UNHCR’s withdrawal from Kiryandongo: anatomy of a handover

An ethnography of the settlement at Kiryandongo which excluded the activities and assumptions of non-refugee actors would be misleading and incomplete. The frames of reality which are constructed and experienced by the refugees through time and across space are fundamentally influenced by the way in which they are able to interact with other powerful groups and institutions. In this paper, therefore, the authors document the position of some of these external players and consider the way in which their political and economic agendas generate some of the conditions the refugees are obliged to negotiate to make an acceptable life for themselves.