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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores new forms of engagement with refugee hosting regions in east Africa. It builds on the analysis of protracted refugee camps as hybrid spaces, with fluid and permeable boundaries, that provide socio-economic opportunities and have the potential to be drivers of development.

Paper long abstract:

The impact and effects of protracted refugee camps on their host environments in east Africa has been subject of increasing academic attention since the late 1990s. Such camps have often been viewed as isolating and secluding spaces, while host societies perceived refugees as a burden and a security threat. This led to claims for mitigation to compensate for the pressures that these camps place on their local environments. Recent analyses, however, posit such camps as hybrid spaces, with fluid and permeable boundaries, that provide socio-economic opportunities and have the potential to be drivers of development, particularly in marginalised environments. This paper focusses on how forms of humanitarian governance emanate from such camps and come to impact on their host environments, and increasingly co-govern and co-shape socio-spatial relations beyond the boundaries of the camp and the initial targets of humanitarian concern. The paper analyses how new forms of international engagement materialise in these refugee hosting regions, and how discourses and programmes that regard protracted camps as opportunity for development relate to contemporary migration concerns and debates.