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There has been increased scholarly and policy attention to “localized” responses to displacement, in the hope that further empowering local actors may unlock new means of protecting refugees’ rights and addressing their needs. However, these efforts have often oversimplified power relations within localization processes, bringing some players into focus while occluding others, and devoting insufficient attention to how localization processes and the power dynamics surrounding them have evolved over time. In response, this article draws on theories of subalternity and subaltern agency from the field of postcolonial studies to develop a more nuanced conceptualization of power in localization processes in the refugee regime. We contend that subalternity is best understood as a fluid, relational position that changes over time, such that particular refugees and displaced groups may oscillate between dominant and marginalized, subaltern subject positions, within intersecting systems of power. We probe refugees’ subaltern agency in terms of resistance and persistence, and deepen this account through analysis of localized responses to Burundian refugees in Tanzania, focusing on the localization of efforts to secure durable solutions for refugees. We argue that localization scholarship, particularly in the context of the refugee regime, needs to move beyond homogenized, dehistoricized, and romanticized notions of grassroots, refugee-led responses and focus on complex and fluid power configurations among diverse local actors.

Sarah Nandi, Department of Political Science, McGill University

Oroub El Abed, International Migration and Refugee Studies, Birzeit University

Megan Bradley, Department of Political Science, McGill University

Hamzah Qardan, USAID, Jordan

Executive Summary

The three durable solutions, namely resettlement to a third country, local integration, and voluntary repatriation, aim to resolve refugeehood. However, these traditional pathways are no longer feasible for the majority of refugees. How different refugees access or think about solutions for their situation, including their perceptions and pursuit of the traditional and alternative pathways, are shaped by intersecting factors such as gender, race, nationality, and class. In order to better understand how different displaced communities navigate this “meantime” period of liminality, this study draws upon interviews with refugees and humanitarian staff in Amman, Jordan to examine the paths that refugees make for themselves even under enormous risk and constraints. To do so, we propose the concept of “para-solutions”, which can be understood as the parallel pathways that refugees create for themselves to access some of the benefits associated with residency rights or limited forms of establishing a life outside of Jordan. Para-solutions include both the tangible practices that refugees use in solutions-making in the present as well as the future hope attached to the different strategies. We examine para-solutions through two sub-categories: para-residency and para-mobility. Para-residency includes solutions that are localized in the Jordanian setting, deal mainly in the temporal present, and include practices such as pursuing education, vocational training, and volunteering opportunities.

Para-mobility is often focused on the future by including a hopefulness for what may become possible outside of Jordan and operates through higher education scholarships, short-term labour contracts in other countries or online, or travel through family relationships and marriage. Together, these para-solutions offer a more complete and intersectional representation of what “solutions” look like from the perspectives of refugees and show how the traditional pathways are always situated within a much broader solutions spectrum that challenges preconceived notions of belonging while also speaking to the critical role of hope.

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DOI

Citation

Nandi, S., El Abed, O., Bradley, M., Qardan, H. (2024). In The Meantime: Gender, Race, Nationality, and “Para- Solutions” for Refugees in Amman, Jordan. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).Ěý

Megan Bradley, Lead of LERRN’s Solutions Working Group, has published Realising the Right of Return: Refugees’ Roles in Localising Norms and Socialising UNHCR in Geopolitics.ĚýDrawing on extensive material from the UNHCR archives on repatriation movements from Honduras to El Salvador in the 1980s, this article examines how refugees themselves have influenced the governance of return by serving as norm entrepreneurs, localising the right of return and socialising UNHCR to rethink and support broader interpretations of this principle.

Reinforcing and expanding on recent studies of how refugees actively shape aid efforts, peacebuilding and the resolution of displacement, this study highlights the significance of subaltern power in the refugee regime, showing how it can reverberate across different sites and scales to definitively influence not only the execution of the regime’s core functions but also the interpretation of the normative commitments underpinning it.

Abulogn Okello, Graduate of the Master of Education, York University Borderless Higher Education for Refugees Program

Executive Summary

As a result of domestic terror attacks in the last decades, Kenyan government officials and media outlets have begun to frame refugee camps as hotbeds of terror and extremism. These representations have shifted dominant and traditional perceptions of Dadaab refugees as victims of conflict to potential terrorists and threats to Kenyan national security. Accordingly, the Government of Kenya has taken a series of policy measures, including the introduction of an encampment policy to restrict refugees’ movement and, more recently, a policy of repatriating Somali refugees to Somalia and relocating other nationalities to Kakuma. Recent escalations of attacks in Kenya have further amplified calls from the Government of Kenya to expedite the repatriation of refugees to Somalia. The policies of repatriation have significantly impacted operations in the Dadaab camp, particularly around the education of refugees, throwing refugee individuals and families into panic and confusion. Refugees in the camp place their hope and expectations for better living conditions now, as well as in their future, on the education offered in the camp as they await a durable solution.

In this paper, I investigate the relationship between repatriation policy, demographic change, and educational systems in Dadaab. I have shown how the shrinking of the camp due to repatriation has contributed to the closure of organizations that offer education, resulting in significant effects on the continuity of education. Using semi-structured interviews, I analyzed the relationship between repatriation and education. Interview participants discussed their time in the camps, education, restrictions on movement, economic opportunity, vulnerability, uncertainty, and hope. Although I contend that repatriation remains immensely valuable as one possible durable solution for refugees, I outline the key challenges and issues surrounding forced repatriation, including the sociocultural and economic disadvantages for those who repatriate as a result of government policy versus personal will. The paper concludes with recommendations on continuing to support access to education for refugees in the camps and on adequately supporting refugees who are repatriating to Somalia.

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DOI

Citation

Okello, A. (2021). Repatriation as a Durable Solution: Refugee Perspectives on Repatriation Policies and Education in Dadaab Refugee Camp. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).

Angel Abbaticchio, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University

Executive Summary

Though the global refugee regime was developed more than 70 years ago to find solutions for refugees, progress on truly sustainable solutions remains scarce. The international community recognizes the need to strengthen the humanitarian-development (HD) nexus or, in other words, to promote closer collaboration between humanitarian and development programming, to find solutions for refugees. African states have paid attention to the HD nexus since the 1960s, demonstrating that efforts to merge humanitarian assistance with development are far from new. However, HD approaches practiced in Africa began to fade in the 1980s and 1990s due to prolonged displacement, a rise in refugee numbers, and the pressures of economic liberalization and structural adjustment.

While renewed attention to the HD nexus and its latest manifestation – self-reliance – is recognized as vital to finding solutions for refugees, dwindling international support and cooperation has made it difficult to find solutions. This paper examines the self-reliance model in the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Programme in Kenya to assess whether or not the HD nexus is leading to solutions for refugees. I argue that state interests continue to dominate the global refugee regime and its functioning in Kenya. Consequently, the rights, dignity, and well-being of refugees – the majority of which are hosted in the global South – continue to deteriorate, and it is increasingly difficult to find permanent solutions to their plight. As HD approaches are increasingly understood as important for finding solutions, these approaches including the self-reliance model in Kalobeyei must be centered on refugees’ rights rather than state interests. I propose that addressing the power asymmetry within the refugee regime and the corresponding lack of inclusivity of refugees and host communities in the development and implementation of programs and policies, is crucial to realizing solutions.

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DOI

Citation

Abbaticchio, A. (2020). Is the Humanitarian-Development Nexus Leading to Solutions for Refugees? Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).

Merve Erdilmen, PhD Student, Department of Political Science, McGill University

Executive Summary

This paper provides a brief review of the literature on the link between humanitarian and development approaches to durable solutions for refugees. By shedding light on the meaning, scope, and timing of durable solutions; strengths and shortcomings of traditional durable solutions; the emergence of alternative solutions; intersectional approaches to durable solutions; and the roles of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, as well as refugees themselves in the pursuit of durable solutions as they relate to the humanitarian-development nexus, the paper aims at examining the gaps in the literature and avenues for future studies and policies. The paper has three main findings. First, while the literature on the humanitarian-development nexus as it relates to durable solutions has received remarkable interest from scholars and policymakers, the links between the humanitarian approach to emergencies, durable solutions for refugees, and development lenses on the solutions are not always clearly examined in the literature. Second, the extensive literature on the durable solutions to displacement appears to focus mostly on experiences of flight and displacement and remains limited in exploring the struggle for solutions. Finally, most of the work on durable solutions studies solutions in the Global North, which is the destination only for a small proportion of refugee populations, rendering the focus on the pursuit of solutions within the Global South limited. There is a need for a deeper understanding of which “solutions” work in which contexts, recognizing the difficulty of reaching general conclusions about processes that are shaped by context-specific histories, cultures, socioeconomic conditions and experiences. It is also important to articulate the gap between refugees’ everyday practices and the policies of international organizations that contribute to solutions, the meaning of achieving a solution, and the perspectives that guide the conversation on the humanitarian-development nexus as it relates to durable solutions for refugees. The fundamental questions like solutions for who, by whom, how, and when deserve more attention, especially within the context of the Global South.

View the full LERRN Working Paper Series here:

DOI

Citation

Erdilmen, M. (2019). Durable Solutions and the Humanitarian-Development Nexus: A Literature Review. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).