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- Convenor:
-
Gina Porter
(Durham University)
- Stream:
- Human, plant and animal health
- Location:
- G51
- Start time:
- 13 September, 2006 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
none
Long Abstract:
Despite the enormous difficulties faced by forced migrants, it is now widely recognised that many displaced people show considerable resourcefulness and resilience in overcoming adversity. This session will focus on new dimensions of social resilience and coping among refugees in Africa. It will also consider the impacts of coping strategies on attendant social networks and relations with the aid agencies.
Space for one further paper.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper long abstract:
The resilience of refugees in Africa has been well documented over many years. The idea of refugees as passive victims of war dependent on the benevolence of international aid has been discredited through research and rejected by many, if not most, aid organisations. The agency of refugees is commonly acknowledged in the rhetoric of such organisations, whose policies and programme documents are suffused with terms such as 'empowerment', 'participation', and 'capacity building'. Despite these good intentions, the refugees' own strategies for coping with their situation are still neglected and often undermined through the aid programmes which set out to help them. This paper highlights two of the stubborn obstacles which stand in the way of aid practice catching up with its rhetoric.
First, the acknowledgement of refugees' agency in actively pursuing their interests tends to remain at quite a generalised level. Aid organisations working with refugees, especially in the temporary settings of camps and settlements, rarely have the capacity to analyse and respond to the coping strategies adopted by different refugees in a particular context. They know they should work with and build on refugees' strategies, but they do not necessarily know what those strategies are.
Second, the 'aid architecture' militates against programming which is driven by refugees' initiatives. Work with refugees is often associated with emergencies and attracts short-term funding. Many donors emphasise the importance of rapid and visible results which encourages aid agencies to force the pace of activities and take the credit for results. As a result, refugees are the object of many aid interventions which fly in the face of good development practice.
Paper long abstract:
While young people are thought to be particularly vulnerable in situations of conflict and forced migration, it has been increasingly recognized in recent years that they can show remarkable resilience and ability to overcome adversity. Indeed, young people may be better able than elders to adapt to the demands of new situations, and make the best of them, particularly when it comes to taking up new livelihood opportunities. However, this can be threatening for elders, and can lead to the reconfiguration of inter-generational relations.
This paper reports on changes in inter-generational relations, and their consequences for coping and resilience, among long-term Liberian refugees in the Buduburam settlement camp in Ghana. In Buduburam, generational categories have become re-shaped and blurred as a result of the refugee experience. There is a strong ambivalence about the transition to adulthood in the camp, which permeates and complicates inter-generational relations. Because of the inability of elders to provide material support for their children, young people are forced to take on economic responsibilities, and to support their parents, at an early age. However, their inability to provide adequately for a household delays the transition to full adult status indefinitely, leaving young people in a prolonged liminal state of being neither child nor adult. This has led to other ambivalences and ambiguities in inter-generational relations. On the one hand, there is a general consensus within the camp that there has been a breakdown of authority and respect for elders by younger people. In particular, older people criticize youth for abandoning traditional values, and for buying wholesale into black American youth culture. On the other hand, the increasing value placed on youth, and concomitant devaluation of old age and experience, means that some older people, women in particular, have been forced to adopt aspects of youth culture and dress, and to renege on their social responsibilities as elders.
These tensions and ambiguities are important, because they underpin many social relations within the camp, with implications for the ability of everyone, both young and old, to cope with the rigours of refugee life. Although adequate material support is often not forthcoming, young people recognize the emotional support that they get from elders, particularly in helping them to make sense of their lives, within a wider cultural framework.