Abstract
Scholars increasingly have challenged the idea that camps as social worlds can only be visualized in terms of helplessness, immobility, and isolation. Similarly, this contribution demonstrates that Somali kinship practices of scattering family members to simultaneously exploit the potential offered by multiple places generated social networks that helped in sustaining the continued existence of Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya. Drawing on the segmentary lineage logic and on camp-based ethnographic research, it argues that humanitarian policies did not reflect the realities on the ground. The severity of camp conditions inspired Somalis to improvise on kinship to maneuver bureaucratic hurdles, which did not cohere with vulnerability understandings of humanitarianism. Forming and breaking up of groups positively transformed refugees’ lives, though it also institutionalized tensions in social relations.
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- 1.
Barazas are public meetings in Kenya that are used as platforms for disseminating government policy.
- 2.
The Berlin Treaty of 1885 dispersed the Somali people in Ethiopia, Djibouti, British Somaliland, Italian Somalia, and the Northern Frontier District in Kenya. The Somali identity was depicted by the five-point star on Somalia’s flag after its independence, which symbolized the regions into which the Somali nation had been divided and the conscious attempt to unite all Somalis (see Markakis 1987).
- 3.
Al-Shabaab means “The Youth” in Arabic. The group emerged as a radical wing of the Islamic Courts Union militia—a loose grouping of moderate and extreme Islamists that took power in Southern Somalia following the 2006–2009 war against the Transitional Federal Government and Hizbul Islam.
- 4.
This insecurity was characterized by hijacking of aid workers and bombings of police convoys by suspected Al-Shabaab militia in retaliation for the 2011 Kenyan military incursion into Somalia.
- 5.
The term is popularly used in Kenyan circles to refer to banditry-related activities in northeastern Kenya. Jennifer Hyndman (1996) suggests that the war was deliberately relegated to mere banditry-related activities to undermine the political legitimacy of Kenyan Somalis.
- 6.
The insecurity had been occasioned by guerrilla-like bombings by suspected Al-Shabaab militia in retaliation for the Kenyan military incursion into Somalia.
- 7.
A shrub whose bark is widely chewed by Somali males as a mild stimulant, also called khat.
- 8.
I use pseudonyms to protect the identity of my informants.
- 9.
During my fieldwork, 1 US dollar was exchanging for about 85 Kenya shillings.
- 10.
Somali women often invest their earnings in gold jewelry which can quickly be sold whenever need arises.
- 11.
Kakuma camp is located in Turkana County near the Kenya-Sudan border. The majority of refugees are Sudanese who are predominantly Christian and have no ethnic similarities with the local Turkana people.
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Ikanda, F.N. (2019). Forging Associations Across Multiple Spaces: How Somali Kinship Practices Sustain the Existence of the Dadaab Camps in Kenya. In: Schmidt, J.D., Kimathi, L., Owiso, M.O. (eds) Refugees and Forced Migration in the Horn and Eastern Africa. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03721-5_15
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