Refugee Policy Amidst Global Shocks: Encampment, Resettlement Barriers and the Search for ‘Durable Solutions’

Abstract

Global policy commitments to refugee protection are shaped by ever‐growing pressures, from displacements triggered by conflicts, extremism and climate crisis to domestic fear‐based politics. Before the COVID‐19 pandemic, many governments were increasingly embracing exclusionary policies, defying the rights of asylum‐seekers and refugees stalled in protracted camp settlements. While such policies contrast starkly with core principles espoused in the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Global Compact on Refugees, restrictions on refugees intensified further during the pandemic. This article discusses struggles shaped by these trajectories, drawing on policy analysis and experiences articulated in Tongogara Refugee Camp in Zimbabwe, where displaced people have recently endured impacts of climate disasters along with greater constraints on mobility and the hardening of international borders. We highlight divergences between colonial policy orientations and African philosophies such as Ubuntu that prioritize communal values and humanity towards others. Analysing concerns around encampment and barriers both to resettlement and local integration, we stress that the talents, contributions and fundamental rights of refugees should not be ignored by policy makers, who also need to be attentive to the social and ecological challenges experienced in refugee spaces. Exploring constraints of the various ‘durable solutions’, we draw attention to how uncertainties facing displaced people need to be critically approached as multi‐scalar policy matters, beckoning attention to insufficiently met commitments linked with the Global Compact on Refugees, ways of mobilizing resistance to contemporary colonial bordering and support for refugee‐led initiatives.

Migration and sustainable development

“…There are increased resource pressures and social disruption on refugee-hosting regions from long-term refugee camps or dispersal in cities and settlements. Key policy priorities are to minimize such flows through conflict avoidance, co-operation between neighboring countries on rights to move, humanitarian assistance to avoid permanent displacements, and the provision of human rights, such as the right to work and freedom of mobility, to displaced populations ( 86 ).…”

Ubuntu and forced migration: reflections for social work engagement with older refugees in Canada

“…Beyond social justice for education, Spiegel and Mhlanga (2022), when researching resettlement barriers, revealed how the abandonment of the principle of Ubuntu has resulted in the neglect of refugees in African countries. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Citing Swanson (2015), the authors argued that global injustice against refugees could be addressed through the idea of collectivism, which disfavors the individualistic Western epistemology through respect for the social and ecological well-being of all.…”