Negotiating a Space of Belonging

A Case Study from the Zambia-Angolan Borderlands

Datos Bibliográficos

ID23635722
AutoresOliver Bakewell (0000-0002-0904-7134, University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Páginas103-126
Fecha de publicación2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoCHAPTER
RevistaForging African Communities (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-58194-5_5
OpenAlexW2768791450
ISBN9781137581945
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas11

Through a case study of Angolans settled in north-west Zambia, this chapter explores the gap between the formal regulatory environment that prohibits the integration of refugees and its local articulation that delivers precisely the opposite. Those who arrived as Angolan refugees have established a durable space of belonging, with a sustained welcome from local villagers, which has proved robust in the face of the government’s repatriation programme. The chapter shows how the underlying patterns of mobility, cross-border livelihoods and the sense of belonging have a continuity which is little affected by the vagaries of refugee policy defined by distant governments. This is not a story of resistance but one of local adaptation and reinterpretation of the law enabling former refugees effectively to become Zambian citizens.

Articulation (sociology) · Development economics · Geography · Livelihood · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Reinterpretation · Repatriation · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration