Many a Slip between Cup and Lip

Navigating Noncitizenship and School-to-Work Transitions in Kakuma Refugee Camp

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12212491
AutoresMichelle Bellino (0000-0001-5843-0001, Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan , Educational Studies, 610 East University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, autor de correspondencia), Rahul Oka (0000-0002-5962-4227, Department of Anthropology and Keough School for Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame , 1010 Jenkins Nanovic Halls, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA), Marcela Ortiz-Guerrero (Marsal Family School of Education, University of Michigan , Educational Studies, 610 East University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA), Deng Mabil Khot (Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia , 6299 South St, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada), Ali Adan Abdi (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi , P.O. Box 62000 – 00200 Nairobi, Kenya), Arii Awar Magdalene (Kenyatta University , P.O. Box 43844-00100 Nairobi, Kenya)
Año2023
Volumen36
Número4
Páginas756-781
Fecha de publicación2023-08-07
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Refugee Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0951-6328 • E-ISSN: 1471-6925
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jrs/fead023
OpenAlexW4385623420
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas36

This article draws from curricular analysis and ethnographic methods in school and community spaces where young people live, learn, and work in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp. We describe how formal citizenship education intended for Kenyan citizens is mediated by teachers working in refugee-serving schools. Our analysis shows how these messages, often scarce and decontextualized, orient refugees to project an imagined future of stability, obscuring the skills needed to navigate the uncertainty they will encounter as noncitizens enduring protracted exile. Examining refugee youth transitions after completing their schooling, we document ‘slips’ in the gaps between the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions promoted in schools and those required within a limited opportunity structure dominated by a relief economy. Beyond school, we examine pathways that young refugees charted through apprenticeships within the informal economy, leveraging their social networks, gaining life skills, and enacting civic commitments while honing more sustainable livelihoods in exile. We argue that education’s value cannot be contingent on belonging or citizenship status and suggest that the contextualized nature of practice-based learning entailed through apprenticeships enables young refugees to create community through everyday participation, where social relationships both facilitate civic learning and are an outcome of that learning

Apprenticeship · Citizenship · Ethnography · Geography · Livelihood · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Gender Studies · Law