lives with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Jacky Atingo and Melissa Parker ask why programmes funded by humanitarian agencies have done little to protect vulnerable people.
Blog
What it means to be a ‘refugee’ in South Sudan and Uganda
After decades of armed conflict in South Sudan and Uganda, labels of ‘refugee’ and ‘internally displaced person’ fail to reflect the complex realities of the people they refer to. This blog post examines the history of movement across the region’s…
Research paper
“He Cannot Marry Her”: Excluding The Living And Including The Dead In South Sudanese Citizenship In Sudan
Using qualitative interviews and observations of Nuer chiefs’ courts to examine reforms to marriage laws within a South Sudanese refugee camp in Sudan, this article argues that chiefs’ courts contested humanitarian assumptions about citizenship by re-emphasising kinship as the primary…
Research paper
‘I Kept My Gun’: Displacement’s Impact on Reshaping Social Distinction During Return
Drawing on the experiences of men born in Southern Sudan in the 1980s, grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya and later returned to Southern Sudan after the 2005 peace agreement, this article explores the social implications of experiences…
Research paper
The ‘good life’, personal appearance, and mental health of Congolese refugees in Rwanda and Uganda
Research into mental health and wellbeing recognises the role of positive mental health to enable people to lead healthy and emotionally fulfilling lives. Mental health difficulties continue to be associated with high levels of disability worldwide, and refugees fleeing conflict…
Research paper
In the face of war: examining sexual vulnerabilities of Acholi adolescent girls living in displacement camps in conflict-affected Northern Uganda
Adolescent girls are an overlooked group within conflict-affected populations and their sexual health needs are often neglected. Girls are disproportionately at risk of HIV and other STIs in times of conflict, however the lack of recognition of their unique sexual…
Briefing
Tackling language-based exclusion in the Horn of Africa hunger crisis: Lessons from Somalia
Facing the worst droughts in over 40 years, more than 37 million people in the Horn of Africa are experiencing acute hunger. They need urgent humanitarian aid – healthcare, food, water supplies, and lifesaving information in the right language. CLEAR…
Briefing
Drivers Influencing Vaccination-related Behaviours Among Ukrainian Refugees in Poland
This brief summarises existing information about the factors influencing vaccination-related practices during the Ukrainian crisis. It also presents strategic and practical considerations to inform the design of interventions to create demand for routine immunisation among Ukrainian refugees.
Briefing
Key Considerations: Engaging ‘People on the Move’ to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance in Italy frit
This key considerations brief outlines perceptions, understandings and experiences of COVID-19 vaccination among ‘people on the move’ in Italy.
Evidence review
Review of the Evidence Landscape on the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Interventions Among the Rohingya Refugees to Enhance Healthcare Seeking Behaviours in Cox’s Bazar
This review paper synthesises and assesses the quality of the evidence landscape available and how the Rohingya seek and access healthcare services in Cox’s Bazar
Evidence review
Background Paper: COVID-19 in the Context of Forced Displacement: Perspectives from the Middle East and East Africa arfrsw
How is the pandemic accentuating existing vulnerabilities of populations forcibly displaced by war?
Briefing
Operational Considerations: COVID-19 and Forced Displacement in the Middle East and East Africa arfrsw
Summary including collaborating with local groups and adopting holistic approaches.
Briefing
COVID-19 in the Context of Conflict and Displacement – Myanmar
Key considerations focusing on how conflict, displacement and inter-communal tensions may influence disease control in Myanmar.
Evidence review
Towards a Comprehensive Approach of Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Needs of Women Displaced by War and Armed Conflict: A Practical Guide for Programme Officers
For some years, awareness about the need for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for women in situations of war and armed conflict has been growing. As a result, humanitarian aid programmes are paying more and more attention to…
