Survivalist mobilities: freedom of movement and the economic lives of settlement refugees in Uganda

Abstract

This article draws upon qualitative and quantitative data from Uganda to explore the ways in which mobility supports the livelihoods of refugees in rural settlements. It shows how, under conditions of extreme precarity and against the background of gradual reductions in humanitarian aid, refugees resort to short distance ‘survivalist mobilities’ underpinned by economic desperation. While trips to urban areas are rare and infrequent, refugees regularly move out of the settlements to access firewood, vegetation, and farmland and to engage in casual labour and petty trade. Such activities enable day-to-day survival, but there are structural constraints that prevent them from becoming sustainable livelihoods that allow for stability or growth. The article challenges the common description of mobility in policy and scholarly discourse as empowering, natural, and essential for the socio-economic progress of refugees, as well as some of the assumptions underpinning current refugee ‘self-reliance’ policies in Uganda.