Paper short abstract:

The paper seeks to show how the South Sudanese refugees in Kakuma have deployed social and religious networks and groups as strategies to preserve their national identities within paternalistic emergency context.

Paper long abstract:

There has been an expansion in the field of "humanitarian governance", which Barnett defines as "the administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle that sees the preservation of life and the alleviation of suffering as the highest value of action". Yet, the concept is not always unqualifiedly benign. While humanitarian governance is organized around the principle of care, it also features an element of control, where it creates structures within which such values as respect for difference, self-determination, and even national and individual identities are sacrificed for the sake of care. Hence, even while victims of crises find solace and security in safe havens provided by emergency aid systems, quite often these benefits come at the cost of autonomy and identity. Within a refugee camp, every victim is "a refugee", and often, nothing more. This paper, using the concept of paternalism, and the case study of South Sudanese refugees at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in North-Western Kenya, seeks to show how humanitarian governance systems can undermine, and in extreme cases even deprive victims of their autonomy and identities. Paternalism is a concept defined by Gerald Dworkin as "the interference with a person's liberty of action justified by reasons referring exclusively to the welfare, good, happiness, needs, interests or values of the persons being coerced". The paper seeks to highlight how the South Sudanese refugees in Kakuma have deployed social and religious networks and groups as strategies to preserve their national identities within paternalistic emergency contexts.