Developing New Approaches to Citizenship and Belonging in Africa
Disputes over national and local belonging and differing conceptions of citizenship are at the heart of many of the most intractable conflicts in Africa. IRRI is currently working to find ways to address this complex issue through research and advocacy.
Citizenship Rights in Africa (CRAI)
In the CRAI initiative, IRRI partners with the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Pan-African Movement in a high level advocacy campaign challenging the conception and practice of citizenship on the continent. Through research, awareness raising and political advocacy, CRAI is designed to persuade leaders on the continent to recognize that unequal access to and arbitrary deprivation of citizenship is a major human rights problem and one of the principle causes of displacement and unrest. In the wake of xenophobic violence in South Africa in 2008, for example, CRAI led an assessment mission resulting in the publication of the report, Tolerating Intolerance. This and other resources are available on the CRAI website. With our partners series of advocacy activities are being conducted to build support for the creation of new standards – including a new protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Citizenship and Forced Migration Working Paper Series
Since 2008, the International Refugee Rights Initiative, in partnership with the Social Science Research Council, have carried out a research and advocacy project to generate better understandings of the lived experience of unequal access to belonging and citizenship, and its relationship to displacement in the Great Lakes region. The project brings together social scientists, NGO advocates, lawyers and displaced communities to conduct a series of case studies and to suggest policy changes which will contribute to finding solutions to conflict. The focus of the work is on those aspects of policy over which there is greatest contestation: questions of multiple citizenships, local identities, border communities, and the impact of emerging regional forms of citizenship. The Working Papers in the series are:
- “I can’t be a citizen if I am still a refugee”: Challenges in the naturalisation process for Burundians in Tanzania, April 2013
- Darfurians in South Sudan: negotiating belonging in two Sudans, May 2012.
- Shadows of Return: the dilemma of Congolese Refugees in Rwanda, July 2011.
- Hoping for Peace, Afraid of War: the Dilemmas of Repatriation and Belonging on the Borders of Uganda and South Sudan, published as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Research Paper No. 196, November 2010.
- A Dangerous Impasse: Rwandan Refugees in Uganda, carried out in partnership with the Refugee Law Project, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, June 2010
- Who Belongs Where? Conflict, Displacement, Land and Identity in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, March 2010. (En français)
- “Two People Can’t Wear the Same Pair of Shoes”: Citizenship, Land and the Return of Refugees to Burundi, carried out in partnership with Rema Ministries (Burundi), November 2009. (En français)
- Going Home or Staying Home? Ending Displacement for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania, carried out in partnership with the Centre for the Study of Forced Migration and the University of Dar es Salaam, November 2008.
Other publications of the International Refugee Rights Initiative related to Citizenship:
Lucy Hovil, Preventing re-displacement through genuine reintegration in Burundi, Forced Migration Review, December 2012.
Dr. Lucy Hovil, The Return: Dilemmas for Congolese Refugees in Rwanda,September 9, 2011.
"Naturalisation of Burundian refugees in Tanzania: A new home?," 29 April 2010
"Sound alarm bells over forced repatriation," January 2010.
Dr. Lucy Hovil, "Citizenship and Land: A Potent Relationship," December 2009.
"'I don’t know where to go': Burundian Refugees in Tanzania under Pressure to Leave," September 2009.
"South Africa Attempts to Help Zimbabwe Migrants through New Permit System,""Refugee Rights News, Volume 5, Issue 2, May 2009.
"Negotiating the Way Home: A Difficult Path for Returning Burundians ," Refugee Rights News, Volume 5, Issue 1, February 2009.
"It's Like You Don't Exist': Foreigners still searching for solutions two months after the xenophobic violence in South Africa," Refugee Rights News, Volume 4, Issue 5, July 2008.
"South Africans, Foreigners and the Dynamics of Identity in South Africa," Refugee Rights News, Volume 4, Issue 4, June 2008.
"Seeking Durable Solutions for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania," Refugee Rights News, Volume 4, Issue 3, May 2008.
IRRI and the SSRC, "Citizenship and Forced Migration in the Great Lakes Region: Exploring the linkages through multi-disciplinary research"