African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on August 18, 2008
African Affairs 2008 107(429):569-587; doi:10.1093/afraf/adn044
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Between vulnerability and assertiveness: Negotiating resettlement in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya
The author (bramologie{at}yahoo.co.uk) is a PhD candidate in Disaster Studies, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. This article is based on fieldwork for a PhD project – Creating Space in a ‘Naked City’: Violence and identity in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya (forthcoming) – funded by WOTRO (Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research), and is a revised version of a paper presented at the 2nd AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, ‘African Alternatives: Initiative and Creativity beyond Current Constraints’, Leiden, the Netherlands, 11–14 July 2007. I wish to express gratitude to Professor John J. Okumu, Professor Dorothea Hilhorst, Mathijs van Leeuwen, Professor Barbara Harrell-Bond, Stephanie Riak Akuei and Ilse Griek, who delivered valuable comments on this text.
Resettlement to third countries is regarded as a durable solution to refugee crises. In Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya, seeking a better life in industrialized countries has become a preoccupation for many refugees. In this article the effects of the practice of third country resettlement on the camp population are explored. Increased ease of communication with the diaspora, expanded knowledge of entitlements, and the high visibility of resettlement processing within the camp have increased the demand for resettlement. The article argues that the result is an environment that encourages refugees to cheat through claiming insecurity and negotiating vulnerability. Refugees come to believe that resettlement is something that can be actively achieved, rather than a benefit extended only to the genuinely vulnerable.