The Myth of Self-Reliance. Naohiko Omata
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urgency of their situation, such as when their children were suffering from severe malaria or typhoid but they did not have money for medical treatment.
Another ethical dilemma I confronted was how to deal with people’s traumatic experiences during interviews. As I collected oral histories from refugees about their pre-flight life in Liberia, my questions had the potential to trigger some painful and negative memories and experiences. This moment often abruptly popped up during an interview; my interviewee’s facial expression would suddenly turn gloomy and the tone of their voice lowered. Whenever I realized that an informant was uncomfortable or in distress, I immediately told interviewees that they did not have to say anything if it was uncomfortable for them. I also knew that I was in no position and had no capacity to assist them with the possible consequences of remembering such traumatic events.
In some cases, however, they continued to speak with long periods of silence, and sometimes tears. For example, Daniel, a thirty-five-year-old male refugee, spoke to me for nearly three hours about his and his family’s traumatic experiences in Liberia; he was severely tortured by rebel soldiers, and his wife was raped by insurgents. He showed me his wounded knees because the rebel soldiers had hit his knees with their guns repeatedly. While he was talking, I listened to him without interruption. After listening to these bitter and graphic episodes, I was lost for words and remained speechless. At the end of his talk, he said: ‘Thank you for listening and for your time and patience … I haven’t shared this story for many years. You are the first person in Ghana who sacrificed such long hours with me’.6
Paying attention to these negative signs often enables researchers to discover the different layers of refugees’ experiences, which are not expressed in words. When ‘negative evidence’ (Ghorashi 2007: 126) such as a moment of silence or crying surfaced during an interview, I patiently tried to understand what was behind it. These unexpectedly long interviews consequently changed my daily interview schedule because it was so difficult for me to cut them short. At the same time, I felt a moral obligation to accept people’s negative experiences as part of my research. As a consequence, I stopped viewing the interviews I conducted as simply a source of data from which I could extract a specific piece of information that I needed for my research.
Outline of the Book
This book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 sets out the research context of the book. It begins by providing general information about Buduburam camp and the demographics of the camp population, as well as distinctive features of Buduburam life. It moves to a brief explanation of Liberia’s ethno-political landscape during the pre-civil war period, and the entrenched monopoly of economic and political power among Americo-Liberians – descendants of former liberated American slaves. This historical inequality is significant for understanding refugees’ current socio-economic conditions in exile. The chapter also summarizes the root causes which brought about the forced displacement of Liberian refugees to Ghana, and finally highlights the increasingly inhospitable environment in which Liberian refugees have found themselves in their prolonged exile.
Chapter 2 presents an overview of livelihood activities employed by the Liberian refugee population in Buduburam camp. As my research progressed, the idealized image of Buduburam as an exemplary economic model sustained by refugee businesses started to fall apart. The research revealed that a key livelihood resource for refugees in the camp was not their commercial activities; instead, refugees highlighted the significance of access to overseas remittances as a main determinant of economic well-being. The chapter elucidates how remittances have contributed to sustaining the Buduburam refugee economy by introducing the concept of ‘remittance clusters’ to illustrate systematically how remittances ‘trickle down’ to non-recipients of remittances. Crucially, however, not all refugees had access to these social networks, and about half of the camp residents lived hand-to-mouth, relying on various types of mutual or charitable support from other refugees. By illustrating livelihood strategies employed by different groups of refugees, the chapter demonstrates the diverse realities of refugees’ survival strategies and indicates the economic stratification behind the façade of a thriving economy.
With a wealth of quantitative evidence, Chapter 3 shows how refugees with different economic statuses made ends meet in the camp. Using an adaptation of the household economy approach, it presents a detailed analysis of the income sources, food consumption and patterns of expenditure of refugee households. The numerical data confirm that there is considerable economic inequality induced by access to remittances, and demonstrate which refugee households are managing and which are not, at what cost and under what conditions. The research also illustrates the ways in which refugees in the camp share and transfer resources to assist each other through various forms of relational networks. While the refugees’ informal support is often painted as a sign of communal resilience or solidarity, mutual assistance among the poverty-stricken refugees in Buduburam was better characterized as ‘shared destitution’ (Leliveld 1991). Throughout the chapter, the quantitative data is brought to life by compelling narrative accounts describing how a ‘decent life’ exists alongside the grinding poverty in Buduburam camp.
Given the significant economic divisions within the Buduburam refugee population, Chapter 4 probes into the roots of inequality by employing a historical approach. Drawing upon life-history analysis, it first focuses on the wealthiest refugee groups and demonstrates the ways in which their social and economic privileges in Liberia have contributed to bringing them large sums of money through remittances. The chapter also investigates the difficult prewar life of indigent refugees in the camp, and illustrates the structural inequalities between richer and poorer refugees within the same refugee population. By situating refugees’ current economic differences in the specific historical contexts of Liberia, the chapter unveils the hidden implications of class and privilege that are reflected in refugees’ socio-economic status and livelihood strategies during exile.
Chapter 5 turns to refugees’ experiences of repatriation and economic reintegration in Liberia. The chapter begins by looking into the dilemma of decision making about repatriation. For the majority of Liberians, the decision to repatriate after their protracted sojourn in Ghana was a much more complicated task than the original decision to seek asylum. Drawing from the study of returnees from Buduburam, the research shows the continuity of inequality from exile into post-repatriation life. In particular, the chapter looks into the different degrees of economic reintegration in the country of origin, and analyses what the factors are that underlay these variations. By ‘following the people’ on their repatriation journey, the findings reveal the relationship between people’s economic status in exile and the level of reintegration upon repatriation, and they further challenge the idealization of repatriation as the ‘best’ solution for all refugees.
Returning the focus to Buduburam camp, Chapter 6 sheds light on how the remaining Liberian refugees in Ghana responded to the ending of their refugee status. In January 2012, the UNHCR announced the cessation of the refugee status of remaining Liberian refugees globally, given the restored peace and stability in Liberia. The remaining 11,000 Liberian refugees in Ghana were left with two options: either repatriate before the invocation of the Cessation Clause by the end of June 2012, or stay in Ghana to be locally integrated as citizens of the member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Again, depending largely on their socio-economic resources, the refugees responded differently to the sudden closure of their formal refugee status. Whereas some wealthier refugee households had more options and finally decided to repatriate to Liberia, those with scarce resources were often ‘forcibly immobilised’ (Lubkemann 2008a) in exile. Drawing upon follow-up interviews in 2012 and 2013, the chapter highlights the diverse reactions of refugees and sheds light on their dilemma, unfixedness and uncertainty in the face of the ending