Revisiting the Refugee–Host Relationship in Nakivale Refugee Settlement: A Dialogue with the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre

Theory

This article assumes that refugees and hosts have agency in determining their lives and, thus, cannot be perceived as only victims or dependents (see also Bakewell 2007, 2008; Bascom 1998; Demmers 2012; Horst 2006). More important than “having agency” is how refugees realize that agency, given the social, economic, and political conditions, constraints, and opportunities they face (Bjørkhaug 2017; van Dijk, de Bruijn, and Gewald 2007). Adapting from Giddens and from de Certeau’s analysis of trajectories, strategies, and tactics, Honwana (2005, 2006) differentiated tactical from strategic agency. Tactical agency is the short-term responses people make within the societal structure. Even in constrained situations and from a position of weakness, people initiate and develop strategies to cope. Strategic agency is agency in a longer timeframe, when events and actions can be planned rather than “determined by random factors they could neither predict nor control” (Honwana, 2006, 71). In a competitive structure, such as in this story from Nakivale, people make choices for their lives in a vulnerable context. Thus, as the following empirical discussion shows, the refugee and host populations often act from a position of weakness. They nevertheless can make choices and bargains in their lives (Bjørkhaug 2017; Bøås 2013; Bøås and Bjørkhaug 2014).

Method

This article compares the Centre’s findings on the Nakivale Refugee Settlement with empirical data I collected at the settlement from August to October 2013. The overall aim of the original research was to understand how the refugee–host relationships unfolded in Nakivale. ⁵ During the same timeframe, the Centre’s researchers investigated the impact of refugee autonomy on both refugees and the wider host community in Uganda via a mixed-methods study. Their study aimed to understand the refugee economies at three field sites — Kampala, Nakivale, and Kyangwali Settlements — with a focus on entrepreneurship. Similar to the Centre’s qualitative data, my data was collected onsite and comprised in-depth unstructured and semistructured interviews, focus-group discussions, and observations. The Centre’s research seemed to have had a broader methodological scope (three diverse urban and rural settings), whereas my work enabled a deep analysis of the lives of people in Nakivale specifically. Coupled with dissimilar research objectives, it is not surprising the two projects produced different insights. Together, however, they may provide a more holistic, less romanticized understanding of the competitive dynamics at play in refugee–host and refugee–refugee relationships.

This article is framed by four essential considerations that emerged during my original analysis of the 2013 data, which consisted of 15 qualitative interviews and three focus-group discussions with refugee-population representatives; 10 qualitative interviews and five focus-group discussions with host-population representatives living inside and outside the settlement borders; and ongoing discussions with five Ugandan government officials working with the Nakivale Refugee Settlement and five representatives from international and national organizations. My inductive approach opened space to explore topics outside the main research subject. I analyzed the data with a thematic approach to the text, in combination with an understanding of the context in which the narratives of the people interviewed were shaped. I rented a room in a guesthouse run by a Congolese family in Nakivale during the seven-week data collection period and experienced few obstacles to accessing refugees, who were eager to share their stories. Access to the national residents, who sometimes associated the presence of researchers with recent land-eviction events, introduced more challenges (Bjørkhaug 2017). It was possible to conduct many of the interviews in English; in other cases, I asked the translator to read the transcripts for accuracy. The participant quotations herein were selected based on the thematic analysis. All respondents are referred to by pseudonyms. Information that might identify them is excluded from the public text.

Ethics

Research in a refugee setting entails a number of ethical concerns, among them asking for signed written consent. Not only might illiteracy be prevalent among the participants, but also, as Mackenzie, McDowell, and Pittaway (2007) discussed, the standard procedures of requesting a signature or using an audio or video recorder might be culturally inappropriate and expose the respondents to risk, mistrust, or suspicion. Given the sensitive context of the fieldwork in Nakivale, I relied on oral consent based on a relational approach instead of the standard written consent forms. I applied the same principles for security and trust to the choice for documenting the interviews. Many participants shared personal challenges of life in Nakivale, including sensitive stories of sexual violence and abuse (Bjørkhaug 2020). Rather than use a recorder, I actively wrote notes throughout all interviews and focus-group discussions and, the same day, transcribed the interviews, observations, and reflections into a computer document. The final material used for analysis comprised 61 pages. ⁶

Displacement Economy in Nakivale: A Discussion with the Centre’s Findings

The findings are discussed here according to the four essential considerations addressed in the introduction, framed in a dialogue with the Centre’s findings based on their 2013–2014 fieldwork. Although the Centre provided new and valuable insight into the refugee economy in Uganda, the debate still lacks a thorough discussion of other problematic economic issues that protracted refugee displacement can cause or exacerbate. The Centre’s reporting of refugees’ livelihood approaches based on entrepreneurship in Nakivale represented alternative self-reliance approaches that do not depend on land. A holistic understanding of the settlement, however, also must address the underlying conflicts that Nakivale’s competitive structure engenders. As such, this discussion aims to provide new analyses to review the Centre’s perspective and to shed light on how Uganda’s refugee policy, abetted by the international refugee regime, fosters a culture of competition between different groups living side by side in Nakivale.

Land Distribution in Nakivale Is Not Sustainable

Refugees receive temporary plots of up to 30 m² and are not allowed to grow perennial crops, which would represent a long-term agricultural approach. Instead, the refugees are presumed to be temporary; that is, they will ultimately hand over their plots to someone else and return home. Many refugees, however, remain in Nakivale for decades. As Betts et al. (2014, 4) noted, “Rather than transitioning from emergency relief to long-term reintegration, displaced populations too often get trapped within the system.” Despite Uganda’s liberal freedom-of-movement for trade policy, a refugee who permanently moves elsewhere in Uganda or integrates into the host society risks losing refugee status and the resultant humanitarian aid.

For the majority of people living in Nakivale, land is essential for income, and land distribution is essential for the self-reliance approach to refugee policy that earned Uganda acclaim. Poor land-allocation management can only amplify conflicts between the refugee and host populations (Ahimbisibwe 2016) and threaten Uganda’s self-reliance approach. In their refugee economies analyses (Betts et al. 2014, 2017; Betts and Collier 2017; Betts, Omata, and Bloom 2017), the Centre argued that a functioning land-allocation system can be an effective means to support refugees who come from agricultural backgrounds. Although they acknowledged that the land quality and distribution in Nakivale were inadequate, the Centre’s analyses lacked a discussion of the social tensions that the land-distribution policy engendered among Nakivale residents (refugee as well as host) or of its sustainability.

New refugee influxes resulted in less and poorer-quality land available for both new arrivals and Ugandan citizens, and reduced the size of the plots allotted to refugees (Iclan, Oliver, and Connoy 2015). By 2018, only half of the refugees in Uganda had access to land (World Bank 2019). Betts et al. (2019, 22) later described this weakness in the land-allocation policy (e.g., revealing that 80 percent of Congolese refugees who arrived in Nakivale before 2012 had access to land, compared to 17 percent of those who arrived later), but without addressing its potential ripple effects. For instance, the shift from predominantly cattle-keeping to crop-farming on small land plots with requirements to grow annual crops, coupled with the increasing human settlement and urbanization around Nakivale, have led to land degradation, wetland encroachment, and loss of wildlife habitats and crucial wetland resources (Kamukasa and Bintoora 2014).

The government addressed some of these environmental challenges by establishing NEMA as a semi-autonomous institution in 1995 to fight climate changes. In 2013, NEMA mandated the eviction of people who illegally settled on forest land, national game parks, swamps, and wetlands — and an end to farming within 200 meters of Lake Nakivale. The fear of eviction from lands they claim as their own has led the local host population to argue that the government’s land-allocation policy prioritizes the well-being of refugees above that of Ugandan citizens. One informant explained,

When the president was a refugee in Sweden, he did not have any land. He was confined in one place. Land cases [legal cases against the government] started three years ago. Now, we are treated like foreigners. I am personally affected. Since 2006, I have not had a peaceful moment. Before that, I could produce sufficiently to support my family. Now, I cannot produce enough to send my children to school. (Ugandan national, Nakivale villager)

We are scared because of NEMA. What happened to us in February changed our lives. Our basis for a livelihood has changed. The education of our children is affected by the lack of income. People who were born here have been told [by NEMA] that they should seek a new life. This is the challenge. The environment is protected by NEMA. They came here with police, equipped with guns. They destroyed all the houses.

The plantations are down. We are working for the refugees for 3,000 UGX per day. ⁷ Sometimes they pay us by cassava. We work from 7:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. Our lives have changed seriously. Before, our children used to go to school; now, we work for the refugees to get food. We might be better off, and life might improve, after the next harvesting season, even if some of it [land] is given to the refugees. That is, if NEMA does not come back. We are constantly on alert. When we work on our plots, we keep looking over our shoulders.

Fishing in Lake Nakivale is the only legitimate income-generating activity available for the Ugandan host population living in Nakivale. Although it is the one livelihood opportunity without competition from refugees, the lake water is polluted, and the fish stock reduced:

We can still provide some income through fishing, but that is mainly sold to the refugees and nationals in the area.…Around 8:00 a.m., [intermediaries] come and purchase the fish. The fish cannot travel far, as it is sold fresh. Fishing is a privilege for the Ugandans only. The refugees are not allowed to fish in the lake. We feel bad about the inequality between the refugees and the nationals, [but] the refugees have more income-generating activities and can have land sizes up to 30 acres. Every day, almost, we are told that this land is allocated for refugees. It started already in 1994, after the influx of refugees from Rwanda. But we are not angry at the refugees. They are not to be blamed for being here. We are angry at the government. The refugees are not supposed to be given land in Uganda. In other places, they are designated to certain places. The government is the problem. (Ugandan national, Nakivale villager)

The issues of rights to the land, rights as citizens, and the government’s precarious balancing of citizens’ rights with refugee rights are far beyond the scope of this article. More germane is the conflict it fosters between the refugee and host populations in Nakivale. Given the ever-increasing influx of refugees into Uganda, continuing with the existing policies and practices risks not only increasing exploitation and abuse, but also the overall failure of Uganda’s refugee self-reliance approach.

Corruption Strongly Influences the Refugee and Host Populations Living in Nakivale

In 2018, a corruption scandal in Uganda led to the removal of four OPM officials for misusing resources allocated for refugees (Sserunjogi 2018). The scandal lent credence to respondents’ accounts (which otherwise had been difficult to verify) of a culture of bribery and corruption. The Centre’s analyses did not, however, problematize the implications of such a culture. Nor is this article’s discussion intended as an investigation or measurement of the corruption or its impacts; instead, it addresses how the perception of a culture of corruption affects the everyday lives of the refugee and host populations in Nakivale.

In the interviews, the host-population representatives repeatedly reported that they had offered bribes to authorities who threatened to expropriate the land Ugandan citizens perceived as their own. Paying bribes is a short-term solution for those with the finances to do so. It could strengthen their capital and allow continued access to their existing (or to even larger) land plots. It is, however, an irregular strategy that can reinforce inequalities: People with no means to pay bribes often remain the losing party in the resources game in Nakivale. Land is the main livelihood for many nationals living in Nakivale, and the threat of being chased off it is a constant stress factor for the host population. Ugandan nationals often described Nakivale as a place that favors refugees:

The matter has worsened. Refugees bribe the commandant. For 30,000 to 50,000 UGX [US$8–14], you can buy one shy of land [0.25 acre]. Ugandans…are told that the land is for the refugees and not for Ugandans. The high court wrote to the responsible authorities, asked them not to evict the nationals. The authorities still play the “underground” game, evict them, and give it to the refugees.…A refugee can own 30 acres; a national can own one shy. Even the new refugees have large plots of land. Those who stay here add more land through the commandant. We do not have a problem with the refugees but with the leaders who allow this to happen. We feel desperate and fed up with the situation. Our rights and our security are insecure. We do not feel like Ugandans. (Host community focus group)

They [OPM officials] break down the crops; even houses. They come here with a team of refugees and soldiers to tear down our properties. Everyone in the community is now afraid because we have seen the houses of our neighbors have been demolished. (Host community focus group)

The host population’s relationship with Congolese refugees living nearby was quite peaceful, however, despite their competition for land and resources. Their children attended the same schools, and the host villagers employed refugees during harvest season. The village leader estimated that 30 households regularly employed refugees and paid them 4,000 UGX (US$1.08) for a day’s work. Like many national villages in Nakivale, this village could export matooke, beans, maize, and groundnuts via trucks that came from Kampala to Nakivale. Its citizens relied on networks outside of Nakivale because, as long as they lived inside the settlement, they made every effort to avoid being seen or heard by the authorities. Thus, even within the marginalized and vulnerable population of local citizens living inside Nakivale, access to resources varies. Paying bribes is one factor that contributes to those distinctions.

Another space for negotiations that existed among the host population in Nakivale was the irregularity of the OPM’s practice of evicting local citizens. The courts had halted OPM’s evictions in some cases, and ongoing cases against OPM and NEMA for the brutality of their evictions provided some hope of stalling further evictions (Kabasongora 2013). In some cases, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had sided with the evictees, apparently to win political support (Médard and Golaz 2013). Such inconsistent support for the eviction process nurtured resistance to evictions among the host population in Nakivale and gave them hope for an opportunity to stay. As long as the rules for defining and dealing with “encroachers” remain arbitrary, discretionary, and inconsistently enforced by local authorities, however, the opportunities for bribery and corruption will likely continue.

The Impact on the Local Host Population Is Not Homogeneous

The Centre illustrated how refugees often contribute positively to the host-state economy, demonstrate economic diversity, and create sustainable livelihood opportunities for themselves. The researchers concluded that a thorough understanding of refugees’ economic outcomes could improve their local, national, and transnational market-based opportunities. Thus, they aimed to promote sustainable opportunities for market-based approaches that lead to refugee autonomy and self-reliance. In addition, by arguing that refugees are economically diverse, Betts et al. (2017) rightfully challenged the government’s strategy that assumes all refugees could become self-reliant through agricultural productivity (see also Bøås 2015). Betts et al.’s (2014) study of refugee economies showed that the refugee population is shaped not only by what the soil provides but also by innovative entrepreneurship that significantly affects the local market. Betts et al. (2017, 716) proposed that “refugee economies represent a distinctive analytical space insofar as refugees face different formal and informal institutional barriers and distortions in their economic lives compared to nationals or other migrants” (emphasis added).

This article argues, however, that Nakivale Refugee Settlement exposes the refugees and the local host population living inside the settlement to the same institutional space but without the same formal rights and protections. This condition goes beyond what Betts et al. (2019, 33) later addressed as a source of tension. Instead, to produce sound and holistic policies, it is necessary to understand the constraints among the Nakivale host population. As previously described, many of these nationals (whom the Ugandan authorities defined as “encroachers”) live as illegal settlers in constant fear of being evicted. They have no viable “Plan B” for alternative livelihoods. With nowhere to go and no money to buy land elsewhere, they must try to navigate a livelihood and a life that make them as invisible as possible to the authorities.

Nakivale exemplifies a situation in which the cost of a country’s refugee-welcoming policy can come at the expense of its citizens, who compete for existing resources. The dependency rate in Nakivale is as high as 67 percent, meaning most households live with high food insecurity, and refugees depend on humanitarian support for survival. Betts et al. (2014) reported that refugees in Nakivale also depend on extra income beyond those handouts. This inadequate access to social support and protection for both the refugee and the host populations in Nakivale can contribute to marginalizing and excluding refugees who are unable to make a sufficient income without humanitarian aid (Iclan, Oliver, and Connoy 2015). It challenges Uganda’s self-reliance policy and adds pressure on the host population living inside the settlement.

Kigozi (2015) reflected on the difficult balance of promoting a positive image of the refugee situation without underestimating the hardships. This article suggests that balance may be found with a focus on how the Nakivale conditions have created, for some, interdependence between refugees and host communities and, for others, high competition for resources. The “burden-versus-benefit” debate has become complicated beyond a simplistic dichotomy of winners and losers. Omata and Weaver (2015) proposed that local stakeholders will most likely experience a combination of positive and negative impacts of varying magnitudes. The local citizens living inside the official borders of the Nakivale Refugee Settlement are a vulnerable population, but the degree of vulnerability is not constant. For example, as explored more deeply in the preceding discussion on corruption, this population has tactical agency. That is, they have opportunities to improve small aspects of their lives according to the resources they can muster in expectation of needing to pay bribes. Regardless of what they can pay, however, the local citizens have the same chronic fear of eviction. A bribe is a short-lived, tactical move to secure their livelihood a little while longer. A respondent described the feeling of hopelessness in cases of eviction:

This man was born in this area. He is 80 years old. He has documentation on taxes he paid in 1940, before the refugees arrived. He produced his children here. His parents even lived here before he was born. Where do they have the authority to chase him away, and where should he go? (Host community focus group)

We now sell very little, and what we sell is sold to the refugees. The trucks that come here mainly purchase from the refugees. We sell some matooke but only inside the settlement. We used to sell large-scale to the trucks but that was before everything was destroyed. A bunch of matooke could be sold for 15,000 [UGX]. (Host community focus group)

We have not had any challenges here with the presence of the refugees. On the contrary, we benefit from the access to hospital, water points, and schools. Refugees come to the village in search for work. Not in big numbers, but some come seeking for work. When they do, they often travel together with someone, and if there is work available, they are employed. If we are satisfied with the work, we ask them to come back the next day. If you hire a national, they are paid 5,000 UGX a day, while the refugees are paid 4,000 UGX a day or they pay them in matooke. (Ugandan national living outside the settlement)

Among Refugees, the Somali–Congolese Relationship Is Exploitative, Not Amicable

Although the bulk of this analysis has discussed the refugee–host relationship, the effects of refugee–refugee relationships and the tactical agency invoked therein also merit mention. This final section explores the relationship between refugee groups in Nakivale, in this case the Somali and the Congolese.

Betts and Collier (2017, 125) discussed how Somali exceptionalism affects Nakivale’s economic geography with commercial activity that attracts refugees from across the settlement. They found the Somalis’ economic networks to be more organized, systematic, and extensive than those of other refugee nationalities. Betts et al. (2017, 723) supported their findings by presenting estimated economic differences among the refugee groups. For example, in Nakivale, 21.6 percent of Somali earned more than 300,000 UGX (US$80) per month compared to only 0.9 percent of Congolese primary earners. Kigozi’s (2017, para. 7) response targeted the Centre’s concept of refugee economies as being based on a single refugee community: “Excessive concentration on the economic performances of a limited number of Somalis in certain settlements risks obscuring the fact that the majority of refugees in Uganda live at subsistence level” (para. 19). Furthermore, although the Centre’s outputs applauded refugees for “seeking solutions to their own economic challenges” (para. 24), they did not address the potentially exploitative effects of those solutions. Instead, Betts et al. (2017, 119) described an “amicable relationship” between the Somalis and other refugees.

“New Congo” (where Congolese refugees live in Basecamp 2) and “Little Mogadishu” (where Somali refugees live in Basecamp 3) border each other, separated by only a small fence. New Congo looks like a poor semi-urban town, with small brick houses along narrow, dusty streets; a few water points where people line up to fetch water; and some small shops selling small items. Little Mogadishu, in contrast, is organized with clean streets, large shops full of a variety of items, hair salons, video parlors, restaurants, and even a bus station for travel to Mbarara or Kampala. In his book about the politics of conflict economies, Bøås (2015) showed how the Somali community was economically better off than were the other Nakivale communities. The Somalis’ external support networks, combined with good business skills, placed them atop Nakivale’s socioeconomic hierarchy. That uneven socioeconomic hierarchy, however, seldom leads to an “amicable relationship” (Betts et al. 2017, 119).

The Somali and Congolese socioeconomic and cultural differences influence the way they perceive each other:

The Somali and Eritrean communities serve the Congolese by giving them work. The Congolese are the “real refugees”; they do not work well. They sit all day on their bum, eat maize, and wait for resettlement. Some have been waiting for 17 years. They lack initiative and, even when we hire them, they need to be pushed. The Somalis, Eritreans, and Ethiopians are hard workers. They seize opportunities and are business oriented. Most of the people in these communities have support through remittances. If you receive $100 per month, you can do fine here in Nakivale. (Focus group with Somali and Eritrean refugee respondents)

The water is not safe, the food is too little, the children have no schooling and the men no work. We are indeed suffering here in Nakivale. Nothing has changed. We thank them [the hospital, OPM, and UNHCR] for a place to sleep, but they do not want to hear about our problems. We wash for the Somalis; we prostitute ourselves for one dollar. If you are lucky, you only have to sleep with one man.

For many people, life in Nakivale is a constant struggle. Alberto, from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was 34 years old and the eldest of five siblings living together in a small house in Nakivale. He lacked agricultural skills — he had been a teacher in the DRC — and did not speak much English. The Mai-Mai rebel group in the DRC had killed his father, mother, and son; his pregnant wife was missing. He lived at Basecamp 2 in a small house without electricity. The family lived off handouts and small ad hoc income from work they found within the settlement — mostly, washing the Somalis’ clothes and making bricks. His life represented a constant struggle for survival, always looking for small bargains in Nakivale that could secure their family’s livelihood:

We eat one time per day. If we eat twice, the food will not be enough.…When somebody in the household makes money, we make it together. We need money for charcoal. One bucket of charcoal costs 6,000 UGX. We sell half of our food rations to cover other expenses. Every month, when we get the food, we sell half of it.…I cannot sleep. I think too much.