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Paper short abstract:

During the Kenyan decolonisation war (1951-1963), thousands of Kikuyu fled to neighbouring Tanganyika to escape violence and persecution. This paper analyses Kikuyu’s escape and the measures taken by the British administration to enforce population management and control within both territories.

Paper long abstract:

During the Kenyan decolonisation war (1951-1963), thousands of Kikuyu fled to neighbouring Tanganyika (a British protectorate under UN trusteeship) to escape violence and persecution. This paper analyses Kikuyu’s escape and the measures taken by the British administration to enforce population management and control within both territories. It discusses perceptions of spaces constitutive of the refugee experience and their consequences for refugee protection. It does so by considering multiple actors and levels of analysis and taking into account refugee motivations to cross intra-imperial borders, local and imperial authorities’ (coercive) responses to these movements, and humanitarian approaches and limitations to refugee protection and assistance, namely within the UN system and the Red Cross Movement. Whilst this case is underexplored in the literature, it enables an analysis of late-imperial repertoires pertaining to modalities of population management. It provides a relevant departing point to better understand colonial legacies in post-colonial responses to refugee crises. What defined space of refuge for different actors where fictitious formal borders shaped different spaces? How was the movement of populations handled for colonial developmental and securitisation purposes? How was refugee status managed and defined in this case, and with which consequences? In discussing these questions, the paper seeks to contribute to an informed debate on the ways in which disputed spaces (concrete and imagined) and governance (colonial, post-colonial and humanitarian) shaped refugeedom (in varied ways) during the second half of the 20th century.