Congolese refugees’ ‘right to the city’ and urban (in)security in Kampala, Uganda

Generational Perceptions of Support Among Congolese Refugees in Urban Tanzania

“…Even among participants who readily listed a range of sources of support outside of the household, it was with the caveat that they were not family members, and therefore had no obligation to help in times of need. This echoes Lyytinen's (2015Lyytinen's ( , 2017 findings on urban Congolese refugees' negotiation of social and institutional actors through the lens of trust. The notion of trust is an important perspective to consider when examining refugees' sources of social support.…”

“…Falling outside of formal humanitarian assistance networks requires urban refugees to identify alternate sources of support and social networks to survive in cities (Madhavan and Landau 2011;Willems 2005). Support from other refugees in tandem with host country integration fostered urban refugees' embeddedness in Kampala, Uganda (Muhwezi and Sam 2004); however, refugees have been shown to mistrust those outside of their immediate families and households, including host country nationals and other refugees from their countries of origin (Landau 2018;Lyytinen 2015;Mann 2002Mann , 2008Schweitzer et al 2007). Thomas et al (2011) identified reliance on social relationships as an important coping strategy among urban Somali refugees in Nepal.…”

Urban Congolese Refugees’ Social Capital and Community Resilience During a Period of Political Violence in Kenya: A Qualitative Study

“…The goal of this analysis was to contribute to enhanced understandings of community resilience as it relates to urban refugees' social capital. This builds on the previous work of scholars of migration studies (e.g., Landau & Duponchel, 2011;Lyytinen, 2015Lyytinen, , 2017Madhavan & Landau, 2011;Omata, 2012) to highlight connections between social capital theory and community resilience frameworks. More specifically, the results of this study show the potential for "resilience within networked communities" to be a more meaningful framework than "community resilience" with urban-displaced refugees.…”

“…Women contributed to community resilience by reproducing social traditions (see also Darychuk & Jackson, 2015), revealing the contributions of cooking Congolese dishes as an act of creating resilience-promoting spaces. Oka (2014) highlighted the consumption of favored foods among refugees in a Kenyan camp as contributing to a sense of normalcy and dignity; similarly, a participant in Lyytinen's (2015) research stated: "When I eat cassava leaves I feel like I am in the DRC" (p. 599).…”

“…Scholars of refugee studies have documented refugees' place-based and spatially defined communities, communities comprising individuals with similar characteristics, "communities of strangers" (Madhavan & Landau, 2011), and religious communities (see Lyytinen & Kullenberg, 2013 for review). Lyytinen (2015) discovered that depending on their reason for leaving the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Congolese refugees in Kampala variably perceived the presence of new refugees from the DRC to be a comfort or threat. Additionally, Congolese refugees identified membership in a range of what Lyytinen (2017) referred to as "communities of trust," including those based on country of origin, ethnic identity, religious affiliation, needs (e.g., supportive groups), and community organizations.…”