Growing Up in Exile : An Ethnography of Somali Youth Raised in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

La violence chronique qui caractérise la Somalie depuis plus de deux décennies a forcé près de deux millions de personnes à fuir. Cette ethnographie étudie l’expérience de l’asile prolongé de jeunes Somaliens qui ont grandi au camp de Kakuma, au Kenya. Leur expérience est hors du commun, bien qu’un nombre croissant de réfugiés passent de longues années dans des camps pourtant conçus comme temporaires, en vertu de la durée des conflits et de la normalisation de pratiques de mise à l’écart de populations « indésirables ». Nous explorons la perception qu’ont ces jeunes de leur environnement et de quelle façon leur exil structure leur perception du passé et de leur pays d’origine, et de leur futur. Ce faisant, nous considérons à la fois les spécificités du contexte et l’environnement global, afin de comprendre comment l’expérience des gens est façonnée par (et façonne) les dynamiques sociales, politiques, économiques et historiques. Nous observons que le camp est, et demeure, un espace de confinement, indépendamment de sa durée d’existence ; bien que conçu comme un lieu de gestion rationnelle des populations, le camp devient un monde social où se développent de nouvelles pratiques ; les jeunes Somaliens font preuve d’agentivité et interprètent leur expérience de manière à rendre leur quotidien acceptable ; ces derniers expriment une frustration croissante lorsque leurs études sont terminées et qu’ils peinent à s’établir en tant qu’adultes, ce qui exacerbe leur désir de quitter le camp. En effet, même s’il existe depuis plus de 20 ans, le camp demeure un lieu de transition. L’expérience de jeunes Somaliens qui ont grandi dans un camp de réfugiés n’a pas été étudiée auparavant. Nous soutenons que cette expérience est caractérisée par des tensions entre contraintes et opportunités, mobilité et immobilité, isolation et connexion ou victimisation et affirmation du sujet – et des temporalités contradictoires. Cette étude souligne que des notions comme la convivialité ou la pluralité des appartenances développées dans la littérature sur la cohabitation interethnique dans les villes ou sur l’identité des migrants aident à appréhender le réalité du camp. Cette ethnographie montre également que, loin d’être des victimes passives, les réfugiés contribuent à trouver des solutions à leur exil. Chronic violence has characterized Somalia for over two decades, forcing nearly two million people to flee. This ethnography studies the experience of protracted exile of Somalis who were raised in Kakuma refugee camp, in Kenya, and are now young adults. Their experience is relatively uncommon, although increasing numbers of people spend long periods in camps conceived as temporary, due to the length of conflicts and the normalization of excluding populations deemed undesirable. I explore how young people perceive their living environment and how growing up in exile structures their view of the past and their country of origin, and the future and its possibilities. In doing so, I regularly shift perspectives from the specificities of the context to the global environment, to understand how people’s experience is shaped by (and shapes) the social, political, economical and historical dynamics in which it is embedded. My observations can be summarized into a few broad statements: regardless of how long it has existed, the camp is and remains a space of containment; conceived as a rationally organized space to manage populations, the camp becomes a messier social world where new practices develop; young Somalis display agency and interpret their experience in a way that makes the present bearable; frustration grows when Somali youth complete their education and struggle to establish themselves as adults, catalyzing their determination to leave Kakuma. Indeed, although refugees have been living there since the early 1990s, the camp remains a space of transition. Although there have been a number of studies on refugee camps in Kenya, no study has focused on the experience of Somali youth raised in a refugee camp. I argue that this experience is traversed and shaped by tensions between constraints and opportunities, mobility and immobility, isolation and connectedness, victimization and affirmation of the subject, citizenship and refugeeness – and by conflicting temporalities. This ethnographic study highlights the fact that notions such as conviviality or the multiplicity of people’s belongings developed in the literature on interethnic cohabitation in cities or the ethnic identity of migrants, help us to understand the camp experience. This research also shows that, far from being powerless victims, people actively contribute to finding solutions to their exile.

Keyphrases: Camps de réfugiés, Humanitaire, Asile, Jeunes, Anthropologie du déplacement forcé, Représentation, Kenya, Kakuma, Somalie, Migrations transnationales, Kenya, Kakuma, Somalia, Refugee camps, Humanitarianism, Asylum, Youth, Transnational migrations, Anthropology of forced displacement