Building refuge: from emergency shelter to home Share
Nerea Amorós Elorduy and Etta Madete chart the journey from emergency shelter to home and the importance of spatial empowerment
By 2020, 66 long-term refugee camps existed in East and the Horn of Africa. Most were established in the 20th century and some – like Nakivale in south-west Uganda – have existed for more than 60 years. Indeed, the vast majority of camps in the region are long-term settlements. While the ‘refugee camp’ model has clearly failed in its claims of transitional assistance, mainstream narratives portray it as intrinsic to refugee life, generalising and simplifying the ‘refugee camp’ as a transitional space in the humanitarian assistance paradigm. At the same time, due to its failure, the camp is also seen as a non-place, a prison and state of limbo. These contrasting narratives tend to agree in their description of camp life as a dual relationship between poor and powerless refugees on one h