World leaders adopted a new refugee response framework last year in a renewed global effort to tackle the refugee crisis. At the heart of it is a renewed shift towards supporting host countries to integrate refugees into their national development plans, moving away from the encampment-based model towards a policy entailing greater mobility and freedoms for displaced persons. However, despite being confined in camps, refugees have almost always created positive economic relationships with their host…
Entries by Bram J. Jansen
This article explores how the humanitarian presence and programs in the disputed border area of Abyei between Sudan and South Sudan can be understood as a buffer between conflicting parties, rather than as mere assistance to a displaced population. It aims to contribute to debates about the spatial impact of humanitarian governance and the politicization of aid in protracted crisis contexts, and specifically in relation to territorial disputes and border struggles. It is based on…
This paper aims to contribute to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. It takes the case of South Sudan to explore the relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and the ways international and local forms of power become interrelated and contested, and to what effect. The paper is based on eight months of ethnographic research in various locations in South Sudan between 2011 and 2013, in which experiences…