To what extent have refugees in Ulyankulu settlement, Tanzania, developed a sense of belonging
and de facto citizenship through their agency despite government control? This
question forms the basis of the research design of this thesis. Refugees have lived in protracted
exile in many countries. The aim of this thesis is to assess such a situation by
theorising and empirically unravelling refugees’ practices of belonging in a rural settlement.
While studies within forced migration literature have been mostly empirical, some
theoretical ones suggest that camps are spaces of exception that turn refugees into victims
without agency, or spaces of myth-making.
Acknowledging these theorisations, this thesis develops a conceptual framework in
which, despite control by governments and international agencies, refugees’ agency in developing
a sense of belonging and claiming de facto citizenship is underlined. Ultimately,
this understanding also suggests important recommendations for policy.
Taking the case study of Burundian refugees in Tanzania, who arrived in the 1970s,
this research is based on qualitative field research methods using techniques such as participant
observation and interviews with refugees, Tanzanian citizens, agents of humanitarian
organisations and the government in Ulyankulu settlement and Dar es Salaam in
2012. It analyses discourses concerning the naturalisation of Burundian refugees, and
it evaluates practices and narratives of first and second generation refugees concerning
their experiences of waiting for citizenship, and everyday negotiations of belonging.
This thesis aims at contributing to forced migration literature, and by its considerations
of spatiality and temporality to human geography. As a theoretical contribution, it
oers a conceptual framework examining the interplay between exclusion from citizenship
and a sense of belonging in the space of refugee camps. Empirically, it analyses the
various forms of control over refugees, and sheds light on their interactions with refugees’
‘pragmatics of belonging’ and ‘pragmatics of waiting’ for citizenship.