Title The Concerned Women of Buduburam : refugee activists and humanitarian dilemmas / Elizabeth Holzer

Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, [2015]

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Description 1 online resource Contents Introduction : the midnight hour in this refugee crisis -- Achieving everyday life in humanitarian crisis -- Civic engagement in the refugee camp -- Bifurcated governmentality -- The Concerned Women protests -- Refugee dissent as a social problem -- Legitimacy in repression's aftermath -- Conclusion : compassionate authoritarianism Summary In The Concerned Women of Buduburam, Elizabeth Holzer offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the rise and fall of social protests in a long-standing refugee camp. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the host government of Ghana established the Buduburam Refugee Camp in 1990 to provide sanctuary for refugees from the Liberian civil war (1989-2003). Long hailed as a model of effectiveness, Buduburam offered a best-case scenario for how to handle a refugee crisis. But what happens when refugees and humanitarian actors disagree over humanitarian aid? In Buduburam, refugee protesters were met with Ghanaian riot police. Holzer uses the clash to delve into the complex and often hidden world of humanitarian politics and refugee activism. Drawing on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana and subsequent interviews with participants now returned to Liberia, Holzer exposes a distinctive form of rule that accompanies humanitarian intervention: compassionate authoritarianism. Humanitarians strive to relieve the suffering of refugees, but refugees have little or no access to grievance procedures, and humanitarian authorities face little or no accountability for political failures. By casting humanitarians and refugees as co-creators of a shared sociopolitical world, Holzer throws into sharp relief the contradictory elements of humanitarian crisis and of transnational interventions in poor countries more broadly Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes English Print version record Subject Refugees -- Liberia Refugee camps -- Ghana Refugees -- Political activity -- Ghana Humanitarian assistance -- Ghana POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Security. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Social Services & Welfare. HISTORY -- Africa -- West. Humanitarian assistance Refugee camps Refugees Refugees -- Political activity Ghana Liberia Form Electronic book LC no. 2019725589 ISBN 9781501701207 1501701207 9781501701214 1501701215 0801454085 9780801454080 0801456908 9780801456909

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