During this seminar we will have two talks. Each talk will be allocated a slot of 45 minutes, of which max 30 minutes to present and the remainder for Q&A
⏰ 12.30h-13.15h | Presentation 1: The clashes of data worlds: Academic methodologies, Western imaginaries and its entanglements in researching data practices in Kenya's development sector
Speaker: Berta Fernández Nuez
This seminar is based on a piece that is meant to interrogate the different ways of looking and doing of data worlds – the westernized development sector, academia, and Kenyan general culture – showcasing the different contradictions, parallels and questions that raise when we research practices, narratives and imaginaries, by way of making our own ourselves. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of Africa’s Voices Foundation (AVF)—an NGO with academic origins in the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR), University of Cambridge—this work explores how western data imaginaries are translated, adapted, and sometimes resisted within Kenyan socio-cultural contexts. In itself, my own practices of data-making, englobed in the situation of a research project but moving through a developmentality environment, mirror parallel dilemmas and questions. By ways of offering a measured situatedness of these data worlds within the general data culture of Kenya, I will triangulate the artistic sector in the Greater Nairobi region in the discussion. Paintings, digital art, theatre and other community art examples take part daily in various places around Nairobi and outskirts. In community and youth organizations, in educational environments, radio stations and bars, the arts are a mirror of many of the issues that concern Kenyans everyday. Contemplating its intersection with my research as well as the procedural approach of AVF, I reflect on data ontologies, hermeneutics and justice while questioning the role of vernacular data practices such as Nairobi’s artistic sector in the vacuum of citizen development-driven data.
⏰ 13.15h-14.00h | Presentation 2: Phased out: How refugees in Northern Uganda negotiate the refugee label in an era of aid-cuts
Speakers: Roos Derrix and Milena Belloni
“If we are considered to be refugees, why does the UN cut our names off the food ration?” asks a women in Agojo refugee settlement. This question reflects the broader anxieties among refugee populations in the current era of aid cuts. The conventional understanding of the refugee label, tied to legal protection and humanitarian assistance in camps, is being drastically reshaped by the current depletion of the aid sector (Zetter, 1991). International organisations are shifting to a need-based approach that aims to target the “most vulnerable” and require new methods of objectively categorizing refugee populations (WFP Regional Bureau for East Africa, 2024). Refugees are constantly faced with the pros and cons of complying with a system that limits assistance to remote and often unsafe camps, while reshaping the categories of target beneficiaries (Ozkul & Jarrous, 2021).
This presentation contributes to the discussion on bureaucratic categorization and the future of refugee reception in the Global South amidst aid cuts, focusing on Uganda’s “prioritization policy”. Based on interviews with policy makers, camp officers and ethnographic fieldwork (summer 2024 and ongoing) in Adjumani district, this paper explores how this policy has been implemented in Uganda since 2023 and how refugees responded to it.
The prioritization policy has divided the country’s 1.8 million refugees into ‘most’, moderate’ and ‘least’ vulnerable households with different rights to food rations. The first and second category receive 60% and 30% of the original food ration respectively, while the ‘least vulnerable’, deemed self-reliant, are phased out completely. Despite the absence of public protests, refugees we spoke to have applied diverse tactics to cope with these cuts (De Certeau, 2004; Scott, 1985). These include increased circular migration between Uganda and South Sudan and rent of local land for cultivation while systematically attempted to fit the label of “the most vulnerable refugee”, by hiding income resources and family composition information.
While the specific indicators for determining refugee vulnerability and their development process remain undisclosed by WFP and UNHCR to prevent system manipulation, refugees have developed their own interpretations of the label’s implications. These tactics are not new, but have increasingly gained momentum since the policy’s implementation, illustrating how refugees navigate and resist imposed categories. Tactics aimed at aligning with the ‘vulnerable’ label reinforce existing understandings of vulnerability, while others, like circular migration, challenge current refugee classifications and their requirements. Especially since returning to one’s homeland conventionally suspends aid and protection.
Based on our case study, the article develops a twofold argument: on the one hand, we show the limits of new ‘objective’ and fixed categorisation to classify elusive refugee populations given the ongoing mistrust in international organisations and the lack of reliable data on camp residents. On the other hand, we argue that, in the current era of failing aid, camps are likely to progressively lose their role in the region, while refugees may increasingly resort to international and regional mobility to cope with conflict and protracted displacement (Long and Crisp, 2010).
References
De Certeau, M. (2004). The practice of everyday life. “Making do”: uses and tactics. Practicing history: New directions in historical writing after the linguistic turn, 213, 223.
Long, K., & Crisp, J. (2010). Migration, mobility and solutions: an evolving perspective. Forced Migration Review, 35(1), 56-57.
Ozkul, D., & Jarrous, R. (2021). How do refugees navigate the UNHCR’s bureaucracy? The role of rumours in accessing humanitarian aid and resettlement. Third World Quarterly, 42(10), 2247-2264.
Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. yale university Press.
WFP Regional Bureau for Eastern Africa. (2024). Navigating Targeting and Prioritisation: WFP Targeting and Prioritization Best Practices in East Africa. https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/navigating-targeting-and-prioritisation-wfp-targeting-and-prioritization-best-practices-east-africa
Zetter, R. (1991). Labelling refugees: Forming and transforming a bureaucratic identity. Journal of refugee studies, 4(1), 39-62.