Coping with Displacement: Social Networking among Urban Refugees in an East African Context

Abstract

This article on urban self-settled refugees from the Great Lakes region in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, documents the tenacious resistance of this growing group of African refugees against official policies requiring them to depend on humanitarian assistance. While dealing with the permanent risk of being arrested by the immigration authorities, these men and women make ends meet by relying on supportive social network members and engaging in informal employment based on individual arrangements with Tanzanian residents. Lobbying efforts at the international level should render more flexible existing refugee policies by allowing urban refugees to be economically self-sufficient in a dignified manner.