Refugees, conflict and the search for belonging

2 Confl ict and Displacement, Citizenship and Belonging: 3 Living Through Exile: Not Belonging to a State 43 4 Living Through Exile: Belonging to the Local 73 5 Local and National

REFUGEES,

CONFLICT AND THE SEARCH FOR

BELONGING

Lucy Hovil

Refugees, Confl ict and the Search for

Belonging

ISBN 978-3-319-33562-9 ISBN 978-3-319-33563-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33563-6

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Lucy   Hovil

International Refugee Rights Initiative

United Kingdom

This book has evolved out of six years of research by the International Refugee Rights Initiative As a result, current and former colleagues have played an invaluable role throughout, and I owe them an enormous debt of gratitude Specifi cally, Olivia Bueno has worked closely on the project from its inception and has been a tireless and constructive critic, and Deirdre Clancy has offered invaluable guidance and inspiration, not least on the legal aspects of the project Suffi ce to say, all mistakes (legal or otherwise) remain my own Josh DeWind of the Migration Program of the Social Science Research Council was instrumental in helping to initiate the project and subsequently giving the benefi t of his wisdom I am also grate-ful to Zachary Lomo who not only acted as an adviser to the project but also shaped many of my ideas during my time at the Refugee Law Project (RLP) in Kampala, Uganda, where he was director Indeed, my eight years

at the RLP was an invaluable learning experience, and I am thankful to all of my former colleagues there I am also indebted to the many indi-vidual researchers with whom I have worked, including Dr Opportuna Kweka of the University of Dar es Salaam, Theodore Mbazumutima of Rema Ministries, Moses Chrispus Okello of the RLP, Joseph Okumu of the Makerere Institute for Social Research, and an anonymous researcher from Darfur It is a measure of the injustice with which so many in Sudan live that he cannot be named I have learnt and benefi tted far more from working with each of  them than they have from working with me In addition, none of the fi eld research or thinking around the project would have been possible without the generous fi nancial support of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Open Society Foundations I am

vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

grateful for their willingness to invest in this project.  I am also deeply indebted to the 1115 people who were willing to give of their time to be interviewed  during the research, often on issues that were deeply pain-ful This book is dedicated to them Finally, I would like to thank Jem, Hudson, Tess and Charlie for supporting me and releasing me go to places, both physical and fi gurative, that others might consider too precarious

I hope this book will be judged for what it is, namely, a refl ection of the ongoing work of a group of activists committed to promoting human rights in situations of confl ict and displacement It is one approach to tack-ling a highly complex problem that demands multiple ideas and methods, and it is precisely that: one approach I hope that it will be of use to those who want to understand better the complexities of confl ict and displace-ment in a particular region, and that it will complement the work of others striving for a world in which those in exile are no longer left stranded on the margins

2 Confl ict and Displacement, Citizenship and Belonging:

3 Living Through Exile: (Not) Belonging to a State 43

4 Living Through Exile: Belonging to the Local 73

5 Local and National Belonging in Exile:

6 Marginalised in Sudan, Exiled from Sudan:

7 Refugee Policy Structures:

Promoting or Undermining Belonging? 155

Index 203

Map 1.1 Scope of the fi eld research within the

broader African context 13 Map 1.2 Detail of sites where fi eld research took place

(excluding Khartoum and Darfur) 14

fi erce opposition, and protests rocked the capital Bujumbura Although

an attempted coup d’état in May 2015 was quelled, the situation rapidly escalated and Burundi, a country with a long history of mass violence that had been negotiating a protracted and painful transition towards peace since the signing of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in August 2000, was once more destabilised By the end of 2015, more than 225,000 refugees had fl ed to neighbouring states, 1 reversing a mas-sive repatriation exercise that had been carried out since 2002 in which approximately half a million refugees had returned to Burundi While the international community seemed to be caught on the back foot by this mass exodus from the country, few Burundians were surprised They had been reading the signals of a pending crisis for months—in fact, years Since coming to power, the government had been growing increasingly repressive, deploying a toxic mix of media control, intimidation of civil society and arbitrary arrest of opposition The announcement of President Nkurunziza’s intention to stand for a third term was simply the fi nal straw These events in Burundi, in which the dividends of peace appeared to disintegrate in a matter of days, refl ect many of the dynamics that have haunted Africa’s Great Lakes region 2 for decades Confl ict and displace-ment in the region seem to be as entrenched as they are perplexing With

Introduction

the exception of Tanzania, all the countries in the region have generated refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in large numbers since independence, and all have hosted refugees In addition to postcolo-nial violence that erupted in a number of countries, a pivotal moment

in the region’s more recent history was the 1994 genocide in Rwanda The genocide and the aftershocks it generated led to confl ict and dis-placement on a massive scale as the interconnectedness of countries in the region became painfully apparent Its repercussions continue to be felt today throughout the region and beyond Although stability has been retained or restored in many parts of the region, ongoing confl ict in east-ern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan in December 2013, and the growing crisis in Burundi reveal the region’s continuing vulnerability to confl ict Hundreds of thousands

of people in the region have remained displaced, some for decades, with

no solutions in sight, while thousands of others have found themselves re-displaced

Of course, recurrent episodes of confl ict and violence are not unique to the Great Lakes region One only has to look at the First World War, the war that was supposed to end all wars, to see how one major confl ict can set the stage for another—in this case, the Second World War Yet it is self- evident that there is insuffi cient understanding of and response to violence

in the Great Lakes—indeed, in Africa as a whole While there is, ably, a rich, academic literature that focuses on confl ict in the region and that places confl ict within a broader context of colonialism and postcolo-nialism, it has failed to suffi ciently permeate and infuse both popular and policy-based understandings of confl ict and displacement Instead, there is often a disconnect between realities on the ground and policy responses

indisput-As a result, often in situations of confl ict on the continent an adjective

is prescribed by external commentators that is quickly accepted as pel—most commonly ethnic or tribal, and sometimes sectarian Time and again, this misdiagnosis proves to be a dangerous business Once a label

gos-is fi xed to a confl ict it can become not only a dominant explanation for that confl ict, but can also overly infl uence approaches to resolution It is not surprising, therefore, that ceasefi res, peace agreements and externally enforced power sharing arrangements based on reductive understandings

of causes of confl ict prove to be quick fi xes, little more than holding cises until confl ict breaks out again At the same time, peace agreements

exer-that do incorporate text exer-that addresses drivers of confl ict often fail to be

implemented

By way of an example, for decades, a dominant populist narrative around the war in Sudan was of a war between the Muslim north and the Christian/animist south While some disputed this narrative—and there was also a logic to it that was borne out in reality—this binary represen-tation of confl ict failed to allow for a full understanding of the multiple complex factors driving a war that was, in fact, between a centralised state and multiple sites of marginalisation across the country It is not surprising, therefore, that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that was signed in 2005 was eventually whittled down to only one of its elements—the referendum on the independence of the south—despite its comprehensive provisions on democratisation and political pluralism The referendum neither resolved confl ict in the reduced state of Sudan (as evidenced by renewed confl ict in Darfur and, more recently, in South Kordofan and Blue Nile), nor led to consolidated peace in the newly cre-ated state of South Sudan (now graduated to the label of ‘ethnic’ confl ict) The misdiagnosis of the problem enabled those with short term politi-cal agendas to scrap the democratic transformation agenda that had been included in the CPA, and consequently the secession of the South has failed to generate peace in either Sudan or the new South Sudan

In the same way, the prevalent interpretation of past violence in Rwanda—and, therefore, the response to that violence—has often been reduced to ethnic genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in 1994 There is seldom mention of the broader context of violence (including an ongoing rebel war and attacks on refugees camps in eastern DRC) in which the genocide took place As a result, inadequate recognition has been given of the need

to engage with broader issues of post- confl ict (as opposed to exclusively post- genocide ) recovery, and has enabled the post-genocide government

to avoid scrutiny for its own actions Once again, therefore, it is prising that individuals continue to fl ee Rwanda in fear for their lives as a repressive state feeds off its genocide credit, and that the lack of honest appraisal of what took place during and after the genocide continues to haunt the region, not least in the form of cornered militias in eastern DRC

unsur-trying to fi ght their way out of an alleged génocidaire cul-de-sac

A key problem with placing confl ict into these moulds is that it tions individuals caught up in them—and, often, displaced from them—into one-dimensional categories This approach ignores local realities in

posi-which people create and maintain multiple forms of belonging not least

in order to ensure multiple forms of legitimacy and access to resources These strategies of belonging are highlighted by those who are forced into

INTRODUCTION 3

exile either within their own state or outside of it While not denying that people might identify themselves along ethnic and/or sectarian lines—just

as they might identify themselves along gender or economic lines—in a context of multiple forms and expressions of belonging, the reduction of confl ict to binaries inevitably falls wide of the mark These narratives are in direct contrast to a deep and long-developed literature on confl ict, citizen-ship and refugees, and on the exclusionary logics of states and humanitar-ian governance 3 Yet somehow, when it comes to generating appropriate policy responses, they often fail to connect

In response, this book examines the convergence of two problems—the ongoing realities of confl ict and forced migration in the Great Lakes region, and the crisis of citizenship and belonging By bringing them together, the intention is not to create a bigger problem but to see how,

by looking at them in one space, one can point the way towards sible solutions It argues that issues of inclusion and exclusion animate and sustain cycles of violence and displacement in the Great Lakes region and beyond The likelihood of confl ict increases when collective identities are mobilised, politicised and ‘hardened’ by confl ict entrepreneurs, thus reducing the scope for overlapping and multiple identities that would oth-erwise facilitate inter-group relations By the same logic, expanding spaces for belonging becomes an important part of creating the conditions for sustainable peace These spaces are ones in which multiple identities can exist; in which identities are seen as fl uid, ever changing; and in which systems for marking out ‘difference’ are carefully crafted so as to not cre-ate hardened boundaries of insiders and outsiders It argues that citizen-ship and belonging are both the cause and part of a possible resolution to ongoing confl ict and displacement in the region

The lived reality of exile—incorporating both the response of and response to refugees—provides a litmus test for understanding these dynamics of inclusion and exclusion Causes of exile—for instance, groups being discriminated against for their association with a particular identity; the ongoing failures to create new spaces for belonging in exile in which refugees continue to be marginalised from the polity; and the many prob-lems associated with enacting ‘durable solutions’ to displacement – are all evidence of this Therefore, this book explores the multiple factors, dynamics or relationships that revolve around an individual refugee—or group of refugees—and the ways in which these factors enhance or com-promise their ability to belong In turn, it points towards broader issues

of confl ict and demonstrates why, until key issues around belonging are

resolved and are refl ected in equitable governance structures, the region will remain prone to the resurgence of episodes of violence, confl ict and consequent displacement

1.1 OVERVIEW OF THE FIELD RESEARCH

a long and well-developed conversation among scholars and policymakers about the ongoing shortcomings within the refugee policy and humani-tarian regime, produced not just by the regime itself but also by the legal, political and social contexts within countries that host refugees and dis-placed people or who are accepting home returnees In essence, it argues that the logic of exclusion that is at work in formal, legal mechanisms of citizenship in postcolonial states in the Great Lakes colludes with the logic

of the refugee regime (as manifest in the mechanics of humanitarianism), that helps maintain exclusion as the default position for those who have been exiled from their state (and which affects the ability of those dis-placed internally to integrate and the prospects for return of both groups) However, it also argues that the problem is far broader, and lies in the fact that the dilemmas around access to meaningful citizenship that so adversely affect refugees in the Great Lakes region are actually born of the very logic of modern states themselves, not just postcolonial African ones 5

As Agier has argued, many of the problems relating to the humanitarian apparatus or refugee regime stem from its embeddedness in the nation- state model and, indeed, the extent to which it seeks to reproduce tightly defi ned nation-statist forms of governance in managing refugee subjects 6

A total of nine studies were conducted between 2008 and 2012 with refugees, internally displaced groups and returnees in seven countries of

INTRODUCTION 5

the Great Lakes region The book also draws on subsequent visits by the author to the region, including to South Sudan in October 2015 and May

2016, and Burundi in February 2016 The main intention throughout the research was to consider the linkages between confl ict and displacement

on the one hand, and the dynamics of exclusion and access to citizenship

on the other Under this broad framework, specifi c facets were explored

in each of the case studies in order to gain insight into different aspects

of the lived experience of exile and possible resolution to that exile Thus, the main question throughout the research was how issues around access

to citizenship and processes of exclusion affect the experience of ment, and the various forms of belonging that are deployed by those who

displace-are displaced in order to best fi nd safety (freedom from fear and freedom

from want) in exile The scope was simultaneously broad and specifi c The book does not offer full historical analyses of the many complex contextual issues that would allow each case study to become a book in its own right; there is already a rich literature that has done this However, it does use intensely context-specifi c studies to illuminate the argument

In its analysis, the book draws together two connected, but slightly different, approaches to understanding the dynamics of confl ict, displace-ment and belonging in the Great Lakes region In effect, the purpose is

to utilise two lenses which, when combined, show where a situation is brought into focus, and where it is distorted The fi rst lens, a primarily legal and policy one, engages with many of the categories and assumptions that lie behind the primarily state-centric and legal framework in which refugees 7 are supposed to exist The second, a more socio- anthropological lens, seeks to deprioritise, or even discard, these categorisations and instead look at forms of belonging and exclusion that exist despite, or in addition to, these structures

The book, therefore, exists in the somewhat murky waters between the demands of refugee legal protection and the rigours of social science research It tries to hold in tension the fact that spaces for refugee protec-tion are continually shrinking and the label, refugee, is a crucial tool for targeting and maintaining a focus on a specifi c legal category of people who are living with the realities of a specifi c set of circumstances Yet at the same time, realities on the ground demonstrate that refugees have multiple identities, deploy multiple coping strategies, and often defy tidy categories that inevitably fall wide of the mark This tension is refl ected

in broader debates between those who emphasise the need to maintain a distinctive category of ‘refugee’ within policy discussions, and those who

assert that these distinctions do not refl ect realities on the ground and therefore should either be discarded or be changed

In the case of the former, preservation of the neatly defi ned category of refugee is seen as crucial: the language of human rights generally, and refu-gee rights specifi cally, provides a tool for those targeting national and inter-national policymakers It ensures an arsenal of international (and hopefully national) legislation that can back up demands for promoting the rights

of refugees Those who fall into this camp are often practitioners who are working specifi cally within a human rights agenda, and who recognise that the shrinking space for protection for refugees makes this a category in need of protection Indeed, they see any collapsing of categories as a threat

to refugee protection The author identifi es strongly with this perspective Yet the fi ndings also demonstrate that the shortcomings of such an approach need to be recognised: the rigidity of categorisation can all too often lead to an over-reliance on policy-driven approaches that are, by nature, a somewhat blunt instrument that fails to interact suffi ciently with the context Therefore, the book also resonates with a signifi cant and growing body of (primarily academic) literature that emphasises the grey areas of overlapping legal and social identities and challenges many of the either/or categories (refugee and returnee; home and exile; migrant and forced migrant) that are inadequate in dealing with multiple and multi- faceted realities 8 In other words, an approach that endorses the collaps-ing of categories This expanding of categories is intuitively appealing for those who are comfortable dealing with ambiguities and who recognise that tidy legal categories rarely refl ect reality

This book seeks to hold these two viewpoints in tension As a result,

on the one hand there was a clear policy dimension to the study: the need for citizenship and refugee policy to be realigned, and the way in which this might take place, was unashamedly part of the motivation in carrying out the research At the same time, the approach was mindful of the need

to ensure that the research was not driven by these policy imperatives,

and that the fi ndings were able to speak for themselves regardless of the

policy context In many respects, the extent to which the scholarly fi eld of forced migration has emanated from a strong policy foundation driven by impulses to understand and address complex intertwined legal and social issues relating to displacement has created a co-dependence between policy and ‘refugee’ research (and researchers) This co-dependence has remained a defi ning feature, and research is often judged and defi ned by its relevance—or ability—to engender positive change Yet at the same

INTRODUCTION 7

time there is a growing body of literature that questions the utility of an approach that has become so strongly policy-driven This critique focuses

on the extent to which policy-driven research agendas create a somewhat impoverished debate (for instance, through leaving many forced migrants invisible), 9 and questions the extent to which policy has relevance at all in the midst of the lives of those who are supposedly its ‘benefi ciaries’ 10 This research deliberately sought to pull these two approaches together—even though, at times, it has created a somewhat awkward hybrid It was action- oriented in its outlook, but sought to allow the context to drive any action that was promoted, rather than the other way round

Qualitative methods of data collection were used, conducting one-on- one interviews with refugees, members of the host population and relevant offi cials in each of the seven countries where fi eldwork was conducted A total of 1115 individual interviews were conducted in all Relevant policy documents and articles on refugees, displacement, repatriation and citi-zenship were also incorporated into each individual study Field research was, for the most part, conducted by teams of researchers, all of whom were trained and led by the author 11 In each case study we drew upon existing networks of organisations and individuals working in the country

in which the study was taking place We ensured that there was always diversity in language skills, ethnicity, gender and nationality within each team; and we were careful to minimise the negative impact of ‘gatekeep-ers’ who might want to control the information we received To the extent possible, interviews took place in the language in which the interviewee was most comfortable We sought to avoid the use of translators where possible, instead recruiting fi eld researchers who had the relevant lan-guage skills We also had to adapt our methodology to highly complex security environments Some of the research was conducted in locations where confl ict was ongoing, which inevitably created specifi c challenges The details of these adaptations are, by necessity, opaque Needless to say, the security and safety of those with whom we worked, and those who were interviewed by us, was paramount throughout

The fi rst and ninth studies (2008 and 2012) focused on Burundian ugees who had been living in Tanzania for decades and had been offered naturalisation in Tanzania The research asked whether this process con-stituted a model for genuine integration that could create new forms of national and local belonging and challenge current obsession with return

ref-as the most favourable durable solution 12 The fi ndings showed that the legal grant of citizenship was not enough The government of Tanzania

had made citizenship contingent upon refugees/new citizens dispersing and relocating across the country, which had both undermined the fea-sibility of the offer and threatened livelihoods To be effective, citizen-ship must be equal and it must enhance local forms of attachment and connection that are most likely to enable enjoyment of the rights of citi-zenship at the national level

The second study (2009) considered the realities facing Burundians

who had chosen to return to Burundi The fi ndings showed that the

spe-cifi c ways in which communities recreate belonging at the point of return

must be acknowledged if repatriation is to allow for a genuine restoration

of the bond between former refugees and the state Specifi cally, access to land—and often a particular piece of land—was inextricably connected to local belonging within the communities It was a crucial marker of the res-toration of a broader sense of belonging and represented not just access to livelihoods and a vital coping mechanism in a context of extreme poverty, but symbolised connection with the past, a reaffi rmation of inclusion and belonging and the reclamation of a ‘lost’ citizenship In other words, in the localities in which return was taking place, return, land and citizen-ship questions were shown to be intricately intertwined A true sense of citizenship was commonly understood as contingent upon possession or repossession and ownership of land in one’s locality, a theme that reso-nated throughout other studies, especially the fourth study on the return

of Congolese refugees living in Rwanda to North Kivu

The third study (2010) considered the situation facing Rwandan gees in Uganda who were being put under immense pressure from the government of Uganda and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to return to Rwanda It was clear that Rwanda viewed the existence of refugees as an indicator that its post-confl ict res-toration of the state was incomplete The fi ndings showed, however, that refugees did not believe in the genuineness of the invitation to reactivate their citizenship: they saw the current Rwandan state as a place that could not offer them either protection or access to livelihoods They requested alternative forms of belonging that would allow them to retain their Rwandan citizenship but at the same time facilitate their mobility and access to opportunities in either their current host States or other States in the region and beyond

The fourth study (2010) considered issues of belonging for those placed within or from eastern DRC’s North Kivu province Despite a new citizenship law at the national level that affi rmed the citizenship of the

dis-INTRODUCTION 9

majority of those interviewed, it was clear that their belonging at a local level was being strongly contested and manipulated by both those in power and those who considered themselves to be more indigenous to the region than others In particular, the extent to which groups and individuals had identifi ed along ethnic rather than national lines (particularly where the former cross national boundaries) during the confl ict had revealed a per-ceived level of split allegiance by some groups towards the State of the DRC that was considered unacceptable within the strongly nationalist dis-course on Congolese identity and citizenship Belonging and citizenship

at the local level did not necessarily translate into national belonging, and vice versa Indigeneity determined access to and possession of land, which

in turn determined access to citizenship This interpretation of nationality showed the huge gap between law and the lived reality of inclusion The fi fth study (2010) focused on the return of refugees from Uganda

to South Sudan in the run-up to the country’s secession from Sudan By examining the way in which refugees themselves were going about manag-ing the process of return, it demonstrated that the rigidity of humanitarian categories and policies can undermine refugees’ coping mechanisms and creativity as political actors to identify durable solutions to their problems Freedom of movement was critical to allow people the ability to make the most out of meagre resources and a volatile security situation In other words, the casting of return and exile in black and white were not useful and did not refl ect complex realities on the ground

The sixth case study (2011), which focused on Congolese refugees living in camps in Rwanda, demonstrated the need for  repatriation to

be negotiated not only at a national level but also at a local level For this group of refugees, their very choice of exile in Rwanda had marked them out as a group that had no legitimacy to return because rightly or wrongly, their allegiance was viewed as questionable and their belonging

at the local level lacked genuine links to history of indigeneity Yet, in exile they were being denied even minimal opportunities for integration The result was a double exclusion—no access to local integration in Rwanda, and little hope of viable return At the same time, however, fi nding ways of ensuring the safe negotiated return that addressed the intricate factors that defi ne belonging at the local level for this group was essential to progres-sively changing the dynamics that engender exclusion and inclusion on the ground in DRC and halting the cycles of confl ict perpetuated by these manufactured exclusions

The seventh study (2012) looked at the realities facing those who had fl ed from Darfur and were living in the new state of South Sudan

It showed that the same mechanisms of exclusion that had led to South Sudan’s secession were now in danger of creating a new form of margin-alisation for those who were not viewed as part of the new South Sudan, yet had been rejected from (North) Sudan This study fl owed into the eighth study (2012), which was based on interviews with individuals living

in Khartoum who identifi ed themselves as being either from South Sudan

or from one of the confl ict-affected areas of Sudan (specifi cally Darfur, Southern Kordofan and the Blue Nile States) It demonstrated that the same logic of discrimination that forced them from their homes had been replicated in Khartoum where they continued to be treated as second-class citizens at best, and stateless at worst

1.2 OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

The book draws on these case studies throughout the chapters It begins with a theoretical framing for the book, providing an over-view of confl ict dynamics in the region set in an historical context; a description of the subsequent refugee crises throughout the region; and an  exploration of the distinctions between citizenship (as a legal construct) and belonging (as a lived reality) The third chapter focuses

on the relevance and nature of national belonging for those in exile It explores the extent to which national citizenship of the ‘home’ country has retained its validity; and considers the extent to which there are (or are not) opportunities to form new bonds of national belonging within the host country

The fourth chapter argues that securing legal citizenship does not matically translate into access to rights or inclusion in the locality in which

auto-a person is living (auto-and, indeed, vice versauto-a) It therefore explores how ugees create—or fail to create—spaces for belonging within the specifi c place in which they are living Drawing on a number of case studies, it considers some of the many components to belonging, from (amongst others) the ability to access land or other resources crucial to livelihoods,

ref-to community collaboration—the ability ‘ref-to borrow salt from your bours’ Specifi cally, it differentiates between local integration as a policy- implemented solution to ending exile, and the multiple ways in which

neigh-refugees create local forms of belonging despite the policy context

INTRODUCTION 11

The fi fth chapter looks at the interaction between local and national belonging, and considers both the extent to which they function indepen-dently of each other, and the extent to which they are interdependent It explores vulnerabilities that are created when refugees create local legiti-macy but lack national belonging; and vice versa Ultimately it argues that for refugees to fi nd a place of safety they need to create both local and national bonds of belonging that legitimise their right to not only live in a certain place, but to access resources

The sixth chapter has a more specifi c geographical focus It brings together many of the dynamics around local and national belonging through a consideration of dynamics of citizenship and belonging for those living within or in exile from Sudan It focuses on a specifi c moment

in the history of citizenship, as the country transitioned into two separate states—Sudan and South Sudan—as the result of a redrawing of colonial boundaries that was almost unprecedented It looks at the intersection between citizenship and displacement in the context of those living on the margins in Khartoum; and those who were displaced from their homeland

of Darfur, and found themselves living on the ‘wrong’ side of the der—that is, in South Sudan—at the point of its independence

The seventh chapter considers the extent to which refugee policies, and the way in which these have translated into humanitarian structures

on the ground, have rarely refl ected the complex realities of inclusion and exclusion—realities that are often poorly understood by the outsider; are often poorly constructed; and are then often poorly implemented Humanitarian categories tend to ‘fi x’ belonging into rigid categories that are not only ineffi cient but can create harm for those they are supposed

to protect Thus the chapter considers the extent to which tualised, depoliticised humanitarianism has often done more harm than good in the search for ‘durable solutions’ In particular, the emphasis on the encampment of refugees and the impact this has had on the ability

decontex-of refugees to create spaces for belonging will be explored Finally, the conclusion draws out some of the overall themes from the research, using the notion of ‘marginalisation’ as a key organising principal lying at the centre of the analysis

SOUTH SUDAN

Khartoum

Juba

Nairobi Bujumbura

Kigali

Dar es Salaam

TANZANIA

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE

CONGO Kampala KENYA

Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Zambia However, for the purposes of this book, Angola, Zambia and CAR are not a primary focus

3 See, for instance, Michel Agier, (2011) Managing the Undesirables,

Cambridge: Polity Press

4 ‘The disappearance of Sudan? Life in Khartoum for citizens without rights’, (2013); “I can’t be a citizen if I am still a refugee’: Challenges in the naturali- sation process for Burundians in Tanzania’, (2013); ‘Darfurians in South Sudan: Negotiating belonging in two Sudans, (2012); ‘Shadows of Return: the dilemma of Congolese Refugees in Rwanda’, (2011); ‘Hoping for Peace, Afraid of War: the Dilemmas of Repatriation and Belonging on the Borders

of Uganda and South Sudan’, published as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Research Paper (2010) No 196, November; ‘A Dangerous Impasse: Rwandan Refugees in Uganda’, carried out in partnership with the Refugee Law Project, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, (2010); ‘Who Belongs Where? Confl ict, Displacement, Land and Identity in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo’, (2010); “Two People Can’t Wear the Same Pair of Shoes’: Citizenship, Land and the Return of Refugees to Burundi’, carried out in partnership with Rema Ministries (Burundi), (2009); ‘Going Home or Staying Home? Ending Displacement for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania’, carried out in partner- ship with the Centre for the Study of Forced Migration and the University

of Dar es Salaam, (2008) (All on http://www.refugee-rights.org/ Programs/Citizenship/citizenship.html )

5 Lucy Hovil and Zachary Lomo, ( 2015 ) “Forced Displacement and the Crisis of Citizenship in Africa’s Great Lakes Region: Rethinking Refugee Protection and Durable Solutions.” Refuge, Vol 31 (2), December

6 Agier ( 2011 )

7 Although the dominant focus throughout the book is on refugees, it also touches on issues relating to IDPs and returnees This distinction is made

in the presentation of the case study material, but otherwise the term

‘refugee’ is used as a shorthand for a broader set of policies

8 For instance, Tania Kaiser makes the point that simple delineations between home and exile are inadequate for understanding displacement and refugee status Tania Kaiser, (2010) ‘Dispersal, division and diversifi -

cation: durable solutions and Sudanese refugees in Uganda.’ Journal of Eastern African Studies , Vol 4, no 1, March, 44–60, p. 45

9 Oliver Bakewell, (2008) ‘Research Beyond the Categories: The

Importance of Policy Irrelevant Research into Forced Migration.’ Journal

of Refugee Studies, Vol 21 (4), pp. 432–453

10 Loren B.  Landau and Roni Amit, (2014) ‘Wither Policy? Southern African Perspectives on Understanding Law, ‘Refugee’ Policy and

Protection.’ Journal of Refugee Studies 27(4), pp. 534–552

INTRODUCTION 15

11 For more details on the specifi c methodology of each case study, please refer to the relevant working papers All are available at http://www.ref- ugee-rights.org/Programs/Citizenship/citizenship.html

12 The emphasis on repatriation is explained more fully in Chap 7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agier, Michel 2011 Managing the undesirables Cambridge: Polity Press

Bakewell, Oliver 2008 Research beyond the categories: The importance of policy

irrelevant research into forced migration Journal of Refugee Studies 21(4):

International Refugee Rights Initiative 2010 Who belongs where? Confl ict, ment, land and identity in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo , March

International Refugee Rights Initiative 2011 Darfurians in South Sudan: Negotiating belonging in two Sudans , May 2012; Shadows of return: The dilemma of Congolese refugees in Rwanda , July

International Refugee Rights Initiative 2013a The disappearance of Sudan? Life

in Khartoum for citizens without rights, May

International Refugee Rights Initiative 2013b “I can’t be a citizen if I am still a gee”: Challenges in the naturalisation process for Burundians in Tanzania, April

International Refugee Rights Initiative and Refugee Law Project, Faculty of Law,

Makerere University 2010 A dangerous impasse: Rwandan refugees in Uganda ,

June

International Refugee Rights Initiative and REMA Ministries 2009 “Two people can’t wear the same pair of shoes”: Citizenship, land and the return of refugees to Burundi , November

International Refugee Rights Initiative and the Centre for the Study of Forced

Migration, University of Dar es Salaam 2008 Going home or staying home? Ending displacement for Burundian refugees in Tanzania , November

Kaiser, Tania 2010 Dispersal, division and diversifi cation: Durable solutions and

Sudanese refugees in Uganda Journal of Eastern African Studies 4(1): 44–60

Landau, Loren B., and Roni Amit 2014 Wither policy? Southern African

perspec-tives on understanding law, ‘Refugee’ policy and protection Journal of Refugee Studies 27(4): 534–552

Lucy Hovil and Zachary Lomo, (2015) “Forced Displacement and the Crisis of Citizenship in Africa’s Great Lakes Region: Rethinking Refugee Protection and Durable Solutions.”Refuge, Vol 31 (2), December

2.1 CITIZENSHIP: BELONGING TO A POLITY?

Globally, citizenship is seen as a key route to inclusion and attaining a sense of belonging within a polity, even if it does not always play a deter-minative role After all, migrants go through extraordinary peril risking their lives to attain it; and those who are stateless know only too well the risks associated with not having access to full citizenship The starting point here for analysing belonging in contexts of displacement, therefore,

is national citizenship Citizenship denotes a legal and political status that designates full membership in a state or community with associated rights

or entitlements and duties In international law, it is also referred to as nationality, as the ‘belonging of a person to a state’, 1 or the legal bond between an individual and a sovereign state, which entitles that state to espouse claims on behalf of that national 2 Citizenship, therefore, is intri-cately connected with notions of the state, upon which the legal concept

of citizenship rests, and for the past 300 years or so people in the West have, for the most part, thought of themselves as citizens with loyalties

to a territorial state Such notions are refl ected in scholarship that has, in the main, focused on the state as a primary point of reference for analysis, most notably within international relations where the idea of citizenship has provided a dominant and principal identity marker 3

While citizenship and nationality are seen as synonymous in tional law, 4 this book makes a distinction between the two, seeing them

interna-as two sides of a coin: ‘Nationality refers to the international and e xternal

Confl ict and Displacement, Citizenship and Belonging: A Framework for Discussion

aspects of the relation between an individual and a sovereign state, whereas citizenship pertains to the internal aspects of this relation that are regu-lated by domestic law.’ 5 Citizenship has a robustness—or ‘thickness’ 6 —that nationality does not always have This differentiation is important, particularly in a context such as the Great Lakes region where issues around access to citizenship need to be linked to questions about the qual-ity of that citizenship For instance, those in the host community in which refugees are living might technically be recognised as nationals of the state

in which they are living, and yet in reality they are only nominally citizens

in as much as their nationality does not translate into tangible assets Furthermore, state-centric approaches to understanding the concept of citizenship are being increasingly challenged, especially in contexts in which the state is both badly defi ned and poorly realised Eroded states and state systems—where state structures fail to make sense of, or allow for, multiple identities and allegiances—are bringing about a change in political identi-ties 7 In a context in which the state is challenged as the dominant player in international politics, citizenship is challenged for its relevance as it merges with, or is subsumed by, other forms of belonging This is refl ected in a growing body of literature that recognises the salience of numerous other identities whether constructed along ethnic, religious, cultural, regional or class lines As Ferguson and Mansbach state, ‘at the turn of the millennium, the most important issue in global politics [was] the long-range impact of

“the retreat of the state” on identities and loyalties’ 8

Nowhere are challenges over the relevance of the state more pertinent than in Africa, where the history and evolution of ‘citizenship’ as it is typi-cally understood is a turbulent one, refl ecting many of the wider issues dom-inating the postcolonial discourse Notions of belonging were irrevocably changed with the advent of colonialism, which demarcated state boundaries across the continent that defi ned a person’s relationship to the state and, perhaps more signifi cantly, to a demarcated territory: the movement of peo-ple within specifi c areas now became labelled ‘cross-border’ It represented

a defi ning moment in the development of notions of belonging, as borders defi ned the limits of inclusion and exclusion and created a challenge to fl uid forms of allegiance It clearly defi ned the jurisdiction of the state and rede-

fi ned the parameters of power, 9 and regulated the movement of people 10

With the creation of national boundaries, anti- colonial struggles were

pre-mised on notions of national belonging within its current confi guration,

and nationalism as a liberation struggle against colonialism brought with it the identifi cation of nation and state 11 In the aftermath of such struggles,

the repatriation of those who had fl ed anti-colonial struggles was key in the politics of self-determination that eventually led to African decolonisation and the formation of independent nation-states: the return of refugees rep-resented ‘an important symbolic legitimation of independent African sover-eignty’ and in return became ‘a symbolic reclaiming of the state, not only by individuals as citizens, but by the nation as political community’ 12

However, this implicit recognition of state structures did not matically embed the concept of ‘nation’ or belonging within the state and, in the aftermath of independence, newly created states were left struggling to fi nd a national identity For the most part, people living within a certain territory were defi ned as citizens of that state Others, for instance Nubians in Kenya, remained excluded—living inside the ter-ritory, but being left out of the new political community Regardless, the extent to which national identity automatically gained signifi cance as a primary identity marker for individuals and groups has been the subject of much debate Decades after the end of colonialism, the region presents a context in which artifi cially created borders continue to be transcended, particularly in situations where boundaries do not automatically defi ne the limits of an individual’s moral community 13 Self-determination, in effect, was more a means to decolonisation rather than a genuine move to bring together diverse groups that might, collectively, claim nationhood 14

A common explanation for what is seen essentially as the failure of nation-building within the postcolonial state is that the state itself has not generated the necessary legitimacy upon which notions of allegiance and identity need to be built There is a plethora of literature that focuses on the failure or weakness of states in Africa, characterised by ‘a lack of politi-cal legitimacy between rulers and the communities over whom they rule’ 15

This has led to competing notions and claims of legitimacy that have ated an environment vulnerable to instability and ‘disorder’, 16 which, in turn, has further alienated people from the state Indeed, the formulation and transformation of identities within the region is inextricably related

cre-to the high levels of confl ict that have characterised the region’s recent history: identities have been both pulled apart and reinforced by violence

in a context in which notions of allegiance and identity are intimately nected with an individual or a group’s physical security

Within this context, the state has failed to become institutionalised, not least where its institutionalisation has not been in the best interests of those in power 17 Instead it has metamorphosed into ‘quasi-nationalism’, which has all too often used claims of the authority of the state to justify

CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT, CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING 19

the use of violence by that same state 18 As Chabal states: ‘Without some form of mutually acceptable political accountability, the political commu-nity cannot survive for long without recourse to force or violence While the threat of force is part of the calculus of power, its actual (and especially repeated) use is evidence of the manifest failure of accountability.’ 19

Where states are not only unable to protect their citizens but are the cause of confl ict and forced displacement, 20 this has  precipitated a crisis

in national identity As Mutua argues, ‘At its dawn, the postcolonial state was handed a virtually impossible task: Assimilate the norms of the liberal tradition overnight within the structures of the colonial state while at the same time building a nation from disparate groups in a hostile international political economy Instead, the newly minted African postcolonial elites chose fi rst to consolidate their own political power.’ 21 Similarly, Mamdani traces the roots of this crisis in Africa to the impact of colonial systems

of control, which split governance into Native Authorities that applied customary law and a central state that applied civil law, thus creating a bifurcated citizenship In this context, there was a disjuncture between citizenship at the level of the central state and levels of belonging at the local level, in particular through an emphasis on constructions of ethnicity

in the case of the latter 22 As he goes on to argue, this institutional legacy remains largely intact: while civic citizenship was de-racialised after inde-pendence, ethnic citizenship remained tied to the Native Authority, result-ing in a situation in which civic citizenship largely serves as an access point for civil and political rights, while ethnic citizenship serves as an access point for economic and social rights 23 Building on Mamdani’s argument, Harrington, with reference to the emergence of citizenship norms in postcolonial Africa, comments, ‘[h]istorically in Africa, “citizenship”—the guarantee of reciprocal rights between an individual and a state—has been more a tool of politics than a vehicle for individual rights’ 24

Yet despite such challenges, the political salience of citizenship and its broader implications remain critical, not least as the existence of the state continues, and will continue, to play a dominant role in the lives of indi-viduals and groups Despite its many failings, the state in Africa not only continues to exist in as much as the boundaries that mark them out have for the most part survived, but is, in some cases, thriving Indeed, it is their endurance as much as their failure that cannot be ignored As the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) declared in 2004, ‘the citizenship and identity question has easily become the most important political question in Africa today’ 25

2.2 (DE)CONSTRUCTIONS OF CITIZENSHIP: A RIGHTS

PERSPECTIVE

Inextricably linked to political and social understandings of citizenship and wider notions of belonging is the extent to which discussions about citizenship, particularly those that are more policy-oriented, tend to place the discussion within a human rights framework Frequent reference is made within the literature to Hannah Arendt’s formulation of citizenship

in The Origins of Totalitarianism as ‘the right to have rights’, 26 a claim that has become almost iconic in discussions about citizenship from a human rights perspective While the right to have rights is, in human rights law,

‘predicated on our shared humanity not on territorialised belonging encapsulated in citizenship… in practice, the effective proof of citizenship

is a necessary foundation for the exercise of rights’ 27

Thus while international human rights law contemplates the extension of rights to all people by virtue of their shared humanity, in practice the ability

of individuals to assert their rights and ensure their security is often dent on the formation of a strong linkage with the state—typically through the institution of citizenship In other words, the right to have rights is not

depen-synonymous with citizenship, but the former is in practice often contingent

upon the latter The inability to form or to assert the bond of citizenship often leaves individuals stateless, alienated and at greater risk of human rights violations—including forced displacement 28 Harrington, for instance, talks

of the importance of citizenship as the right that determines access to most others and emphasises the need for citizenship to be a pivotal issue in a con-text in which people are increasingly being deprived of their citizenship in some form ‘The rights lost are diverse, as are the parties who suffer them, but the losses fl ow from a single legal disability: deprivation of citizenship.’ 29

Understandings of citizenship as the ‘right to have rights’ highlight the critical importance of access to citizenship, and yet this is not fully protected in international law Citizenship in international law is articu-lated by two often contradictory pillars: by the entitlement to citizen-ship as a universal human right proclaimed in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and by the principle of state sovereignty with regard to its assertion 30 This contradiction highlights the disjuncture between international law and the realisation of rights in practice This problem is exacerbated in contexts where ‘nation-building’ has simply been equated with the consolidation of state power, as has often been the case in the Great Lakes region

CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT, CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING 21

Furthermore, in situations where the state itself is unable or unwilling

to offer protection—or where it is itself committing violations against its own citizens—the notion of citizenship as a primary means of accessing rights can all too quickly become meaningless and is increasingly being called into question Thus over the last 30 years, the evolution of interna-tional and human rights law has helped to break down the exclusivity of the citizen-state link when it comes to identifying the entity responsible for an individual’s safety and security For instance, in the early stages

of the development of human rights law, the UN Refugee Convention

on the Status of Refugees created obligations for states to protect non- citizens who were being persecuted by their own countries The creation

of refugee law constituted one of the fi rst direct challenges to state eignty with respect to the control of state borders, inserting the refugee into a new community and establishing a basic status and set of rights to which the persecuted exile was entitled Although from the perspective of international law the conferral and recognition of citizenship is still viewed

sover-as the sole prerogative of states, these developments have also begun to erode the absolute nature of state discretion with respect to a range of issues related to citizenship, from the loss and acquisition of national-ity and how the rights attached to citizenship are protected and enjoyed,

to the identifi cation of situations in which a state is obliged to provide protection and support to individuals with whom it has no citizen link 31

The responsibility to protect (R2P) is an extension of this process, viding that although the state has the primary responsibility for protect-ing ‘its populations’, if it fails to do so then the international community also has a responsibility The prospect of opening up citizenship in this way, however, poses numerous challenges, from reconfi guring the notion

pro-of national belonging, to demarking the proper boundaries pro-of national and international concern and engagement. Furthermore, in practice the potential of R2P has yet to be realised: in general, it has either been seen

as nothing more than a smokescreen for military action, or has been

con-fl ated with the doctrine of humanitarian intervention – or both. 

Nowhere are the challenges around the role of the state in protecting its citizens as salient as in the African context where, as noted above, the state

is often characterised more by its failure than its success As Harrington argues, although legal citizenship was established at independence with African constitutions guaranteeing the equality of its citizens, ‘few states conveyed to their people the political rights generally regarded as inherent

in citizenship today, such as to vote or to stand for election’ 32 It also did not guarantee the right to public and social services Consequently, ‘states had

little political or fi nancial incentive to deny individuals citizenship’ 33 In the past decade, however, the signifi cance of citizenship has begun to change

as a result of a growing awareness of the need for democratisation (and, indeed, growing democratisation), respect for human rights, and pressure

on African states to provide basic social services As a result, citizens, at least

in principle, have increasing rights and power In other words, the opening

up of political space, while clearly fl awed, has led to an increase in the nifi cance of notions of citizenship This has, in effect, become something

sig-of a burden to states: ‘states can no longer legally deprive their citizens sig-of rights, but they can shortcut their obligations by limiting the very existence

of citizens Because international norms on the granting and deprivation of citizenship and those defi ning the rights of non-citizens are weak or non-existent, states can legally limit the number of individuals to whom they guarantee key rights.’ 34 At the same time, the realisation of rights vis-à-vis a person’s citizenship of a state remains a considerable challenge, and is still

an issue mainly left to individual states As Harrington concludes, ship needs to be reconceptualised as a prerequisite for the guarantee of fundamental rights, rather than as an administrative nicety’ 35

And, indeed, this is starting to take place In its case law, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) has read the right

to nationality into the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (which it is mandated to promote and uphold), despite the fact that this right is not explicitly included in the text More recently, the Commission moved to more explicitly recognise the right to a nationality, asking the Special Rapporteur on Refugees, IDPs and Asylum Seekers to under-take a study on the current state of nationality rights on the continent The study, approved by the Commission in May 2014 and published in January 2015, recommended the development of a legally binding proto-col on the right to a nationality on the continent 36 In parallel, the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child has ruled that the fail-ure of Kenya to recognise Nubian children was a violation of their rights under Article 6 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 37 The Committee also had issued a General Comment on Article

6, providing states with more detailed guidance as to how to uphold the right of children to a name and a nationality At the same time, and as part of an ongoing campaign to end statelessness, UNHCR has made an increased push to ensure ratifi cation and implementation of the two state-lessness conventions (which, to some extent, limit state discretion) Yet while citizenship as a legal construct realised within a human rights framework continues to have an important function, this construction

CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT, CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING 23

of belonging has to be recognised for the many fl aws inherent within

it For instance, a person might be recognised as a citizen of a state but still be excluded by the national government and discriminated against Therefore, in the Great Lakes region – and, indeed, through much of the world – citizenship needs to be viewed within a wider context in which alternative forms of belonging play an integral, if not dominant, role in people’s lives The fi ndings of the research demonstrate clearly that rather than seeing citizenship as an end point, it needs to be viewed within a broader context in which it is one of many facets—albeit often a crucial one—within a broader process of seeking spaces of legitimacy

Therefore, to the extent that citizenship as currently administered has too often failed to provide protection, it is clear that the debate needs

to be broadened and reconceived The intention here is not to deny the importance of citizenship, but to emphasise the need to put it within a broader context Thus, while deploying the language of citizenship and human rights can be helpful and necessary for articulating one dimen-sion to the problems of exclusion—and, furthermore, for leveraging policy change, particularly at an international level—its limitations also need to be recognised It is the way in which different levels of belong-ing interact that becomes of interest The realisation of citizenship can

be strengthened rather than undermined by allowing for greater nuance

that comes from incorporating more socio-anthropological ings of belonging in order to better understand the factors that destabilise

understand-or strengthen mechanisms funderstand-or belonging It is the dialogue between these two approaches, therefore, that sheds light on core issues of displacement and its resolution By only emphasising one or the other, the discussion becomes impoverished and incomplete

Consequently, broader notions of belonging, particularly as they relate

to a person’s citizenship of a country and the ability to ensure their safety

and security, need to be interpreted with greater fl exibility, not least in

a context in which the realisation of rights too often lags behind these realities It is self-evident that people throughout the Great Lakes region continue to have their rights violated in multiple ways regardless of their relationship to the state, and often as a result of their identity and its legiti-macy being disputed within a national context Such notions of marginali-sation are often driven by states, which use the inclusion or exclusion of citizenship status as a tool for meeting political ends Indeed, as questions about identity and belonging within a society become more intense so does the pressure to exclude and expel those who are deemed not to belong

At  its most extreme, this has led to individuals and groups being made stateless 38 Statelessness and the denial of citizenship both violate human rights and pose a threat to peace and security, as has been clearly demon-strated within the African context Thus, to the extent that citizenship has too often failed to provide protection, it is clear that the debate needs to

be broadened As Hollenbach says, ‘[n]ational boundaries are important, but they do not tell us all we need to know about the scope and limits of the responsibility to protect’ 39 In this context, citizenship becomes one of

a number of identity markers in any given situation, but one that is imbued with specifi c signifi cance in relation to access to rights given the impor-

tance of the national framework within which rights are realised

2.3 MULTIPLE FORMS OF BELONGING

Critical to this discussion, therefore, is a recognition of the multiple and dynamic forms of identity that underlie notions of belonging, of which citizenship forms one of many potential forms of allegiance This approach refl ects Mbembe’s assertion of the need to recognise the multiple and

fl uid identities of the postcolonial state As he says:

The postcolony is made up not of one coherent ‘public space’, nor is it determined by any single organising principle It is rather a plurality of

‘spheres’ and arenas, each having its own separate logic yet nonetheless liable to be entangled with other logics when operating in certain specifi c contexts: hence the postcolonial ‘subject’ has to learn to continuously bar- gain and improvise 40

Likewise Thornton emphasises the diversity of allegiances that have created an incongruous and seemingly irreconcilable collection of iden-tities living within the same borders in post-apartheid South Africa, in which the state has become secondary to other identities, whether racial, regional or ethnic 41

While the state may, by default, be the starting point for discussions of citizenship, therefore, the parameters of discussion need to remain broad

in order to retain a fl exibility of approach that does not force the reality

of multiple identities to constrict or expand to fi t neatly within national boundaries Brenner defi nes identity as a process of naming of self, naming

of others and being named by others, 42 a helpful starting point for ing identity as it allows for a versatility that accommodates multiple under-standings of identity—and not only of people’s self-perceptions, but also

discuss-CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT, CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING 25

of the way in which they both perceive others and are perceived by others

This approach promotes understandings of how people perceive their

situ-ation vis-à-vis the realities—whether political, legal, social or economic—

in which they are living, and ensures that identities are not constrained

to widely held but often misleading assumptions As Anderson says, ‘all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact… are imagined Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genu-ineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.’ 43

In other words, there is an important emphasis on perception as opposed to, or in addition to, the administrative and/or legal application

of identity For instance, previous research with Sudanese refugees living in Uganda’s West Nile region highlighted the fact that they were not legally citizens, and yet many were paying taxes and running for political offi ce within local government structures 44 For as long as they were perceived to

be legitimately Ugandan within the local spaces in which they operated, and as long as no external factors destabilised the local context, no one was going to ask to see evidence that they were, in fact, Ugandan citizens However, the extent to which such forms of local legitimacy are often fundamentally unstable is one of the themes that runs through the book

2.4 THE POLITICS OF ETHNICITY

A signifi cant arena in which identity is articulated and played out within the Great Lakes is through the expression of ethnic identities, a highly contentious issue that continues to generate considerable debate Lonsdale differentiates between ‘moral ethnicity’ which he sees as ‘the contested internal standard of civic virtue against which we measure our personal esteem’, and ‘political tribalism’, ‘with which groups compete for public resources’ 45 Likewise Maré maintains a distinction between ethnicity used

in the mobilisation of people seeking to oppose or to maintain power, and ethnic social identities that serve to provide a map or story for everyday life 46 Geschiere, on the other hand, questions Lonsdale’s differentiation between tribalism and ethnicity, saying that it might lead to greater clarity

to speak of them as one phenomenon, as two sides of the same coin rather than separate 47

Such defi nitions, which tease apart the different functions and roles of ethnicity, provide a helpful starting point for talking about ethnicity in the African context where too often notions of identity and ethnicity are treated as synonymous As stated above, ethnicity or ‘tribalism’ can easily become the default explanation for violence in Africa, with assumptions

that ethnicity provides the primary identity marker across the continent—and, therefore, the primary explanation for understanding the source of Africa’s confl icts While such assumptions have long been rejected within academic literature on the grounds that identities are neither static nor somehow primordial, 48 there remains a residual tendency dominant in sig-nifi cant media reporting on confl ict in Africa The ‘ethnicity’ label has all too often become a complete explanation for any violence in Africa thus depoliticising confl icts As Allen and Seaton assert, ‘[e]thnic mythologis-ing by protagonists and by journalists is precisely a means of taking the politics and the history out of wars, and reducing them to fantastic emana-tions’ 49 It is easy shorthand for describing confl icts that otherwise appear inexplicable, and is dangerous in its failure to differentiate between ethnic-ity as a means or tool of confl ict, rather than a cause

Indeed, such ethnic explanations for confl ict resonate with—and are promoted by—the agendas of those in positions of power who have uti-lised ethnicity, or ‘political tribalism’, as a tool for manipulating confl ict While many confl icts might appear to be confi gured along ethnic lines, such appearances are often a front for what is little more than the manipu-lation of identities by those in positions of power A clear example of this is given in Prunier’s account of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which he portrays the Hutu-Tutsi confl ict as a carefully orchestrated and premedi-tated act of political mass murder, not the spontaneous outpouring of pri-mordial ethnic hatred as was widely portrayed in the media He does not deny the reality of either Hutu or Tutsi identities, but shows that it was the way in which these identities were mobilised, rather than the existence

of difference itself, that led to violence 50

Similar patterns can be seen in other confl icts in the region In Uganda, the state sought to de-legitimise confl ict in the north between the gov-ernment of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) by labelling

it ‘ethnic’—or a ‘northern’ problem Consequently the location in which the war took place was manipulated into a widely accepted explanation for the violence—and, in turn, an excuse for the government’s promo-tion of a military, rather negotiated, resolution to the war Yet this nar-rative failed to recognise that to those caught up in the midst of the war, the government was perceived to be as much a source of instability and human rights abuses as the LRA. The government was seen to not only have failed to protect its citizens from the LRA but had compounded their misery by forcing much of the rural population of the north into so-called protected villages as part of its counter-insurgency campaign, preventing them from accessing their land: those found outside of the

CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT, CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING 27

allocated perimeters of the camps or towns were assumed to be rebel laborators and were frequently executed It was also symptomatic of wider discontent throughout a country that has seen the rise of 22 rebel groups since President Museveni came to power in 1986 51 The LRA insurgency was understood to refl ect deep-rooted dissatisfaction with governmental abuses of power and the chronic marginalisation of large swathes of the country—not the result of ethnic antagonism Although there was mini-mal support for Kony’s actions in the north, the root causes of the war and its consequences refl ected huge frustration with a government that had continually marginalised the north of the country and silenced opposition Likewise in the fi ghting that broke out in South Sudan in December

col-2013, the main protagonists, President Salva Kiir and the leader of the opposition, Rick Machar, no more represent their respective ethnic groups than the Islamic state represents Islam Instead, the manipulation of eth-nicity as a tool for mobilising constituents within the confl ict has been a particularly pernicious strategy by those in power Thus while ethnicity, whether imagined or otherwise, certainly plays a clear role in the dynam-ics of identity and violence in the region, it is one that must not be over-emphasised or assumed Furthermore, the deployment of ethnicity as a mechanism for accessing power should not be confl ated with the notion

of ethnic identity as a primary cause of confl ict For sure, ethnic allegiance exists, but it has to be placed within a wider context in which it interacts with, or is mobilised by, political and economic forces

Nowhere is this more important than in discussions on genocide, which,

by defi nition, represents a particular and brutal manifestation of the relationship between violence and identity Again, media representations have a tendency to portray genocide in Africa as ethnic-aligned primor-dial forces taken to their most extreme, thus obscuring other factors such

inter-as questions of power and clinter-ass 52 As a result, there has been able debate regarding the specifi c nature of ethnicity vis-à-vis genocide: the origins of difference in both Rwanda and Burundi, for example, are heavily disputed, with disagreement over the nature of precolonial rela-tions and precolonial political systems, and on the impact of colonialism regarding whether it created or simply codifi ed ethnicity There is also debate over whether Tutsi and Hutu identities, commonly categorised

consider-as ethnic groups, 53 can be explained within an ethnic mould 54 Instead, there is a strong emphasis within the literature on the ‘newness’ of the confl ict between Hutu and Tutsi; in the way in which colonialism clearly entrenched difference 55 ; and in the way in which difference has come to have extreme contemporary political importance 56

Likewise in Sudan’s Darfur region, application of the label ‘genocide’ has become a hotly debated issue 57 De Waal argues, for instance, that while the crimes committed in Darfur are undoubtedly genocidal, empha-sising the term ‘genocide’ over and above other heinous crimes against humanity undermines its complexity and jeopardises the search for reso-lution 58 Mamdani further argues that the term reduces the confl ict to simplistic notions of good versus evil thus suppressing understandings of cultural and historical factors Thus while genocide, by defi nition, repre-sents violence and identity taken to its most extreme, the linkages between identities (whether ethnic or otherwise), genocide and violence need to

be treated with caution, and without making assumptions regarding the nature of identity

2.5 BELONGING AND TERRITORY: THE POLITICS

OF AUTOCHTHONY

With the relevance of national allegiance becoming increasingly eroded, linkages between notions of belonging and specifi c territory are being articulated through a growing discourse on autochthony within the region Linked to, but certainly not synonymous with, issues of ethnicity, Jackson defi nes autochthony as a ‘loose, adjectival qualifi er’ that can be generally translated to mean ‘indigenousness’ 59 It can be traced back to the Greek

to mean literally, ‘from the soil itself,’ and was employed in equating tities with territories within colonial taxonomy 60 Autochthony relates to notions of belonging based on claims of having arrived fi rst in a specifi c geographical space, but within a wider context of debate over national legitimacy As Kraler asserts, it is no coincidence that the ‘discourse of autochthony gained wide currency only after Independence, when the linkage between the territorial state, sovereignty and “democracy” and the state as primary resource became fully established’ 61

Specifi cally, autochthony seeks to defi ne one’s self and status in tion to ‘allochthons’ or strangers 62 For instance Ceuppens and Geschiere talk about how, in the case of Cameroon, notions of autochthony have created an alternative paradigm for understanding issues of inclusion and exclusion by not considering all citizens to be equal and therefore hav-ing notably less access to the state 63 Politically, it is about who should vote where and, more importantly, who can be elected 64 According to Geschiere and Nyamnjoh, political opposition takes place more at a local than a national level, with citizenship being increasingly defi ned in local rather than national terms: ‘The old ideal of nation-building seems to be

rela-CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT, CITIZENSHIP AND BELONGING 29

superseded by ideological oppositions between autochtons and allogenes

(or “strangers”), with the active support of national politicians.’ 65

Articulations of autochthony often converge with notions of ity and are used to promote an exclusive form of citizenship: access to citizenship becomes contingent upon belonging to specifi c ethnic groups that are imbued with legitimacy Whitaker, for example, examines what happens when exclusive citizenship is applied individually rather than col-lectively, using case studies of Zambia and Ivory Coast where individual politicians have been excluded over the issue of their citizenship 66 She points to how this approach has become something of a political tool for leaders who have adopted the rhetoric of democracy while devising ways to limit political competition through excluding rivals 67 This not only compromises the democratic process, but has a wider impact on the country as individual exclusion often leads to group exclusion which, in turn, can lead to violence 68 She goes on to talk about how processes of exclusion of others play on people’s economic, social and security fears,

ethnic-in which foreigners are seen as competition, 69 demonstrating a correlation between exclusion within the political realm and growing xenophobia, not least as it legitimises a narrowing defi nition of citizenship 70

The growing discourse around notions of autochthony, therefore, is important in understanding current articulations of belonging within a national context In particular, the extent to which it is based on notions

of exclusion and inclusion—it gets its oxygen from creating foreignness in others—thus setting identities in opposition to each other, is critical when considering the interface between identities and violence Autochthony constitutes an ultimate line: you are either an autochthon or an alien 71 But the basis on which this line is drawn is highly politicised and manipulative, not least given the fact that the relatively recent and signifi cantly arbitrary nature of colonial-imposed national boundaries complicates the tracing of citizenship on the basis of ancestry 72 Once again, it is based on imagined communities with imagined histories, presented as absolutes: the power of such articulations of ‘history’ lies not in the facts but in the way in which

it is imagined, perceived, articulated, manipulated and interpreted

2.6 FORCED MIGRATION AND ITS LINKAGES

WITH NOTIONS OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION

Forced migration takes place within this context and inevitably interacts with the dynamics of identity, belonging and citizenship 73 After all, in human rights language, the fundamental premise on which refugee status