Seventeenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Over 25% of 103.1 million refugees and internally displaced people worldwide are housed in refugee camps. While UNHCR states that camp settings are the least favorable humanitarian response to forced migration, for the past 70 years management of displaced populations through camps has been a primary response. Refugee camps range in form and design, yet the inherent function of the camp is containment of residents within certain borders. Grounded in frameworks of governmentality and biopolitics, this paper examines the ways in which refugee protection renders a space of safety, only within a setting of control and questions how safety can be assured outside the carceral logics of camp settings. This paper is based on short term data collection from Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda. Methods included participant observation, use of policy documents and application of geographic information systems for the collection of spatial-temporal information. Analysis illustrates the lack of mobility for residents of Mahama camp and points to the ways that humanitarian protection practices use carcel tactics as a way of control as well as signaling who is considered safe or unsafe. When viewing practices around forced migration, responses must be conceived outside of international protection practices that are based in carceral logics of population management. Camps do not need to be inevitable responses to forced migration or crisis management. Creation of these spaces are distinct policy choices that must be attended to as we continue to see increasing numbers of people forcibly displaced by violence and climate change.