Paper short abstract:

This paper uses the concept of home-making to investigate how refugees navigate daily life in the refugee settlement Kiryandongo, Uganda. Specifically, a lens of affect is used to understand people’s interactions with land, livelihoods, the host-community, and continued mobility in displacement.

Paper long abstract:

The number of displaced individuals across the globe is increasing. Many refugees are hosted in East Africa, with Uganda being the number one refugee-hosting nation in the region and in Africa as a whole. For many of these refugees, this situation is one of protractedness as well as continued movement. Yet, this dynamic is not always acknowledged in policymaking and development work, as a linearity is often assumed in which refugees will eventually ‘return home’. In this paper, instead, home-making in displacement is used as the central concept to investigate how refugees navigate daily life in the refugee settlement Kiryandongo in (north)western Uganda. Specifically, a lens of affect (i.e. looking at engagement in social relationships such as friendships and romantic relationships) is used to understand people’s interactions with land, livelihoods, and continued mobility in displacement. By seeing home-making as a quotidian as well as political practice that necessarily involves engagement with policy and interaction between refugees and host communities, this study contributes to thinking about broader questions surrounding refugee policies and peaceful cohabitation between refugees and host communities.

The findings of this research will be based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork in Kiryandongo and the neighboring town of Bweyale. This will involve observations, in-depth qualitative interviews, focus group discussions, and workshops with development practitioners and academics. Interviews will be held with refugees, members of the host community, local leaders, and development professionals in and around the refugee settlement.