Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the everyday refugee registration practices of the Refugee Affairs Secretariat, Government of Kenya. It shows the surprising indifference embedded in registration practices and argues that this is a reflection of the limits of bureaucratic knowledge for state power.

Paper long abstract:

The state is central in determining the experience and rights of refugees and yet ethnographic accounts of African states' engagement in refugee affairs remains limited. This paper draws on participant observation within the offices of the Refugee Affairs Secretariat, Government of Kenya, in order to understand its everyday, street-level bureaucratic practices. It focuses, in particular, on the government's engagement with refugee registration. The paper reveals a surprising procedural indifference embedded in registration practices - how, despite the enumerative function of registration, offices enact little interest in the profile and characteristics of the refugees before it. The paper argues that registration takes place in this indifferent manner in response to donor pressure and incentives to carry out registration. It further argues that the government's indifference is rooted in the limited role registration has played in the state's development. It shows that African states have often developed without strong administrative infrastructures, challenging the presumed centrality of population legibility and control of cross-border movement to state power. It argues that states are instead often resistant to registering populaces, especially refugees, because registration can offer greater legal empowerment and increase the ability to make claims of the state. This paper therefore looks at the limits of what bureaucratic knowledge about populations can mean for state power.