Paper short abstract:

The paper will address how and why Angolan rural refugees have settled in urban environments upon their return to their “homeland”. The social, political and spatial consequences of such phenomenon will be equally approached.

Paper long abstract:

The Angola war lasted approximately forty years, spanning the liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial rule (1961-1974), international interference following independence (1975-1980s), and the nationalist conflict for power and the control over natural resources opposing the two main parties UNITA and MPLA (1980s-2002). In 2002, the arrival of peace made it possible to understand the full scale of the damage: the large destruction of the country's infra-structure, the vast mined territories, the thousands of displaced people, and an ultimately broken society. 

In the aftermath of the conflict, the process of refugee repatriation began and continued until mid-2012. Despite resistance and doubts regarding repatriation, the majority of "official" refugees - mainly those living in camps - are now "back" to Angola. Although many of those who had fled were originally from rural regions, upon returning they resettled in urban environments. 

It is possible to scrutinise some of the reasons for the preference by the returnees for cities rather than their "original" rural "homelands". The guerrilla-like warfare which mainly ravaged villages in the bush making cities safe havens, as well as the displaced Angolans' long stay in "cosmopolitan" refugee camps - an almost urban setting - are among those reasons. Yet, in the long run, the settlement of returnees in cities or urban environments is bound to have deep social, spatial and political consequences.

The paper is the result of fieldwork research carried out along the border territories of Angola and Zambia, as well as in the Meheba Refugee Camp - Zambia.