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Introduction to Refugee Studies

New Kenyan Refugee Act

Data

Kenya Statistics Package: Registered Refugees and Asylum-Seekers
Monthly data, 2018 to the present. From the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

Books & Reports

Children of the Camp: The Lives of Somali Youth Raised in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya
Catherine-Lune Grayson. New York, Berghahn, 2017.
"Considers how young people perceive their living environment and how growing up in exile structures their view of the past and their country of origin, and the future and its possibilities." Rutgers-restricted Access
Composing Aid : Music, Refugees, and Humanitarian Politics
Oliver Shao. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2023
"I offer in this book a critical account of music, dance, and performance in the lives of people who inhabit the margins of the nation-state system in one of the largest and oldest refugee camps in the world...I approach the study of sonic forms of expressive culture in the Kakuma Refugee Camp with critical attention to the politics of belonging. This perspective elucidates why the musical practices I observed were of paramount importance for structuring how camp inhabitants were expected to belong—and for constituting and voicing how they desired to belong—within a humanitarian-governed site of migratory control." Rutgers-restricted Access
Refugee Impacts on Turkana Hosts: A Social Impact Analysis for Kakuma Town and Refugee Camp Turkana County, Kenya
Varalakshmi Vemuru, Rahul Oka, Rieti Gengo, and Lee Gettler. World Bank Group, November 2016.
Government and Other Reports Relating to Kakuma
From www.refworld.org

In Their Own Words

Life in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya
One resident's experiences.
Interview with Jacob Guot, September 22, 2017
Jacob Thon Guot was born in Sudan. He lived for 13 years in refugee camps first in Ethiopia and then in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.

Schooling in Kakuma

Fostering Education Services in Kakuma Refugee Camp
Gerawork Teferra IN The Right to Research: Historical Narratives by Refugee and Global South Researchers. Kate Reed and Marcia C. Schenck, editors. Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023. Rutgers-restricted Access
Quality Education for Refugees in Kenya: Pedagogy in Urban Nairobi and Kakuma Refugee Camp Settings
Mary Mendenhall et al. Journal on Education in Emergencies 1(1), 2015, pp. 92-130.

LGBTQI Issues

The Challenges Facing LGBTQI Refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya
Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) and Rainbow Railroad. October 2021.