Refugees, Roots,

and Displacement
 Much of routinized misery is invisible;
much that is made visible is not ordinary or
routine. Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, Margaret
Locke, intro to Social Suffering.
 UN Convention Relating to the
Status of Refugees (1951,1967)
 Persecutions
Race
Religion
Nationality
Membership in a particular social group
Political opinion
 Displacement UN High
Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR)
65 million forcibly
displaced people

Refugees: 21.3 mil

Internally Displaced:
38 mil
Resettled: 145k
 The Most...(2014, most recent)
Origin:
Syria (3 million)
Afghanistan (2.6 million)
Hosts:
Pakistan (1.6 million)
Lebanon (1.1 million)
(20% of population!)
Iran (1 million)
Returned voluntarily: 414,600
 1972 Burundi Hutu Refugees
Lisa Malkki (1992)
Two populations:
Camp refugees
Kigoma Township refugees
 ''Homelessness is a serious threat to moral
behavior....At the moment the refugee
crosses the frontiers of his own world, his
whole moral outlook, his attitude toward the
divine order of life changes...[the refugees']
conduct makes it obvious that we are
dealing with individuals who are basically
amoral, without any sense of personal or
social responsibility...they no longer feel
themselves bound by ethical precepts which
every honest person...respects. They
become a menace, dangerous characters
who will stop at nothing.''
 Camp Refugees
Construction and reconstruction of Hutu
people vs Tutsi invaders
Centrality of refugee-ness to narrative
An out-of-place, temporary (!) Burundi
 The Nation
Reformulated as a moral destination, not a
place
Return is not a matter of travelling
Purity emphasized
 Town Refugees
Multiple identities
Hard to detect
Spurn origin queries
 Emergent Qualities
Different communities ascribe different
meanings to:
National Identity
Homeland
Exile
Refugee-ness
Isn't refugee-ness an object of continual social
construction?
 Yet most see them in a static way.

The bias against refugees shows the bias

toward an outdated model of culture and
identity.
Case 2: Guinean Refugee Camps
 Refugee camps were never meant to be
permanent.

Refugees, too, often do not allow their status to be

permanent. Often in creative ways.
 The 'Household', and Family ID
Card
Name of head of household
Camp address
Nation and region of origin
Number of dependents.
No photo.
Up to 12 people
 Conditions of Scarcity
Family size determines:
What kind of house
Amount of monthly food
# of Non-food items:
Lanterns
Mats
Water bladder, Buckets
Plates, utensils, pots
 Conditions of Scarcity
Refugee ID cards can be
quite valuable
Spontaneous Repatriation
(and selling the card)
Guinean fake IDs
Refugees selling it to settle
debts/start a business/pay
for expenses
 Bulgur Marriages
Not official, but carry lots of weight:
Socially
Materially
Affectively
 Big Women
Reflects the agency, resourcefulness and family
leadership of some of the camp women.
Yet they must build on top of unstable statuses
Meditations on Roots