Paper short abstract:

In Cairo, Sudanese women resist the 'refugee' label, feeling it erases their histories. This opposes the host nation's use for aid, sometimes urging unethical acts for support. My presentation emphasizes their refusal to be seen as passive, challenging the reductive refugee view.

Paper long abstract:

At the end of 2023, I was in Cairo doing follow-up research for my project. In my interaction with my female interlocutors, I sensed an aversion towards the label refugee. For them, refugee is “a shadow that masks [their] true essence". It symbolises passivity, dependence and the denial of one’s humanity. It signifies discrimination; contradicts their resilience and self-sufficiency but above all, their history. The women’s rejection of the label goes beyond semantics. They affirm their identity as women who have been active citizens in their country as teachers, activists, professors, etc. To be reduced to refugee downplays their complex subjectivity as well as their lingering sense of rootedness in what they once called home. There is also a monetary interest in constituting humans as refugees even when they refuse it. A close relative’s experience illuminates this. She was asked to falsely claim that she had been raped by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) so that she can get access to financial, psychological, and legal support. Because she is seen as a mere number among a desperate bunch of refugees, she is pressured to commit an unethical act. This imposition is informed by the view that a host country gets more financial support to host many refugees. In the presentation, I want to juxtapose the women’s resistance against the political economy of commodifying human suffering. In so doing, I challenge the political, socio-cultural and economic dimensions of refugee labeling and the perception of displaced people as passive and reducible to numbers.