Naohiko Omata
Biographic Data
| ID | 679218 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Naohiko Omata |
| GIVEN NAMES | Naohiko |
| FAMILY NAME | Omata |
| SIGNATURE | OMATA N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9062-6634 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 149 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Refugee Trap: The Economics of Displacement
Refugee movements are one of the defining issues of the Twenty-First Century. But what difference does it actually make to be a refugee? To what extent are refugees economically distinctive compared to citizens or other groups of migrants? Drawing upon original data collected in camps and cities across East Africa, The Refugee Trap shows that becoming a refugee changes the economic constraints people face in important ways; they confront a series…
Parenting dilemmas: Syrian refugee families resettled in the UK
Returning to fund refugeehood: Dispersal and survival between Uganda and South Sudan
Return movements of refugees, even when gradual or temporary, are typically understood as part of a process of full repatriation or as a ‘strategy’ for leveraging socio-economic opportunities across borders. However, for some refugees, return is neither a step towards repatriation nor an empowering strategy. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from Uganda and South Sudan, this article shows how, due to gradual reductions in aid and the l…
The economic lives of refugees
The economic lives of refugees are often viewed as relatively homogeneous, and sources of within-group variation remain largely unexplored. We describe the socio-economic diversity of refugees in one particular region: East Africa. Drawing upon first-hand quantitative and qualitative data collected in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia (n = 8,996), the article systematically compares 12 refugee subpopulations living in seven refugee camps and the three …
Humanitarian Assistance as Performance? Expectations and Mismatches Between Aid Agencies and Refugee Beneficiaries
When relief organisations provide assistance for refugees, aid providers expect particular responses from their beneficiaries that align with the desired outcomes of a given intervention. Yet, in practice, refugees often do not 'perform' to the script prepared by the organisations. When refugees' responses to aid interventions fall outside of expectations, some aid workers struggle to understand the causes of mismatches, leading to the creation o…
The role of developmental ‘buzzwords’ in the international refugee regime: Self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion
Buzzwords play an important role in setting up the scope and direction of aid policies. Alongside the growing focus on development-led approaches in the international refugee regime, three buzzwords – self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion – have achieved particular prominence in recent refugee policy-making. Drawing upon a review of policy documents and multi-sited empirical research in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article gives a detaile…
Refugee mobilities in East Africa: Understanding Secondary Movements
There is significant policy interest in refugee migration, particularly in relation to ‘secondary movements’ – the movement of refugees from the first country in which they arrive. Yet, there is very little theoretical or empirical research on refugee mobilities in the Global South, where the overwhelming majority of refugees reside. Existing literature on refugee migration focuses mainly on people who have already selected onward migration to th…
Social Cohesion and Refugee-Host Interactions: Evidence from East Africa
Building upon the literature on contact theory, this paper explores the role of inter-group interaction in shaping social cohesion between refugees and host communities in East Africa. It draws upon first-hand quantitative (n=16,608) and qualitative data collected from refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-like contexts in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. Focusing on the Uganda data, OLS regressions reveal a positive and significant …
The ‘Private’ Sphere of Integration? Reconfiguring Gender Roles Within Syrian Refugee Families in the UK
Drawing on qualitative research with resettled Syrian refugee families in Oxfordshire, UK, this article explores changes in gender roles and norms within these families. While issues related to the integration of refugees have been a central concern in policy discussions in the Global North, most research undertaken has been ‘gender-blind’, consequently making invisible the different experiences encountered by male and female refugees in the proc…
Refugees welcome? Inter-group interaction and host community attitude formation
Building upon the literature on attitudes to immigration, which mainly focuses on Europe and North America, this article explores the role of inter-group interaction in influencing host community attitudes towards refugees in East Africa. It draws upon first-hand quantitative (n = 16,608) and qualitative data collected from refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-like contexts in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Focusing on the Uganda …
Rethinking self-reliance and economic inclusion of refugees through a distributive lens: A case study from Uganda
This article examines trends in Uganda’s refugee protection model based on self-reliance and economic inclusion. It does this through a lens of distribution. While self-reliance and economic inclusion are increasingly centralised in the international refugee regime as tools of empowerment that benefit both refugees and their hosts, policymakers largely fail to consider the distribution and availability of local resources in promoting these ideas.…
Transnational blindness: International institutions and refugees’ cross-border activities
The Dollo Ado refugee camps, located close to the Ethiopian-Somali border, have been a major focus for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR)'s attempts to build livelihoods for refugees and the host community. The context presents an analytical puzzle: despite the importance of cross-border activity to refugees’ socioeconomic lives, such transnational activity has been institutionally invisible to and hindered by the international agencies se…
Refugee livelihoods: A comparative analysis of Nairobi and Kakuma Camp in Kenya
The quantity of literature on the livelihoods of refugees is increasing, yet there is a lack of comparative analysis of their strategies in this regard vis-à-vis their host communities and living locations. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the city of Nairobi and Kakuma Camp in Kenya in 2016-17, this paper narrows the gap by presenting an examination of the economic activities in which refugees in different contexts engage, and highlighting some…
Self-reliance and Social Networks: Explaining Refugees’ Reluctance to Relocate from Kakuma to Kalobeyei
In 2016, refugees in the Kakuma camps in Kenya were offered the opportunity to relocate to the new Kalobeyei settlement, which ostensibly offered a better set of opportunities. While it was portrayed by the international community as objectively better for refugees’ autonomy and socio-economic prospects, most refugees in Kakuma viewed the opportunity differently. Less than 16 per cent of refugees who heard about Kalobeyei were willing to be reset…
The Kalobeyei Settlement: A Self-reliance Model for Refugees
In 2016, the Kalobeyei refugee settlement was created, just 3.5 kilometres from the Kakuma camps in Kenya. In a departure from Kenya’s policy of not allowing refugees to work, its aim was to provide self-reliance to refugees and greater refugee–host interaction. But are refugee policies and programmes in Kalobeyei really different from those in Kakuma? If so, what are the differences? And do these differences actually translate into different sel…
Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees
This article provides a critical examination of the current extensive promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees. The existing scholarship largely ignores the unsuccessful historical record of international assistance to foster refugees’ self-reliance and fails to discuss its problematic linkages to neoliberalism and the notion of ‘dependency’. The article reveals that the current conceptualisation and practice of self-reliance are largely shaped …
Promoting the economic reintegration of returnees through vocational training: Lessons from Liberia
Through a follow-up study, this article explores the role of vocational training programmes in promoting the economic reintegration of repatriated refugees in Liberia. In 2014, we conducted an initial study on livelihood outcomes of vocational training programmes provided by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization for Liberian returnees. By tracing the trained returnees two years after the completion of training, the article invest…
The Myth of Self-Reliance: Economic Lives Inside a Liberian Refugee Camp
Thrive or Survive? Explaining Variation in Economic Outcomes for Refugees
In the context of protracted refugee situations, there has been a revival in concern among policymakers to transcend the so-called humanitarian-development divide and create greater opportunities for self-reliance. Yet, these discussions too often neglect an analytical focus on refugees' own economic lives, and their own interactions with markets. Despite a growing literature on the economic lives of refugees, much of that work has lacked theory …
Thrive or Survive? Explaining Variation in Economic Outcomes for Refugees
In the context of protracted refugee situations, there has been a revival in concern among policymakers to transcend the so-called humanitariandevelopment divide and create greater opportunities for self-reliance. Yet, these discussions too often neglect an analytical focus on refugees’ own economic lives, and their own interactions with markets. Despite a growing literature on the economic lives of refugees, much of that work has lacked theory o…
Unwelcome Participation, Undesirable Agency? Paradoxes of De-Politicisation in a Refugee Camp
Drawing upon a chronological review of the camp’s political history, this article investigates the political dynamics inside a Liberian refugee camp, with a particular emphasis on the rivalry between the official refugee representation and informal opposition groups. Refugee-governing bodies often actively discourage political activity within refugee camps, perceiving it as a source of trouble. The de-politicisation of refugees, however, contradi…
The Concerned Women of Buduburam: Refugee Activists and Humanitarian Dilemmas. by Elizabeth Holzer
Refugee Economies: Forced Displacement and Development
Refugees have rarely been studied by economists. Despite some pioneering research on the economic lives of refugees, there remains a lack of theory and empirical data through which to understand, and build upon, refugees' own engagement with markets. Yet understanding these economic systems may hold the key to rethinking our entire approach to refugee assistance. If we can improve our knowledge of the resource allocation systems that shape refuge…
Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity. Edited by Amanda Hammar
Given the scarcity of conceptual work on the economic lives of displaced populations, Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity , edited by Amanda Hammar, is a welcome contribution. The main question of this collection is: What does displacement generate in terms of economies? As the subtitle of the book suggests, the concept of ‘paradox’ is key to unpacking this question. While displacement often dismantles people’s pr…
The End of Refugee Life
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNaohiko OmataNaohiko Omata, Ph.D., is a Research Officer of the Humanitarian Innovation Project at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]
Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees
This article provides a critical examination of the current extensive promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees. The existing scholarship largely ignores the unsuccessful historical record of international assistance to foster refugees’ self-reliance and fails to discuss its problematic linkages to neoliberalism and the notion of ‘dependency’. The article reveals that the current conceptualisation and practice of self-reliance are largely shaped …
Refugee Economies: Forced Displacement and Development
Refugees have rarely been studied by economists. Despite some pioneering research on the economic lives of refugees, there remains a lack of theory and empirical data through which to understand, and build upon, refugees' own engagement with markets. Yet understanding these economic systems may hold the key to rethinking our entire approach to refugee assistance. If we can improve our knowledge of the resource allocation systems that shape refuge…
The Kalobeyei Settlement: A Self-reliance Model for Refugees
In 2016, the Kalobeyei refugee settlement was created, just 3.5 kilometres from the Kakuma camps in Kenya. In a departure from Kenya’s policy of not allowing refugees to work, its aim was to provide self-reliance to refugees and greater refugee–host interaction. But are refugee policies and programmes in Kalobeyei really different from those in Kakuma? If so, what are the differences? And do these differences actually translate into different sel…
Self-reliance and Social Networks: Explaining Refugees’ Reluctance to Relocate from Kakuma to Kalobeyei
In 2016, refugees in the Kakuma camps in Kenya were offered the opportunity to relocate to the new Kalobeyei settlement, which ostensibly offered a better set of opportunities. While it was portrayed by the international community as objectively better for refugees’ autonomy and socio-economic prospects, most refugees in Kakuma viewed the opportunity differently. Less than 16 per cent of refugees who heard about Kalobeyei were willing to be reset…
The role of developmental ‘buzzwords’ in the international refugee regime: Self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion
Buzzwords play an important role in setting up the scope and direction of aid policies. Alongside the growing focus on development-led approaches in the international refugee regime, three buzzwords – self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion – have achieved particular prominence in recent refugee policy-making. Drawing upon a review of policy documents and multi-sited empirical research in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article gives a detaile…
Refugees welcome? Inter-group interaction and host community attitude formation
Building upon the literature on attitudes to immigration, which mainly focuses on Europe and North America, this article explores the role of inter-group interaction in influencing host community attitudes towards refugees in East Africa. It draws upon first-hand quantitative (n = 16,608) and qualitative data collected from refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-like contexts in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Focusing on the Uganda …
The Complexity of Refugees' Return Decision-Making in a Protracted Exile: Beyond the Home-Coming Model and Durable Solutions
This article challenges the static conception of repatriation by demonstrating the dynamic and complicated nature of refugees’ return decision-making through in-depth case studies of Liberian refugees in Ghana. Institutions dealing with refugees tend to depict repatriation as a ‘home-coming’, a natural return movement driven by refugees’ desire to go back to a homeland following the termination of the root causes of their forced displacement. Giv…
Refugee livelihoods: A comparative analysis of Nairobi and Kakuma Camp in Kenya
The quantity of literature on the livelihoods of refugees is increasing, yet there is a lack of comparative analysis of their strategies in this regard vis-à-vis their host communities and living locations. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the city of Nairobi and Kakuma Camp in Kenya in 2016-17, this paper narrows the gap by presenting an examination of the economic activities in which refugees in different contexts engage, and highlighting some…
The economic lives of refugees
The economic lives of refugees are often viewed as relatively homogeneous, and sources of within-group variation remain largely unexplored. We describe the socio-economic diversity of refugees in one particular region: East Africa. Drawing upon first-hand quantitative and qualitative data collected in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia (n = 8,996), the article systematically compares 12 refugee subpopulations living in seven refugee camps and the three …
Rethinking self-reliance and economic inclusion of refugees through a distributive lens: A case study from Uganda
This article examines trends in Uganda’s refugee protection model based on self-reliance and economic inclusion. It does this through a lens of distribution. While self-reliance and economic inclusion are increasingly centralised in the international refugee regime as tools of empowerment that benefit both refugees and their hosts, policymakers largely fail to consider the distribution and availability of local resources in promoting these ideas.…
Unwelcome Participation, Undesirable Agency? Paradoxes of De-Politicisation in a Refugee Camp
Drawing upon a chronological review of the camp’s political history, this article investigates the political dynamics inside a Liberian refugee camp, with a particular emphasis on the rivalry between the official refugee representation and informal opposition groups. Refugee-governing bodies often actively discourage political activity within refugee camps, perceiving it as a source of trouble. The de-politicisation of refugees, however, contradi…
Refugee mobilities in East Africa: Understanding Secondary Movements
There is significant policy interest in refugee migration, particularly in relation to ‘secondary movements’ – the movement of refugees from the first country in which they arrive. Yet, there is very little theoretical or empirical research on refugee mobilities in the Global South, where the overwhelming majority of refugees reside. Existing literature on refugee migration focuses mainly on people who have already selected onward migration to th…
Thrive or Survive? Explaining Variation in Economic Outcomes for Refugees
In the context of protracted refugee situations, there has been a revival in concern among policymakers to transcend the so-called humanitarian-development divide and create greater opportunities for self-reliance. Yet, these discussions too often neglect an analytical focus on refugees' own economic lives, and their own interactions with markets. Despite a growing literature on the economic lives of refugees, much of that work has lacked theory …
Thrive or Survive? Explaining Variation in Economic Outcomes for Refugees
In the context of protracted refugee situations, there has been a revival in concern among policymakers to transcend the so-called humanitariandevelopment divide and create greater opportunities for self-reliance. Yet, these discussions too often neglect an analytical focus on refugees’ own economic lives, and their own interactions with markets. Despite a growing literature on the economic lives of refugees, much of that work has lacked theory o…
The End of Refugee Life
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNaohiko OmataNaohiko Omata, Ph.D., is a Research Officer of the Humanitarian Innovation Project at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]
Humanitarian Assistance as Performance? Expectations and Mismatches Between Aid Agencies and Refugee Beneficiaries
When relief organisations provide assistance for refugees, aid providers expect particular responses from their beneficiaries that align with the desired outcomes of a given intervention. Yet, in practice, refugees often do not 'perform' to the script prepared by the organisations. When refugees' responses to aid interventions fall outside of expectations, some aid workers struggle to understand the causes of mismatches, leading to the creation o…
Transnational blindness: International institutions and refugees’ cross-border activities
The Dollo Ado refugee camps, located close to the Ethiopian-Somali border, have been a major focus for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR)'s attempts to build livelihoods for refugees and the host community. The context presents an analytical puzzle: despite the importance of cross-border activity to refugees’ socioeconomic lives, such transnational activity has been institutionally invisible to and hindered by the international agencies se…
The Concerned Women of Buduburam: Refugee Activists and Humanitarian Dilemmas. by Elizabeth Holzer
Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity. Edited by Amanda Hammar
Given the scarcity of conceptual work on the economic lives of displaced populations, Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity , edited by Amanda Hammar, is a welcome contribution. The main question of this collection is: What does displacement generate in terms of economies? As the subtitle of the book suggests, the concept of ‘paradox’ is key to unpacking this question. While displacement often dismantles people’s pr…
The Complexity of Refugees' Return Decision-Making in a Protracted Exile: Beyond the Home-Coming Model and Durable Solutions
This article challenges the static conception of repatriation by demonstrating the dynamic and complicated nature of refugees’ return decision-making through in-depth case studies of Liberian refugees in Ghana. Institutions dealing with refugees tend to depict repatriation as a ‘home-coming’, a natural return movement driven by refugees’ desire to go back to a homeland following the termination of the root causes of their forced displacement. Giv…
The End of Refugee Life
Additional informationNotes on contributorsNaohiko OmataNaohiko Omata, Ph.D., is a Research Officer of the Humanitarian Innovation Project at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]
Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity. Edited by Amanda Hammar
Given the scarcity of conceptual work on the economic lives of displaced populations, Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity , edited by Amanda Hammar, is a welcome contribution. The main question of this collection is: What does displacement generate in terms of economies? As the subtitle of the book suggests, the concept of ‘paradox’ is key to unpacking this question. While displacement often dismantles people’s pr…
Refugee Economies: Forced Displacement and Development
Refugees have rarely been studied by economists. Despite some pioneering research on the economic lives of refugees, there remains a lack of theory and empirical data through which to understand, and build upon, refugees' own engagement with markets. Yet understanding these economic systems may hold the key to rethinking our entire approach to refugee assistance. If we can improve our knowledge of the resource allocation systems that shape refuge…
The Myth of Self-Reliance: Economic Lives Inside a Liberian Refugee Camp
Thrive or Survive? Explaining Variation in Economic Outcomes for Refugees
In the context of protracted refugee situations, there has been a revival in concern among policymakers to transcend the so-called humanitarian-development divide and create greater opportunities for self-reliance. Yet, these discussions too often neglect an analytical focus on refugees' own economic lives, and their own interactions with markets. Despite a growing literature on the economic lives of refugees, much of that work has lacked theory …
Thrive or Survive? Explaining Variation in Economic Outcomes for Refugees
In the context of protracted refugee situations, there has been a revival in concern among policymakers to transcend the so-called humanitariandevelopment divide and create greater opportunities for self-reliance. Yet, these discussions too often neglect an analytical focus on refugees’ own economic lives, and their own interactions with markets. Despite a growing literature on the economic lives of refugees, much of that work has lacked theory o…
Unwelcome Participation, Undesirable Agency? Paradoxes of De-Politicisation in a Refugee Camp
Drawing upon a chronological review of the camp’s political history, this article investigates the political dynamics inside a Liberian refugee camp, with a particular emphasis on the rivalry between the official refugee representation and informal opposition groups. Refugee-governing bodies often actively discourage political activity within refugee camps, perceiving it as a source of trouble. The de-politicisation of refugees, however, contradi…
The Concerned Women of Buduburam: Refugee Activists and Humanitarian Dilemmas. by Elizabeth Holzer
Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees
This article provides a critical examination of the current extensive promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees. The existing scholarship largely ignores the unsuccessful historical record of international assistance to foster refugees’ self-reliance and fails to discuss its problematic linkages to neoliberalism and the notion of ‘dependency’. The article reveals that the current conceptualisation and practice of self-reliance are largely shaped …
Promoting the economic reintegration of returnees through vocational training: Lessons from Liberia
Through a follow-up study, this article explores the role of vocational training programmes in promoting the economic reintegration of repatriated refugees in Liberia. In 2014, we conducted an initial study on livelihood outcomes of vocational training programmes provided by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization for Liberian returnees. By tracing the trained returnees two years after the completion of training, the article invest…
Self-reliance and Social Networks: Explaining Refugees’ Reluctance to Relocate from Kakuma to Kalobeyei
In 2016, refugees in the Kakuma camps in Kenya were offered the opportunity to relocate to the new Kalobeyei settlement, which ostensibly offered a better set of opportunities. While it was portrayed by the international community as objectively better for refugees’ autonomy and socio-economic prospects, most refugees in Kakuma viewed the opportunity differently. Less than 16 per cent of refugees who heard about Kalobeyei were willing to be reset…
The Kalobeyei Settlement: A Self-reliance Model for Refugees
In 2016, the Kalobeyei refugee settlement was created, just 3.5 kilometres from the Kakuma camps in Kenya. In a departure from Kenya’s policy of not allowing refugees to work, its aim was to provide self-reliance to refugees and greater refugee–host interaction. But are refugee policies and programmes in Kalobeyei really different from those in Kakuma? If so, what are the differences? And do these differences actually translate into different sel…
Transnational blindness: International institutions and refugees’ cross-border activities
The Dollo Ado refugee camps, located close to the Ethiopian-Somali border, have been a major focus for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR)'s attempts to build livelihoods for refugees and the host community. The context presents an analytical puzzle: despite the importance of cross-border activity to refugees’ socioeconomic lives, such transnational activity has been institutionally invisible to and hindered by the international agencies se…
Refugee livelihoods: A comparative analysis of Nairobi and Kakuma Camp in Kenya
The quantity of literature on the livelihoods of refugees is increasing, yet there is a lack of comparative analysis of their strategies in this regard vis-à-vis their host communities and living locations. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the city of Nairobi and Kakuma Camp in Kenya in 2016-17, this paper narrows the gap by presenting an examination of the economic activities in which refugees in different contexts engage, and highlighting some…
Social Cohesion and Refugee-Host Interactions: Evidence from East Africa
Building upon the literature on contact theory, this paper explores the role of inter-group interaction in shaping social cohesion between refugees and host communities in East Africa. It draws upon first-hand quantitative (n=16,608) and qualitative data collected from refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-like contexts in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. Focusing on the Uganda data, OLS regressions reveal a positive and significant …
The ‘Private’ Sphere of Integration? Reconfiguring Gender Roles Within Syrian Refugee Families in the UK
Drawing on qualitative research with resettled Syrian refugee families in Oxfordshire, UK, this article explores changes in gender roles and norms within these families. While issues related to the integration of refugees have been a central concern in policy discussions in the Global North, most research undertaken has been ‘gender-blind’, consequently making invisible the different experiences encountered by male and female refugees in the proc…
Refugees welcome? Inter-group interaction and host community attitude formation
Building upon the literature on attitudes to immigration, which mainly focuses on Europe and North America, this article explores the role of inter-group interaction in influencing host community attitudes towards refugees in East Africa. It draws upon first-hand quantitative (n = 16,608) and qualitative data collected from refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-like contexts in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Focusing on the Uganda …
Rethinking self-reliance and economic inclusion of refugees through a distributive lens: A case study from Uganda
This article examines trends in Uganda’s refugee protection model based on self-reliance and economic inclusion. It does this through a lens of distribution. While self-reliance and economic inclusion are increasingly centralised in the international refugee regime as tools of empowerment that benefit both refugees and their hosts, policymakers largely fail to consider the distribution and availability of local resources in promoting these ideas.…
The role of developmental ‘buzzwords’ in the international refugee regime: Self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion
Buzzwords play an important role in setting up the scope and direction of aid policies. Alongside the growing focus on development-led approaches in the international refugee regime, three buzzwords – self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion – have achieved particular prominence in recent refugee policy-making. Drawing upon a review of policy documents and multi-sited empirical research in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article gives a detaile…
Refugee mobilities in East Africa: Understanding Secondary Movements
There is significant policy interest in refugee migration, particularly in relation to ‘secondary movements’ – the movement of refugees from the first country in which they arrive. Yet, there is very little theoretical or empirical research on refugee mobilities in the Global South, where the overwhelming majority of refugees reside. Existing literature on refugee migration focuses mainly on people who have already selected onward migration to th…
The economic lives of refugees
The economic lives of refugees are often viewed as relatively homogeneous, and sources of within-group variation remain largely unexplored. We describe the socio-economic diversity of refugees in one particular region: East Africa. Drawing upon first-hand quantitative and qualitative data collected in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia (n = 8,996), the article systematically compares 12 refugee subpopulations living in seven refugee camps and the three …
Humanitarian Assistance as Performance? Expectations and Mismatches Between Aid Agencies and Refugee Beneficiaries
When relief organisations provide assistance for refugees, aid providers expect particular responses from their beneficiaries that align with the desired outcomes of a given intervention. Yet, in practice, refugees often do not 'perform' to the script prepared by the organisations. When refugees' responses to aid interventions fall outside of expectations, some aid workers struggle to understand the causes of mismatches, leading to the creation o…
Parenting dilemmas: Syrian refugee families resettled in the UK
Returning to fund refugeehood: Dispersal and survival between Uganda and South Sudan
Return movements of refugees, even when gradual or temporary, are typically understood as part of a process of full repatriation or as a ‘strategy’ for leveraging socio-economic opportunities across borders. However, for some refugees, return is neither a step towards repatriation nor an empowering strategy. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from Uganda and South Sudan, this article shows how, due to gradual reductions in aid and the l…
Refugee (25 works) · Political science (24 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (17 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (16 works) · Economics (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Geography (11 works) · Development economics (10 works)