Daphne Engel, Novelties in Refugeehood: The Transformation of Refugee Camps to Development Projects

Daphne Engel's research connects & compares country casestudies on the history of conflict, humanitarianism & mobility in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa & the Middle East (e.g. Kenya, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Jordan). Within these countries, she specifically explores large-scale refugee camps, and unravels their development that led to new ways of existing for its residents. She focuses on the economic development-trajectory refugee camps took, whereby camps emerged as a catalyst for (economic) change in their environment via a spillover effect, causing financial, business and, more generally, livelihood opportunities. On the other hand, the expanding refugee camps have come with its own challenges for development, as they are now framed within a Western economic geography. Her research challenges this norm, and aims to offer an African perspective to solutions in refugeehood in (emerging) refugee camps and settlements. Such research is vital, since diaspora movements increasingly expand, and much (economic) development fund is put into solutions to refugeehood in the Global South.