AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

Coping with the Refugee Wait: The Role of Consumption,

Normalcy, and Dignity in Refugee Lives at Kakuma Refugee

Camp, Kenya

Rahul Chandrashekhar Oka

ABSTRACT The relief discourse has long treated refugee camp economies and the resulting black markets and

commercial consumption as detrimental for the relief process and the refugees. The consumption of “luxuries and

comforts” is regarded as costly, trivial, unreasonable, and nonessential. However, despite the negative effects and

the high costs of consumption, refugees make strenuous efforts to participate in these commercial economies. I

analyze refugee commercial consumption at Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, to argue that, despite its problems,

the consumption is important, reasonable, and even essential. Using ethnographic data collected between 2008

and 2011, I suggest that this consumption has tangible benefits beyond the ability to fill relief gaps. It provides a

forum whereby refugees can feel “normal” and gain “dignity,” and cope with the long wait and the static transience

of refugee life. Attaining normalcy and dignity through consumption may even enable structural stability amid the

dangerous and volatile conditions of refugee settlements as well as mitigate the long-term effects of relief-induced

agonism. Given these benefits, I stress the importance of further research into the complexities of refugee com-

merce and consumption for policy makers and relief workers. [refugee camp economies, commercial consumption,

normalcy and dignity, relief and aid, Somali refugees, Kakuma]

MUHTASARI Mazungumzo na maandishi yanayohusu uchumi, biashara, magendo, and ufisadi kati kampi za

wakimbizi mara nyingi kujadiliwa hadharani. Inaaminika kwamba mambo na vitimbi vinayoendeshwa katika kampi

za wakimbizi vikijulikana huenda yakazorotesha hali na maisha ya wakimbizi. Hata hivyo, ni wazi kwamba maisha

ya wakimbizi ni ya ghali na mara nyingi imeonelewa kwamba hawana haki kutamani vitu ama vifaa wasivyohitaji.

Hata hivyo ukweli ni kwamba wakimbizi ni wanadamu na wana haki ya kutamani vitu kama watu wengine. Makala

hii inaripoti matokeo ya utafiti niliofanya katika kampi ya wakimbizi inayoitwa Kakuma kati Jamhuti ya Kenya mnama

miaka 2008 hadi 2011. Utafiti huu umedokeza waziwazi kwamba biashara ya aina nyingi inaendeshwa katika kampi

ya wakimbizi. Uchumi huo unaotokana na biashara ya vyakula vya wakimbizi umetia fora. Utafiti huu waonyesha

ni wazi kwamba maisha ya wakimbizi hawako tofauti na watu wwa kawaida. Pia hali yao ya kimaisha yanaweza

kubadilishwa yakawa mema na yenye heshima wakati wanangojea uamuzi wa makazi yao ya kudumu. Kutokana

na utafiti huu, ni wazi kwamba biashara inayoendeshwa katika kampi za wakimbizi yaweza kurekebishwa iwapa

wakimbizi pamjoa ma wale wanaosimamia kampi hizi watakubali mambo yalivyo na kujaribu kutafuita suluhisho.

[Uchumi katika kampi za wakimbizi, biashara ya vyakula, kawaida and heshima, msaada and usaidizi, wakimbizi wa

Kisomalia wa Kakuma]

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 116, No. 1, pp. 23–37, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. C© 2014 by the American Anthropological Association.

All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12076

24 American Anthropologist • Vol. 116, No. 1 • March 2014

RESUMEN El discurso sobre asistencia ha tratado por largo tiempo las economıas de los campos de refugiados, los

mercados negros resultantes y el consumo comercial como nocivo para el proceso de asistencia y los refugiados. El

consumo de “lujos y comodidades” es visto como costoso, trivial, irracional, y no-esencial. Sin embargo, a pesar de

los efectos negativos y los altos costos de consumo, los refugiados hacen arduos esfuerzos para participar en estas

economıas comerciales. Analizo el consumo comercial de refugiados en el Campo de Refugiados Kakuma, Kenia,

para argumentar que, a pesar de sus problemas, el consumo es importante, razonable y aun esencial. Usando datos

etnograficos recopilados entre el 2008 y 2011, sugiero que este consumo tiene beneficios tangibles mas alla de la

habilidad de llenar los vacıos de la asistencia. Provee un foro donde los refugiados pueden sentirse “normales” y ganar

“dignidad” y hacer frente a la larga espera y la transitoriedad estatica de la vida de refugiados. Lograr normalidad y

dignidad a traves del consumo puede posibilitar una estabilidad estructural en medio de unas condiciones peligrosas

y volatiles de los asentamientos de refugiados, ası como mitigar los efectos de largo plazo de la asistencia—angustia

inducida. Dados estos beneficios, enfatizo la importancia de investigacion mas extensa en las complejidades del

comercio y el consumo de los refugiados para los creadores de polıtica y los trabajadores en asistencia. [economıas

de campos de refugiados, consumo comercial, normalidad y dignidad, asistencia y ayuda, refugiados somalıes en

Kakuma]

INTRODUCTION: COPING THROUGHCONSUMPTION

J une 30, 2011, was a particularly hard day at the KakumaRefugee Camp in Kenya. Over the previous week, the

residents had suffered rising temperatures, reduced reliefrations, and daily reports of drought and imminent faminein Kenya and Somalia. Around 11:00 a.m., the news cameinto the cafe where I was sitting that the U.S. government hadrejected more than a hundred asylum applications from thecamp. In an instant, families who had been waiting for newlives suddenly faced the possibility of living permanently asstateless refugees in a place that, although marginally betterthan the places from which they had fled, was not a placein which they could settle. All the paperwork and “waiting,waiting, waiting” appeared to have been for naught. Soon,the cafes, teashops, restaurants, and homes within the campwere buzzing with conspiracy stories, general dejection, andeven some threats of reprisal. Although disappointments arenot uncommon in refugees’ lives, this wholesale rejectionseemed to brutally reinforce what they dreaded: their statictransience. That day, none of the refugees spoke to me abouttheir chances of resettlement with any hope or optimism.

As the news spread around the camp, the storekeepersof Kakuma and I also observed unusually higher purchasesof nonrelief goods commonly bought by refugees, includ-ing spiced and sugared tea, coffee, soft drinks, sweets, fla-vored yogurts, soft drinks, and meals with meat, fish, andpasta, items that constitute small luxuries or comforts forthe refugees of Kakuma. Over the next two days, I saw dis-heartened families and friends gathering to commiserate andexchange narratives of shock and claims of acquaintance withrejected applicants as they shared these purchased goods. Af-ter two days, the shock began to wear off, stories of sadness

and reprisals died down, and the consumption declined toits earlier levels.

Although I had been investigating the commercial econ-omy in Kakuma since 2008, the events of and following June30, 2011, provided a vivid vignette of the significant role thatthe many small daily acts of commercial consumption playedin mitigating both the dreariness and the much-observedhostility or violence of refugees’ lives. The act of purchasingand sharing favored foods that seem to temporarily minimizethese realities of refugee life plays a far more important rolethan merely satisfying hunger. Rather, these everyday actsof consumption enable refugees to feel a sense of normalcyand to cope with sadness with some dignity while they waitin lines for relief rations, security, and repatriation or reset-tlement. Moreover, the purchase and consumption of foodsthat are desired and familiar, unlike the passively received,largely unpalatable, and culturally and logistically unsuitablerelief food, generate a counter-narrative of the refugee as anagent as opposed to a perpetual recipient of global largesse.

The conventional relief discourse is based on a deeplyrooted perception of the inalienability of charity and dona-tion, and it focuses on measurable criteria for calculatingrefugee nutritional necessities: that is, calorific value of thegiven food as opposed to quality or taste (Crisp 2003; James2008). I argue that this discourse misses the social complex-ities of commercial purchase and consumption, and I proffera counter-discourse: that refugee commercial consumption,wherein refugees choose to actively purchase and consumegoods with cash or credit, is important, reasonable, and es-sential because it has social benefits that outweigh or at leastmitigate its costs. As we shall see, these benefits operate notonly at the individual and group levels but also at the struc-tural level of maintaining a densely populated settlement of

Oka • Coping with the Refugee Wait 25

vulnerable, disaster-traumatized, displaced peoples of vary-ing ethnicities in inhospitable terrains, who are sufferingfrom long-term effects of “relief-induced agonism” (Dirks1989). Observed in refugee camps across the world, relief-induced agonism is defined as a marked hostility toward relieforganizations and other refugees that emerges among newrefugees upon their initial admittance into refugee camps,and it is particularly correlated with refeeding after peri-ods of food deprivation (Dirks 1980:42). Although the un-derlying causes of relief-induced agonism are debated, theemergent hostility marks the beginning of—and continues toshape—refugees’ relationships with each other and the reliefagencies, which might be mitigated by refugee commercialconsumption (Dirks 1989; Oka 2011b). More specifically,the wider range of goods available in the commercial marketsenables refugees to choose culturally preferred and desiredproducts, regardless of the quantity purchased.

This consumption is enabled by small-scale cash transac-tions, frequently seen in refugee camps and other marginal-ized areas such as inner-city neighborhoods and rural settle-ments, wherein even the poorest can purchase and consumesmall quantities of goods (Aldrich and Waldinger 1990;Kaufman et al. 1997). In such economies, a small amount ofcash allows even the poorest residents or refugees to partic-ipate in what I term agentive consumption: to have the abilityand resources to choose, purchase, and consume small butcomforting, familiar, and desired “nonessentials.” Here I fo-cus on the consumption of food items that would not beconsidered as luxuries or even comforts for most readers.Although the shopkeepers with whom I spoke reported thatrefugees sought to consume all manners of commodities, in-cluding electronics, clothing, and cosmetics that most peo-ple would consider luxuries and comforts, the purchase andconsumption process discussed in this article representedthe easiest way to buy culturally familiar and desired foods,providing pleasure for minimal cash and gaining what therefugees at Kakuma described as normalcy (caadi [Somali]and kawaidha [KiSwahili]) and dignity (sharaf [Somali]) andheshima [KiSwahili]).

The social function of consumption, or the power of con-sumption in shaping socioeconomic processes (Douglas andIsherwood 1993), has received increasing attention withinanthropology. Such work views consumption not just as thetail end of the movement of materials and services dominatedby production and distribution but also as a transformativepoint at which consumers’ demands, tastes, preferences, andneeds in turn shape production and distribution (Colloredo-Mansfeld 2005; Fine and Leopold 1993; Hansen 2002). Therefugees of Kakuma, like those observed in refugee campsand other marginalized areas across cultures (Agier 2011;Asres 2007), are avid consumers of information, goods, andservices that traverse global, regional, and local scales. Al-though the occasional consumption of nonsubsistence itemsmay not strain the resources of the 70 to 80 percent ofrefugees in Kakuma who have access to cash through lo-cal employment, business activities, or remittances from

abroad, even those refugees without access to employmentor remittance will go to extraordinary lengths to participatein the purchase consumption of such luxuries and comfortsfor as little as 10 KES (Kenyan shillings) or approximately$0.12.1 As Karen Hansen observes of the secondhand cloth-ing industry in Zambia, such consumption “makes a differ-ence that matters,” as consuming comforts rather than taste-less necessities “gives dignity to persons with few means”(2002:224).

I focus on the consumption of purchased food–relatedluxuries and comforts among the poorer minority of resi-dents of the Kakuma Refugee Camp—the 20 to 30 percentwhose resources are strictly limited to the relief packagesthey receive from various United Nations bodies. At as lit-tle as $0.12 per transaction, this consumption is the mostaccessible, easy, and hence primary means by which poorerrefugees negotiate stressful periods in a global world that seesthem largely as objects or numbers waiting for repatriationor resettlement.

THE RELIEF MISSION AND REFUGEECONSUMPTIONThe primary mandate of relief agencies and workers is tokeep refugees alive and safe until they can be repatriatedor relocated (Guttieri 2005; James 2008). Given that theseagencies invariably struggle with economic and logisticalconstraints and structural limitations (Crisp 2003; Jansen2008; Montclos and Kagwanja 2000), they have usuallyviewed commercial consumption by refugees not only asdetrimental to relief logistics but as exacerbating the vulner-ability of the refugees (Oka 2011b; Pottier 1996; Werker2007). Within the discourse of most aid organizations, thecommercial-sector focus on providing relative comforts andluxuries within refugee camp settings has been consideredcostly, trivial, unreasonable, and nonessential (Brees 2008).

This narrative has been observed within relief policiesin refugee camps and other displaced persons’ settlementsacross the world as relief agencies struggle with the constantthreat of budget cuts, donor fatigue, and the daily logisticalproblems of managing hundreds and thousands of vulnerablepeople, usually in inhospitable and hostile environments(Agier 2011). In the Ngara and Goma camps in Rwanda, forinstance, the tasteless maize grain and flour and the cost offuel for boiling the beans and grinding the corn drew intensecomplaints from the refugees, who were forced to sell partof their relief package (beans and maize) to buy food (rootcrops and cassava) that was both palatable and fuel efficient(Pottier 1996:327–330). As Johan Pottier noted, althoughthe relief workers in these camps were well aware of theunpalatable nature and the high costs of processing of the foodgiven to the refugees, they viewed the sale of the food intothe black market as refugee ingratitude. Similarly, attemptsby Burmese refugees in Thailand to gain resources outsidethe formal relief infrastructure led to tensions between therefugees and the relief agencies under the joint managementof the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

26 American Anthropologist • Vol. 116, No. 1 • March 2014

(UNHCR) and the Thai government, primarily because ofthe refugees’ interactions with the Thai and Burmese blackmarkets (Brees 2008).

In the Dadaab camp in Kenya, Somali refugees also par-ticipated in the commercial economy, using relief foods andthe black market to alleviate what Awa Abdi described astheir “diminished self-worth due to their inability to bet-ter their situation or to escape from the conditions of camplife” (2005:7), although the narrative among the relief work-ers at Dadaab revolved around concerns about “dependencysyndrome” and the camp administration’s expectation thatrefugees would self-represent themselves as “helpless sup-plicants under suspicion” (Abdi 2005:6–8; see also Hitchcox1990; Hyndman 2000; Kibreab 2003). Recently, variousofficial policies have directly targeted commercial consump-tion as a problem by offering vouchers and frequently takingpunitive actions against refugees and traders (Agier 2011;Brees 2008; Werker 2007).

In practice, however, the relief agencies themselves en-gage the services of local trading firms for office supplies,food, fuel, and other goods required by their offices andstaff (Agier 2011; Oka 2009, 2011b). In most camps acrossthe world (e.g., Zataari in Jordan, Dadaab in Kenya, andBreidjing in Chad), retail and wholesale shops within thecamps openly provide luxury and essential goods and ser-vices for refugees who receive remittances from diasporannetworks as well as bank-like institutions that manage theremittances (Agier 2011; Jacobsen 2005; Lischer 2005; VanTets 2013). Both of these situations would seem to unsettlethe dominant view of commercial consumption among aidworkers and agencies.

I argue that the seeming persistence of this narrativelies in its stemming from a larger discourse about charityand poverty in which marginalized poor recipients, includ-ing refugees, have to constantly negotiate the categoriesof “deserving” and “undeserving” in the judgment of thecharity givers. The mandate of contemporary charitable or-ganizations that battle poverty is the temporary provisionof resources and stability until the recipients can becomeproductive citizens (Erskine and McIntosh 1999). In thiscontext, the perceived misuse or abuse of charity (e.g., the1980s welfare queen narrative in the United States) is seen asbreaching a moral contract, rendering the abuser undeserv-ing of the charity (Cohen 2005; Poppendieck 1999). Reliefsimilarly works as a form of charity wherein the primarymandate is to maintain the safe survival of refugees untiltheir repatriation or resettlement as productive citizens.

The official position of most humanitarian relief or-ganizations is that all actors need to be protected againstthe negative impact of refugee commercial consumption:the refugees from certain indebtedness to camp stores andthe relief organizations from losses when expensive relieffood is sold into black markets with no reciprocal monetarybenefit amid declining yearly budgets (James 2008). Al-though most relief workers on the ground may understandthat relief food is not palatable and may not be culturally

or practically appropriate for the specific refugees who re-ceive it, their perception of relief food sees it as inalienablefrom its primary use as food by the refugees, especiallygiven their logistical constraints and economic problems. Itis not refugee commercial consumption per se that aid work-ers see as breaching the moral contract of relief as charitybut, rather, that refugees, even (and especially) the poorestamong them, sell the relief food brought to them at so muchtrouble and cost into the black market so as to gain access tocash to consume other goods, thereby demonstrating theiringratitude.

KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMPWith a population of approximately 85,000 in 2011,Kakuma Refugee Camp near Kakuma Town, Turkana Dis-trict, Kenya, established in 1991, is one of the largestrefugee camps in the world and one of the longest-lasting hu-manitarian settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa (Agier 2011;Hilhorst and Jansen 2010; Jansen 2008; Montclos andKagwanja 2000).2 Originally built for Sudanese refugees,the camp is now home to Ethiopians, Rwandans, Burundi,Congolese, Eritreans (since 1994), Somalis (since 1997),and Darfurians (since 2008). From an estimated populationof 30,000 in January 2008, the camp population had risento an estimated 82,000–95,000 by August 2011, with mostfamilies spending an average of ten years as camp residents(Agier 2011; Oka 2011b).

Kakuma Town (pop. 60,000) consists of businesses andresidences clustered along a 100-meter stretch on the Kitale-Lokichoggio-Juba Highway (Figure 1). Kakuma emerged as atransport center and market town in the 1960s when Somalitraders established businesses to service the local communi-ties and drivers on the Kitale-Juba road (Oka 2009, 2011a,2011b; Montclos and Kagwanja 2000). Kakuma Town mer-chants have supplied goods and services to the refugees andthe relief workers ever since the establishment of KakumaRefugee Camp and, until 2005, the United Nations Or-ganization (UN) base for Sudan Relief at Lokichoggio onthe Kenya-Sudan border. According to the interviewedwholesalers, the refugee camp provides monthly sales of$350,000–$400,000 and thus is the economic lifeblood ofKakuma Town.

Kakuma Refugee Camp is located one kilometer (0.8miles) from Kakuma Town and is managed by the UNHCRand the Camp Manager’s Office of the Ministry for RefugeeAffairs of the Government of Kenya (GOK). The largest re-lief organizations at the camp are the WFP and the LutheranWorld Federation (LWF), providing relief food distribu-tion; the International Rescue Committee, providing healthservices; the National Council of Churches of Kenya, provid-ing housing; the International Organization for Migration,providing resettlement; and Jesuit Refugees Services, pro-viding education. Most of the relief workers in Kakuma areKenyan nationals with a smaller percentage of internationalstaff in managerial positions from other African countries,Asia, Europe, and North and South America. Most of the

Oka • Coping with the Refugee Wait 27

FIGURE 1. Kitale-Juba Road, Kakuma Town, Kakuma Refugee Camp.

(Courtesy of Rahul Oka)

managerial-level Kenyan and international staff with whom Ispoke have worked for multiple relief or development agen-cies. The turnover rate is high, with most employment peri-ods ranging between one and two years. The relief workersare trained in specific fields, mainly economics, statistics,public health, and of course development studies. Thesestaff members are housed in three large compounds (LWF,WFP, and UNHCR compounds) with various amenities,including a swimming pool, bars, shops, recreational cen-ters, and exercise rooms for weights, yoga, and aerobics. TheWFP and UNHCR have fully air-conditioned, self-containedrooms, and all compounds have electricity and water (WFPand UNHCR, 24 hours/day; LWF, 18 hours/day). Oc-casional tensions arise between organizations over boththe management of the camp and reciprocal use of theseamenities, especially the swimming pool and the exerciserooms.

The refugee camp itself consists of four settlement clus-ters: Kakuma Refugee Camps I, II, III, and IV. The housesare built of mud brick, wood, or cane extracted fromthe surrounding territories and new or scavenged canvas(Figures 2a and 2b). The residential areas in Kakuma RefugeeCamp are located behind the shops on the main street, whichsell electronics, groceries, hardware, medicine, food, cloth-ing, and cosmetics, and offer services such as prepared food(restaurants, coffee–tea shops), laundry, Internet and com-puter access, banking, electronic repairs and maintenance,and education (Figures 2c and 2d).

Between 2008 and 2011, I gathered both qualitative andquantitative data on the role of the commercial economyat Kakuma.3 The ethnographic data was collected throughone-on-one and semistructured interviews and group discus-sions with traders, refugees, and relief workers and throughparticipant-observation in homes, businesses, and public ar-eas such as distribution centers, mosques, churches, andrestaurants. In July 2008, traders in the town of Kitale in-troduced me to Kakuma Town wholesalers, who in turnintroduced me to relief officials and retailers, and then theretailers introduced me to their consumers. The total num-ber of ethnographic participants included 78 traders, 179refugees, and 38 relief workers.4

My goal was to provide accurate and precise descrip-tions of socioeconomic processes at Kakuma that were dis-tinguishable from the agendas or desires of the various ac-tors involved. Apropos established protocol, I explainedthat I was neither a relief worker nor a journalist and hencehad no influence or ability to alter their situations and thatthey would not directly benefit from my research (unlikein information-gathering exercises conducted by the UN,GOK, or other NGOs).

My perceived powerlessness within the humanitarianspace of the camp gave me greater access to the everydaylives of the refugees and their homes, and to informal gath-erings, discussions, and debates, as well as allowed me towitness and record discourse and behaviors in which I was notperceived as an agent of change, censure, or justice. Throughparticipation in daily activities and discussions, I sought todistinguish between narratives informed by refugees’ andrelief workers’ agendas and those that were accurate de-scriptions of refugee life and to explore the mechanismsunderlying the commercial consumption among the poorerrefugees within the camp.

REFUGEE COMMERCE AND CONSUMPTIONThe sustainability of the commercial economy at Kakumadepends upon two main factors: a regular supply of goodsand the ability of the refugees to pay for goods with cash(Agier 2011; Montclos and Kagwanja 2000; Oka 2011a,2011b). The goods are imported from Kitale and othercities in Kenya by the Kakuma Town wholesalers and soldin refugee-operated retail shops within the refugee camp.The flow of trade goods and services, relief goods, and cashamong the institutions, agencies, and actors in Kakuma ismapped in Figure 3.

The cash used by refugees comes from three sources:(1) remittances (from North America, Europe, ArabianPeninsula–Gulf, South Asia) through banks and mobilephone currency transfers, estimated at $200,000 monthly;(b) employment in the commercial sectors (as sales agents,clerks, accountants) or the relief agencies (as guards orclerks), estimated at $66,000; and (3) sale of relief pack-ages into the black market, the only recourse of the poorerrefugees, estimated at $89,000. Together, these result in acombined monthly total of approximately $355,000 in cash

28 American Anthropologist • Vol. 116, No. 1 • March 2014

FIGURE 2. (a) mud brick home; (b) abandoned mud/thatch home; (c) main street/shopping area in Kakuma; (d) groceries, hardware, meat, cosmetics

(seen clockwise). (Courtesy of Rahul Oka)

FIGURE 3. The flow of relief, trade goods, and cash between actors and

consumers at Kakuma. This cash includes salaries for refugee employees

from relief agencies. (Courtesy of Rahul Oka)

flowing out of Kakuma to the traders of Kakuma Town andbeyond.5 Refugees use this cash largely to access the com-mercial economy and purchase food and clothing, as wellas other items such as cosmetics and electronics. The pur-

chases discussed in this article include mostly foods such asmilk or milk powder, yogurt, fruits, lentils, beans, bread,vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, oil, sugar, sweets, candy, bev-erages, pasta, rice, and processed foods, including packagedsnacks.

These items, seen by relief agencies as comforts and lux-uries rather than necessities, are purchased in larger amountsby wealthier refugees or in small, locally packaged quantitiesfor as little as 10 KES by the poorer ones. These purchasesare very profitable for the retailers and expensive for theconsumers. For example, a trader reported that a kilo bagof sugar cost him 65 KES/kilogram retail; by selling it in 15small packets for 10 KES each, the trader made a profit of 85KES/kilogram. Powdered milk that cost 180 KES/kilogramfor a one-kilogram bag was sold in small packages for a profitof 120 KES/kilogram. The traders maintained that althoughdividing the goods into small packets was time consuming,it was both profitable for them and worked to the refugees’benefit. As one retailer selling 10 shillings of sweets to asmall boy noted,

Most of [these people] have very little cash. They sell the [WFP]food and get a little money. They then come to shops and buysmall-small items; they can afford 10 to 20 shillings at a time. Itis more expensive to buy small and not big [quantities], but thatis true anywhere. [interview, March 2010]

Oka • Coping with the Refugee Wait 29

All the refugee participants who relied solely on therelief packages stated that though such consumption wasexpensive, it was indispensable. Relief food was not justsomething to consume—that is, something with use value—it was something with exchange value as well. According toone man buying sambusas (meat–bean samosas) as treats forcelebrating Ramadan,

Life in the camp is hard. They [local militias] attack frequently.The security tries to deal with the situation but many times, wefear them, too. Between 2007 and 2009, the security situationwas like ten years ago, very bad. The [local people] hate us and wecan’t go anywhere. So if selling the relief food gives me money,I can take 10, 20, 100 shillings, buy my family small things toenjoy, it is good. [Interview, July 2011]

Nonetheless, the relief workers’ concerns about theexploitation of refugees are not wholly unfounded, as myresearch confirms the detrimental effect of this consumptionboth on the relief process, due to the constant loss of reliefgoods through their sale into the black market, and on therefugees, as their need to gain cash to purchase expensivegoods often necessitates poorer refugees’ going into debt tothe retail stores.

INALIENABLE DONATIONS, RELIEF FOOD, BLACKMARKETRelief agencies in Kakuma, as in any displaced persons’settlement or refugee camp, face difficult working condi-tions, constant complaints from the refugees, budget cuts,and continuing demand for better outcomes with fewer andfewer resources (Crisp 2003; Oka 2011b). The WFP atKakuma provides a relief package to all the refugees twice amonth based on the minimal dietary requirement of 2,100calories per person per day, as stipulated by the UNHCR(Crisp 2003). In Kakuma, this package consists of wheatflour, whole maize corn, oil, edible seeds such as sorghumor green grams (also known as mung beans), salt, soap,and some other essentials. In 2011, the WFP provided foodto 98.3 percent of the registered refugees at Kakuma, av-eraging 2,076 calories per person per day (Oka 2011b).The chief coordinator displayed some satisfaction with theirachievements, even while stating that

our office has struggled to increase the nutritional value of thefood package, from 1,400 calories back in the early years of thecamp; we are now coming close to achieving the target 2,100.But it is very hard. Food prices, gas prices, donor fatigue, andfears, they all affect us. [Interview, June 2011]

WFP and LWF invest resources and labor in bringingthe food to the camps from donor nations and bear highcosts of maintenance and support, even though around halfof the distributed food is sold into the black market and is notconsumed by the refugees. Given the difficulty of providingadequate nutrition to the refugees, the relief workers find thesale of these goods on the black market an unwelcome reality.From the relief agencies’ viewpoint, the black market is amajor cause of concern. The relief workers operate under

constant pressure to shut down the black markets, whichprove remarkably resilient to those efforts. The frustrationsof many in the relief community were expressed by oneofficer who, angrily pointing south and east in the directionof the rest of Turkana and Somalia, complained,

There are other refugees in other parts of Africa, like Somaliaright now, even the Turkana outside, who would do anything toget this food. But they have to buy it from the black market. Itcosts so much money to get the food here and to maintain so muchstaff and support, and then [refugees] sell it. It is really wasteful,very wasteful. [Interview, June 2011]

This officer and most (though not all) of the relief work-ers I interviewed frequently stated that the use of the re-lief food as commercial currency tainted the humanitariandonor–recipient relationship, thereby insulting the mediat-ing relief workers who are strongly invested in this rela-tionship. This perceived inalienability of the donated relieffood—wherein its only legitimate use is direct consump-tion by the recipient refugees—has been part of the charityand begging discourse throughout history. Those receiv-ing charity are viewed as breaking a moral contract whenthey actively use donated items to buy luxuries and com-forts, seeking consumption that benefactors see as bingeing,wasteful, and unnecessary (Cohen 2005:351; Erskine andMcIntosh 1999:27–28). Although refugees are not beggars,they receive millions of dollars in charity and donations,thereby inviting the question of whether refugees can bechoosers. By not consuming the food and selling it intothe black market, thereby seeming to reject the aid, andthrough their constant complaints, refugees (and other suchrecipients of charity) are routinely described by donors andrelief workers as ungrateful and even “undeserving” (Agier2011; Poppendieck 1999). Although many relief workers Ispoke with understand the refugees’ need to consume betterfood, they perceived the means of consumption—the blackmarket—as a rejection and insult.

According to the research participants (refugees,traders, and relief workers), around 80 to 90 percent ofthe refugees sell part or most of their food package on theblack market, especially the whole maize grain, beans, andsorghum (in the case of the Somalis). Operating openlythrough four or five shops coordinated with each of the dis-tribution points in the four camps, the black market traderspurchase these foods from the refugees and repackage it into50-kilogram sacks that they then resell to retailers in thecamp shops, wholesalers in Kakuma Town, and then to localand regional customers, such as the Turkana or the largerKenyan food market (Figure 4).6

Although it may seem counterintuitive for camp retailersto buy food rejected by refugees to sell to other refugees,this system distributes the food to consumers who chooseto buy the items as desired goods. These consumers includeboth refugees and members of the host community. Justas the refugees in Rwanda sold beans and maize to buyroot crops and cassava, refugees in Kakuma used the cashfrom selling maize and beans to buy sorghum and wheat

30 American Anthropologist • Vol. 116, No. 1 • March 2014

FIGURE 4. The movement of relief food and cash from and between

the refugees, black market, the camp commercial economy, and beyond.

(Courtesy of Rahul Oka)

(Ethiopians) or green grams and rice (Somalis), and it wasthe host community of Turkana that bought the maize andbeans. According to one retailer,

Ethiopians would like more sorghum and wheat than [WFP] gives.So they sell their maize and buy sorghum. And since the Turkanado not have any food, they do odd jobs and buy maize and beanshere. [Interview, July 2010]

Most participants confirmed that refugees who receiveremittances or are employed comprise 70–80% of therefugees at Kakuma Refugee Camp and tend to sell up to90 percent of their relief packages. The relief-dependentrefugees with no other source of cash constitute 20–30% ofrefugees at the camp and sell between 40 and 50 percent oftheir relief food. Depending on family size, refugees sellingtheir relief rations realize between 600 and 4,000 shillings amonth, cash that is used to buy goods from the camp stores.

The black market is the primary source of cash for poorerrefugees without access to remittances or employment andis indeed seen as a benefit by those who engage in it. All myrelief-dependent consultants stressed the necessity of cash.For example, commercial mills had to be paid in cash to grindmaize into flour for ugali (porridge), as did the coal tradersfor buying maka (coal) and the Turkana wood collectors forfirewood to cook beans. When asked about the sale of therelief food to buy other food from the markets, the mostcommon response among refugees and the traders was thatthe food belonged to the refugees, and it was their choice toeat it, sell it, or waste it. One woman told me,

I, my family, we appreciate the food given, even though it notenough, and not what we like. But it is also something we cansell, exchange, to buy something we do like. Does being a refugeemean that they can tell us not only where we live, but how weshould live, what we should, when we should eat? Do they thinkthat they own us? [Interview, July 2008]

This is a powerful argument used repeatedly by the refugees,and it speaks to the constant struggle for agency and con-trol between the refugees and the relief organizations overrefugees’ lives. When I asked the relief traders about theeffect of their trade on the relief process, most perceived the

resale of relief food as “just business.” One of the traders,pointing to his large pile of bean sacks, dismissed my query:

Once the food is given to the refugees, they can do what theywant with it. And the food is so bad, these beans, they cannot becooked here, not with the firewood shortage. So they sell them tous and we resell it [to others]. It is just business. [Interview, June2011]

Ultimately, the refugees are the ones who experiencethe negative fallout of the complexities of the black marketand the struggles and agendas of the relief agencies whenrations are cut or security and support personnel are down-sized (Crisp 2003). The refugees with whom I spoke did notconsider the impact of the black market on the aid process,whereas the difficulty of distribution was a central part ofthe relief discourse. In any case, none of the interviewedrefugees or traders believed that the relief workers’ prob-lems with the black market were enough to countervailthe immediate gratification that the refugees received fromthe purchase and consumption of familiar and comfortingfoods. The refugees understood and rejected the perceptionof the inalienability of the donated food, even more so whenthe food they were given was considered inadequate andinappropriate.

PROBLEMS OF RELIEF FOODAlthough the refugee participants reported that the WFP andLWF were doing a much better job of food distribution in2011 than they had in 2008, they also mentioned persistingfood shortages at Kakuma. Some complaints stemmed fromthe definition of adequate nutrition for an average humanbeing. One man said,

Even if they give us the full allotment, it is just not enough. I don’tcare how they count what is good and correct. When I was single,I was always hungry. Now that I have a family, it is even worse.[Interview, July 2008]

Other complaints were based on the type of food they re-ceived, the difficulty of its preparation, and its cultural inad-equacies. Kakuma refugees received beans and maize moreregularly than other products they were supposed to getaccording to UNHCR guidelines, which in turn created de-mand for fuel and processing machinery, both procured onlythrough cash (see Pottier 1996).

However, the main complaints at Kakuma (as at otherrefugee camps) about the relief food are directed at its in-appropriateness. By inappropriate, the refugees meant that itdid not take cultural preferences into account, and a generalperception among the refugees was that the needs and pref-erences of African refugees received less attention and carefrom the UN than did those of Asian, Latin American, orEuropean refugees. According to one man, for instance,

Though we are refugees, we know that there is a differencebetween African refugees and other refugees. We are just Africansso of course we will eat sorghum, beans, and maize; that’s whatthey think. But we Somali eat basta [pasta], we were under Italianrule. We know that the Bosnian refugees were given pasta while

Oka • Coping with the Refugee Wait 31

we have to eat sorghum. So why can’t they treat us like humansand give us food that makes us feel as normal humans, not somerubbish that is forced upon us? [Interview, June 2008]

He went on to voice a general complaint of the Somalisabout the inappropriateness of sorghum, which he reportedwas “not part of [the Somali] diet and it gives [the children]stomach aches. The leaders have spoken to the LWF/WFPagain and again. But they don’t care.”

However, the coordinators at the WFP and LWF wereaware of the refugees’ dissatisfaction. One LWF official ad-mitted that the complaints were neverending and, regardingthe sorghum issue, noted that

[the situation became] so bad that we have stopped giving sorghumto them, a few months ago. But they want meat, milk, pasta, andrice. Do you know that one small packet of pasta costs 100shillings? There is no way we can afford to give them what theywant. I understand that they want to eat like they did in Somalia orEthiopia or Sudan, but we have donor concerns, budget shortfalls.Already the money is tight for what we have. We are doing ourbest. [Interview, July 2011]

The anger of refugees at the type and quality of foodthey receive is a common response toward a perceived in-difference or neglect from unfeeling relief workers (Agier2011; Dirks 1980, 1989; Pottier 1996). It often explodesoutwardly through violence, as had been noticed by re-lief workers at Kakuma in the 1990s and in refugee campsacross the world (Agier 2011). In Kakuma, this anger wasoften conveyed through humor or satire. To affirm the pointthat urban Somali do not like beans, I was repeatedly tolda popular joke, repeated almost every field season, about aman from Hammar (Mogadishu) who walked into a roadsiderestaurant and sat down at the table:

Dropping his voice, he whispered to the waiter, “I want digir”[beans]. The waiter leaned in and asked, “What?” Again the manwhispered, “Digir.” The waiter whispered, “Digir?” “Yes,” the manwhispered back, “digir.” The waiter turned and shouted out tothe kitchen, “Here, one digir!” The man, mortified, immediatelylooked around at the other patrons and yelled at the waiter, “Hey,when did I ask for digir? Do I look like I’d eat digir? Why are youasking them to make me digir?” [Field notes, October 2011]

Beans (and maize) are eaten by rural peoples, the poorof Somalia, usually combined in a dish called cambuulo (So-mali) or githeri (Kiswahili). Ninety percent of the Somalirefugees who have been in Kakuma since the 1997 camefrom the urban areas of Mogadishu, Galkayo, Barawa, andKismayo. Prior to their displacement, their normal diet wasvaried and included rice, pasta, meat, tuna and other typesof fish, spices, tea, coffee, yogurt, milk, and pastries. Thefrustration of living as a refugee is compounded by the angerof being forced to accept and eat food that is culturally per-ceived as food typical of the rural poor. Also, when refugeesinitially arrive in Kakuma, they live for extended periods in“reception centers” where they are given githeri “morning,noon, and night,” generating deep anger and, most likely,the beginnings of relief-induced agonism (Elizabeth Wirtz,personal communication, July 2013). This results in a pow-

erful demand for their normal foods within the commercialeconomy, which, in stark opposition to the relief distribu-tion, serves to deliver food that is culturally appropriate andenjoyable, food that one would not be ashamed to serve toother people and that brings at least a momentary sense ofnormalcy and dignity. Most important, it is food that therefugees choose to buy in order to enjoy, not food they areforced to accept in order to survive, thereby affording thema greater sense of agency in their lives. At the same time, thesale of relief goods does not provide enough cash for poorerrefugees to purchase and consume goods on a regular basis,which forces them to turn to credit and debt relationshipswith retailers.

ASSUMING DEBT TO BUY NORMALCY ANDDIGNITYThe credit relationships between retailers and consumersin Kakuma Refugee Camp and their wholesale suppliersin Kakuma Town are managed through debt assumed bythe consumers and arranged between them and the retail-ers. Such debt arrangements are a characteristic aspect oftrade and consumer behavior in rural areas and other low-income neighborhoods (including prewar Somalia) wheretraders offer easy credit to cash-poor consumers (Aldrichand Waldinger 1990:117; Declich 1997). The consumersmaintain balances, and their creditworthiness is determinedby their ability to regularly pay a particular portion of theirbalance. Accordingly, most refugees at Kakuma establishcredit at two or three shops through social relationships orby making small cash down payments. Credit amounts arecalculated based upon the consumers’ perceived access tocash and known credit history. Refugees who receive re-mittances or are employed may maintain monthly balancesranging from 8,000 to 16,000 shillings a month, while thosedependent upon the sale of relief packages receive credit ofjust between 500 and 1,500 shillings a month. As noted inother analyses of trade in similar areas, the creditors’ re-quirements for continuing to provide credit to the poor areusually based on consistency and regularity of payment noton the total amount owed (see Aldrich and Waldinger 1990;Peebles 2010:228–229). One retailer summed up the logicof this practice:

The first payment should be in cash, even for a small amount.But some don’t have even small cash. We usually ask whetherwe know people in common, or just how other people look atthe person who wants to buy, and we can give small amounts ofcredit. The ones who come back are ones who will try to payoff their balance, a little at a time. We don’t always want thefull amount, though we will take it. Just enough so that they willcome back. And they will. They know that they get credit. Theyalways have a balance, but they can get things even if they have nocash. [Interview, July 2008]

Although this system means that all refugees have accessto consumption, it also means that they are vulnerable toindebtedness. Indeed, some of my participants mentionedfeeling constant scrutiny when they walked past the stores

32 American Anthropologist • Vol. 116, No. 1 • March 2014

of those to whom they were indebted. All stated that theymaintained a constant balance in the stores and that thisbalance had to be cleared or brought down to a minimumat least once every two months. Although the shopkeepersusually did not demand full payment, delinquent customerswere often subjected to persistent calls, home visits, andpublically humiliating collection attempts. One participantmentioned that once when he was without work, remittanceshad not come in for months, and the money from the sale ofrelief goods was exhausted, his life became unbearable:

I was almost going mad. I didn’t even sit in my house. Hiding frommy lenders, lying to them, afraid of being taken to police station. Ithought I would have to sell my house. [Interview, October 2009]

Like consumers in similar debt relationships across theworld, the Kakuma refugees told me that debt was somethingthey understood as they all had experience with such rela-tionships in their previous lives, to varying degrees. How-ever, they also stated that assuming debt in a refugee camphad a greater price and was more stressful, as there seemed tobe no end to the harshness of refugee life. The compound-ing factor was that the shopkeepers offered credit easily,making goods accessible to all refugees and making debt aninextricable part of life at Kakuma. As one participant said,

Before, one could think of some advancement, in job, in livingcondition. It made one feel that debt was more manageable. Here,we just wait, just waiting, waiting, waiting. And the debt nevergoes away but becomes larger. The more we wait, the more needto buy things, and more debt. And getting credit is so easy, thereare so many people with large debts that they struggle to pay, stillthey go back. Again and again. [Interview, March 2010]

That such experiences did not seem to act as a strong de-terrent against the practice of assuming debt adds anotherand perhaps unnecessary layer of complexity to the violentstructures of refugee lives. Rather, the refugees I talked withsaw indebtedness as an inescapable cost of maintaining nor-malcy and dignity. One asserted that he and his family weretruly poor and depended wholly on the relief package eventhough they personally detested boiled sorghum and wholemaize:

It is food and you have to eat . . . However, it is still nice to eatsomething that reminds me of home and times that were better.So, if I have to get credit in the shops, so if I have to sell some ofthe food to get basta and tuna, I will, but only for special occasions,to remind us of other times. [Interview, July 2008]

The basic argument made by most of my participantswas that having to eat their relief food made them really“feel their helplessness” (see Abdi 2005). This feeling wascompounded by the tastelessness of the food, which providednothing more to life than a basic level of nutrition. As life hasto go on, even in a refugee camp, the ability to consume foodthat tasted good and hinted at normal, self-respecting lives inthe past or in their future became central to their daily well-being. In particular, it also countered the overwhelminglyfrustrating wait for resolution as passive recipients of global

charity or relief that is exacerbated daily by the relief-inducedagonism initiated when entered the camp.

MITIGATING RELIEF-INDUCED AGONISMKakuma retailers stressed that their business depended uponthe hundreds and in some cases thousands of small dailytransactions by refugees without remittances who scrapedtogether enough money from the sale of relief food or hadenough credit to purchase in small amounts. On the refugees’part, for just ten shillings, they could buy tea, sugar, clovesand other spices, soap, oil, detergent, sweets, bubble gum,salted peanuts, and fruit juice concentrates, all in little pack-ets, and consume them with family and friends.

In my discussions among the refugees of Kakuma aboutwhat constituted a “normal” state of affairs, their ideas of nor-malcy and dignity were strongly tied to the acts of consump-tion. The looming and inhospitable transience of Kakumaprecluded their developing constructive projects or reward-ing jobs while their asylum cases were being considered.7 Astemporary solutions to disaster, the policies are intended toensure refugees’ survival, not to prompt discussion of nor-malcy and dignity (Allen 2008; Crisp 2003; Kibreab 2003;Libal and Harding 2007). Waiting in dangerous locationsfor resettlement or repatriation is an expected conditionfor refugees amid the hostility and occasional violence cre-ated initially by relief-induced agonism and exacerbated byperceived neglect (Dirks 1989:296–297). According to myinterviewees, this condition cannot be reformed; it needsto be physically escaped or socially countered, primarily byre-creating normalcy and dignity.

Consumption helped the Kakuma refugees counter the“normal” relief-induced agonism. Consumption created analternative normalcy through social acts that, according tomy participants, allowed them to think of better lives inthe past, imagined for the future, and, most importantly,lived in the present through the consumption of these smallcomforts and luxuries. When asked about the role and de-sired outcomes of this consumption, my participants usedthe Somali words caadi (normal) and sharaf (dignity). Oneman who invited me to his home for a meal pointed to thetea and cakes in front of us and said,

Though we have no money, we sometimes throw feasts, goodones, and we gain some sharaf. We feel caadi. When family andfriends gather and we feast, we could think we were back inSomalia, when things were caadi, normal. [Interview, October2009]

According to my participants, a dignified life was one inwhich normalcy was frequent and expected. Dignity was alsocorrelated with social standing and status. Indeed, dignitywas a direct outcome of the regular occurrence of feastingand other acts of food sharing and the building and main-taining of social ties through gift exchange and communalconsumption sharing. Normalcy and dignity as desired out-comes of consumption tied people to memories of betterdays and to visions and hopes of brighter futures largely

Oka • Coping with the Refugee Wait 33

derived through momentary escape from the static refugeepresent.

A normal life has dignity; a refugee life struggles forboth. Squalid conditions, insecure landscapes, and con-trolled mobility reduce former schoolteachers, shopkeepers,engineers, doctors, pastoralists, scholars, soldiers, and farm-ers to squatters living off the largesse of the West, the NGOs,and the host nations (Kaiser 2006; Mann 2010). In these sit-uations, a “dignified” life is one that most approximates thedesired normalcy. Dignity is the desired condition—one inwhich the refugee can actively be normal while diminishingthe enforced passivity of receiving aid and relief. Duringthe long wait in static transition, normalcy and dignity be-come necessary conditions for resilience, adaptability, andsurvival.

The refugees of Kakuma viewed normalcy and dignityas desired ends or goals and consumption as one of themeans of achieving these goals. Feeling normal was the mostfrequently cited reason for participation in commercial con-sumption, while dignity was seen as the outcome of contin-uous acts of purchase and agentive consumption, even in theexpensive and debt-inducing commercial economy. Regu-lar, self-respecting people buy goods and consume them,as they did back in Somalia or Sudan, and as they wouldbe able to do again upon their arrival in the United States.One participant, a former professor from Galkayo, Somalia,told me, “Only beggars wait for handouts.” Then he pausedand added ruefully, “Refugees, too.” He reflected on theimportance of feeling normal, a fleeting experience of caadi:

I have a job. So I sell my rations, not just to buy food, but tobuy good food sometimes. When my daughter was born, I invitedpeople to my house. I can’t just give them beans and maize. Ibought a goat, gave a feast. The money I got from the [relieftraders] allowed me to do that, [as did] the credit from the stores.My daughter is a Somali Sharif. She was greeted as a Sharif.[Interview, July 2010]

I myself participated in many such events at Kakumawhere cash, credit, and debt had been managed to throwfeasts, celebrate births, weddings, arrivals, and departures.Houses hummed with activity as the women ran aroundchopping vegetables, stirring pots, cooking, calling theirchildren, and asking the men to run to the stores. Themen smoked, chewed miraa (khat, or Catha edulis, a herbalstimulant), watched TV, drank tea, chatted, and avoidedchores or actively helped by putting up decorations. Theseevents were intensely human and helped me feel less likean outsider. Even though I have no comparable experienceof displacement and static transience, these scenes were nodifferent from similar celebrations during my childhood inIndia, my life in the United States, or any other place I havelived. Even as we sat waving at flies or mopping our sweatingbrows waiting for the feasts to begin, it became momentarilyeasy to forget that this was a refugee camp, filled with thememories of war and the brutalities of the long wait.

The Kakuma refugees, like refugees in other areas re-ceiving relief and aid, have learned to use relief packages

ingeniously to create a regular supply of cash and creditfor themselves and their families, enough to allow a consis-tent access to and participation in the commercial economy(Jacobsen 2005; Oka 2011b; Werker 2007). The refugeeshad little regret about selling part (or all) of their rations,as the social and epicurean gains from their commercialconsumption were larger than the passive consumption oftasteless relief food. These gains were seen not just in theconsumption act itself but also in its dual act of purchaseand consumption, through which they became agents. Toactively choose an item, big or small, that was not providedto them as “relief,” to bring it home and consume it withfamily and friends—this was something that normal humansdid, as remembered from the good days of the past and thehoped-for good days of the future.

Another dimension of the generation of normalcy anddignity that is often overlooked by policy experts yet alwayspresent in the minds of camp security personnel is that ofstructural sustainability. Although the refugees’ dissatisfac-tion with their relief food packages may have been seen asunwarranted and ungrateful by many relief workers, whenthis dissatisfaction is compounded by 80,000-plus displaced,disaster-affected people of varying ethnicities living in closeproximity in squalid surroundings and with restricted mobil-ity, one may anticipate severe problems in security, a long-term effect of the hostility emerging from relief-inducedagonism (Dirks 1989).

As other scholars have described, this potent combi-nation can easily manifest into domestic abuse, interethnicstrife, and communal riots (Bariagaber 2006; Lischer 2005;Montclos and Kagwanja 2000). These violent behaviors andprocesses are in fact a major concern of the UNHCR andthe host nations. In this regard, the various private secu-rity groups working for the UN agencies and the NGOsand the Kenyan Police with whom I spoke confirmed thatthe refugees’ consumption of small luxuries and comfortsto maintain a sense of normalcy and self-regard helped tomitigate the problem of violence. An officer who had beenstationed at Dadaab Camp before coming to Kakuma saidthat, in both camps, the increased “easy access of refugees to[commercial] goods [made] a difference. Dadaab is a largercamp, and food problems there are always [present] beforeriots and violence [start]” (interview, July 2011). Anothersecurity officer, who has been at Kakuma since 1999, opined:

The problems of security were much worse before the shopsstarted. There were a few shops but not much. All this [commerce]grew after 2002, and the riots and violence have diminished, notcompletely, but enough that I can tell. [Interview, July 2010]

Although a causal link between commercial consump-tion and violence is beyond the scope of this article, in myconversations with Kakuma relief workers, they repeatedlymentioned an observable correlation between the increasein commerce and a decline in violence. While waiting in-terminably for resolution and living on handouts leads todiscontent, the injection of normalcy and dignity can help

34 American Anthropologist • Vol. 116, No. 1 • March 2014

to mitigate its more extreme and violent expressions (Asres2007; Dirks 1989). Though the commercial consumption atthe camp was considered detrimental by relief workers andwas truly expensive, an unintended effect of the normalcyand dignity it preserved was its function as a pressure valvefor refugees, helping to forestall unrest and prevent uprisingsof multitudes of dissatisfied and embittered refugees.

CONCLUSIONAs a “humanitarian space,” a refugee camp is ideally an apo-litical, neutral, and impartial forum where humanitarianorganizations can freely assess and meet humanitarian needsand where the mandate for relief organizations is to sus-tain displaced peoples until repatriation or relocation, a longwait that can take years and even decades (Lischer 2005).In reality, these camps are located largely in inhospitableareas, and refugees’ lives are placed on hold as they waitfor resolution, leading to idleness and a destructive cycleof dependency (Asres 2007; Bookman 2002; James 2008:6;Jansen 2008; Kibreab 2003; Vu 2007). The different ac-tors involved in this humanitarian space determine policiesand processes according to their own institutional, group,and individual agendas (Hilhorst and Jansen 2010; Hassanand Hanafi 2010; Jansen 2008; Libal and Harding 2007).Hence, the benefits of camp settlement (greater efficiencyof relief services and enhanced security for the both refugeesand relief personnel) are often seriously and even violentlyundermined by its drawbacks (overcrowding, diseases, de-pletion of host capacity, environmental degradation, andthe degeneration of social structures; see James 2008:63;Lischer 2005; Peteet 2005). Commercial economies arepart of the unintended emergent socioeconomic realities ofrefugee humanitarian spaces, providing goods and servicesto relief workers and refugees alike (Brees 2008; Jacob-sen 2005; Oka 2009, 2011a, 2011b; Pottier 1996; Werker2007). The refugees who become dependent upon this com-mercial economy must also constantly negotiate the com-plex ways in which relief workers view their commercialenterprise. On one hand, many relief workers grudginglyacknowledge the role of this consumption in aiding theirown efforts. On the other hand, the larger relief discoursein which they participate actively discourages the use of theblack market, which is also the primary means by whichrefugees can participate in the commercial economy. Boththe sale of the relief food and the complaints about the inad-equacy and inappropriateness of the food are thereby seenas a rejection of the humanitarian donor mission groundedin a perception of an inalienability of donations from theirprimary charitable purpose of feeding deserving refugees toensure their survival.

The refugees of Kakuma live in a condition of seeminglypermanent transition in which resettlement, relocation, orrepatriation always seems just around the corner, though nothere and not now. They are told to bear their lot and waitfor something to happen, something that will take them backinto that world out there. It is the waiting that they dread

the most, a paradoxical state of static transience in which theconsumption of luxuries or comforts becomes a necessity.

The items bought by refugees, whatever their economicresources, are therefore functional and utilitarian as well ascomforting and luxurious. Although buying them carries thepotential of indebtedness and the resulting social humiliationand trauma, their consumption allows the refugees to engagewith others, to socialize, to celebrate, to mourn, and to gainsome sense of normalcy in their daily lives. The ability tocelebrate and communally consume goods brings normalcy;celebrating and communally consuming such items rendersdignity. Notwithstanding the complex interplay among re-lief infrastructures, debt, and consumption, the refugeesat Kakuma Refugee Camp (as elsewhere in other refugeecamps) sought to consume commercial goods because oftheir social benefits in generating solidarity. The refugeeconsumers also benefited from the overall decrease in vio-lence over the past two decades that some of the securitypersonnel partially attributed to the ease and access to suchconsumption. It was difficult not to conclude that the acuteanguish felt after the mass rejection of petitions on June30, 2011, which might have exploded into violent reprisals,was in fact mitigated by the solidarity built through sharedconsumption of foods purchased from the stores of Kakuma.

In the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of refugeeshave joined the pre-existing millions of refugees across theworld (Agier 2011). Official policies that are focused on sur-vival, and on measurable outcomes in providing the requiredminimal nutrition, downplay the role of the commercialeconomies that have been observed in refugee camps acrossthe world without realizing their larger social importancefor both the refugees and the relief process. Although manyrelief workers on the ground are angered and frustrated bythe black market, they also understand the benefits of con-sumption far better than official policies and relief discoursewould suggest. It would, of course, be financially impossi-ble for aid organizations to provide expensive commercialgoods in their relief packages. A recent grudging acceptanceof the necessity of nonrelief “normal” foods has led to re-lief organizations trying to develop institutions that competewith the commercial traders in refugee camps rather thanutilizing their networks and expertise. For example, theexperimental programs initiated in May 2013 by the WorldFood Programme (WFP) in the Zataari Camp in Jordan givesUN-backed vouchers to the refugees to “shop” for what theyneed and want at WFP-run stores as opposed to those ofthe local traders, thereby reducing refugee indebtedness andthe resale of relief food into the black market (Van Tets2013).

However, such attempts, while innovative and ad-mirable in their recognition of the needs of consumptionof normal foods, would actually diminish the agentive valueof purchase for the refugees. Yet a possible outcome isthe refugees and traders might reposition the UN-backedvouchers as goods with exchange value, such that refugeescan sell vouchers for cash to buy the luxuries and comforts

Oka • Coping with the Refugee Wait 35

they truly want and not those determined as such by theWFP, thereby reintroducing the agentive act of purchaseinto their consumption. An alternative would be to use anexisting, self-organizing trader network that responds ef-fectively and efficiently to the demands of the refugees.Otherwise, the introduction of yet another institution ruledby policies and mandates might, over the long run, under-perform in its primary mission.

Nevertheless, the Zataari Camp initiative suggests thatthe importance of consumption, and hence a sense of nor-malcy and dignity in refugee lives, has been introduced intothe relief mission. Further qualitative and quantitative re-search on the relations between commercial consumptionand refugee well-being would enable policy makers to ap-praise the costs and benefits of commercial consumptionand to enhance the individual, group, and structural ben-efits while reducing costs and other negative impacts. Ifconfirmed, my observation that commercial consumption,despite its costs to both the relief effort and the refugees,has tangible benefits for refugees by providing normalcy,dignity, and some stability in an otherwise interminablestate of static transience would also have significant impli-cations for addressing issues of vulnerability beyond refugeecommunities.

Rahul Chandrashekhar Oka Department of Anthropology,

University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556; roka@nd.edu;

http://anthropology.nd.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty-by-alpha/rahul-

oka/

NOTESAcknowledgments. This research was generously supported bythe Africa Council of the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago);the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, the College of Artsand Letters, and Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies(University of Notre Dame); and the Seng Foundation for MarketResearch. Institutional and logistical support was provided by theKhetia family of Kitale and the Kakuma offices of the LWF, WFP,and the Kenyan Ministry of Immigration and Department of RefugeeAffairs. I am indebted to the residents of Kakuma Town, the Somalitrading community, and the residents of Kakuma Camp, all of whomwelcomed me into their homes and shared their lives. I am especiallygrateful to A. A. Abdi, my guide and translator to the daily lifeof Kakuma Refugee Camp, and my colleagues (Vania Smith-Oka,Carolyn Nordstrom, Agustın Fuentes, Larissa Fast, Cat Bolten, IanKuijt, Omar Lizardo, Chap Kusimba, Elizabeth Wirtz, Mark Golitko,and Eric Lindland) for valuable discussions and insights. I thank JeanneBarker-Nunn of Jeanne Barker-Nunn & Associates for detailed copy-editing and advice. Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers, editors,and the editorial staff at the American Anthropologist, whose commentsand suggestions have greatly strengthened this article.

1. The Kenyan Shilling–USD exchange rate fluctuated between 68and 90 KES (1 USD) between 2008 and 2011.

2. The population of Kakuma in 2013 was approximately 120,000refugees, mostly from Somalia and South Sudan (the latter, re-turning refugees).

3. The fieldwork was conducted over five seasons: July to August2008, October 2009, March 2010, July to August 2010, and Juneto August 2011.

4. The traders included 7 wholesalers (5 Somalis; 2 Ethiopians) and71 retailers (3 Ethiopian, 2 Burundi, 4 Sudanese, 62 Somali). Ofthe 179 refugees, 130 were Somali; the rest included 36 Sudanese,8 Ethiopian, 5 Burundi. Of these 179, 42 were relief-dependentand 132 had other sources of income. Of the 38 relief workers, 3were from UNHCR, 7 from WFP, 1 from FAO, 14 from LWF,4 from IRC, and 5 from JRS. Trader data included monthly sales;strategies for calculating risk and demand; managing competitionand interference from government and relief agencies; and main-tenance of relationships with other traders, refugees, and reliefagencies. Refugee data included the ratio of relief and commercialgoods and services consumed, reasons for commercial purchases,and problems with relief packages. Relief agency data includedinteractions with the traders and the logistical and security prob-lems of managing more than 80,000 refugees in an inhospitableterrain under adverse conditions. Repeated visits and interac-tions resulted in a significant friendship network wherein I wasincluded in daily activities. Interviews were conducted in Englishand Kiswahili (which I speak) and in Somali with the help of A. A.Ali, who assisted in understanding nuances of Kiswahili and So-mali translations. Responses were cross-checked among refugees,relief workers, and traders and verified through observation.

5. These are estimates based on interviews and records of traders,bankers, money transfer agents, and relief workers. The figuresfor total wholesalers monthly turnovers were obtained from thetraders’ account books (accessed with permission), employmentfigures from relief managers, and black market sale estimates bytraders’ estimate and by measuring the portions sold and cashamounts received by the refugees.

6. The LWF also distributes food in camp schools, usually por-ridge for breakfast and githeri (boiled maize and beans) for lunch.However, Ethiopian and Somali children often refuse these mealsand are frequently withdrawn from the schools by their parentsafter complaints of the unpalatability of the food and resultingindigestion.

7. Kakuma refugees do undertake some projects and jobs outsidethe commercial economy. However, these projects and jobs aretemporary, offer limited opportunities for learning and skill ac-quisition, and are generally very low paying.

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