Paper long abstract:

A diverse scholarly community has examined outbreaks of violence since the 1990s in Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Uganda and Sudan through myriad disciplinary lenses, narrating the stories of peoples these events displaced. This paper seeks to make a historical contribution to this literature by adopting as its analytical focus Tanzania as a “host” country. Tanzania possesses both a large contemporary refugee population as well as a substantial history of accepting refugees stretching back to the 1970s. This perspective reveals refugees and internally displaced peoples in East and Central Africa to represent more than the sundry byproducts of separate outbreaks of violence. They are part of a wider phenomenon best comprehended historically and inclusively. To understand them appropriately, and therefore collectively, scholars must situate the region’s modern refugee crises occur within a longer history of moving populations in East and Central Africa prior to colonial conquest. Not unlike Diaspora studies, historical scholars of refugee crises must seek out coherent communities in inherently ephemeral social contexts. Western Tanzania represents a solid point of departure for such research. There, longstanding Burundi refugee communities established in Tabora in the 1970s reside not far from more recently founded refugee camps dotting Tanzania’s Western borders. In turning our attention to the sungusungu community watch institution which owes its origin to this part of Western Tanzania, scholars may begin to appreciate historically the security efforts of refugee communities as they come to define themselves in the process of ensuring their mutual safety.