African Refugees
- LAST REVIEWED: 09 November 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 23 June 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0231
- LAST REVIEWED: 09 November 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 23 June 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0231
Introduction
This bibliography presents African refugees as central to theory, policy, and humanitarian practice relating to refugees and forced migration internationally. It foregrounds the contributions of African refugees and multidisciplinary African scholarship to the development of the field of refugee and forced migration studies, incorporating materials by African refugees, African academics, and African institutions alongside scholarship produced by academics and institutions located in the Global North and available internationally. It is organized around three matrices: sources and resources, major themes, and regional case studies. The bibliography aims to be as expansive as possible but given space and quality considerations, it is necessarily selective in citing materials relevant to each category. Therefore this is by no means an exhaustive bibliography of materials about African refugees, and in fact it is unable to include a vast number of materials published within Africa but unavailable or inaccessible internationally. Much of the accessible scholarship on African refugees is produced in the Global North and this shapes knowledge production in terms of the themes considered important, the voices that are amplified, and the policy outcomes that affect refugees. In turn, academic study of refugees has historically been shaped by international law, policy, and institutions. So, for instance, most extant studies maintain the strict legal-political distinction between refugees (people forced to flee in fear, crossing an international border); internally displaced persons (IDPs, who remain in-country); and other migrants (people who “voluntarily” choose mobility and destinations). This categorization is in actual circumstances unrealistic and increasingly impractical—especially in Africa where the regional body, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), in 1969 redefined refugeehood, and its successor, the African Union (AU), became the first globally in 2009 to adopt a binding treaty to protect IDPs. Thus while this bibliography focuses mainly on refugees as defined by the 1951 UN and 1969 OAU Conventions, it also includes materials about other forced migrants, IDPs, and mixed migration in Africa. Another issue is the persistent and ahistorical bifurcation of the continent into “sub-Saharan” and “North Africa,” the latter often merged with the Middle East; this bibliography instead includes materials on North Africa, written in the English language, treating the African continent as a whole. Similarly this work addresses specificities about African refugees in other subregions. Importantly as well, the bibliography nuances the themes covered to embrace specificities of gender, age, location, residence, and legal policy to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of African refugees.
General Overviews
Texts that provide a truly general overview of the refugee situation in Africa are few and far between, and many are out of date in relation to the ever-evolving nature of the phenomenon. In many instances though, while the statistics they cite might be dated, the issues, patterns, problems, and prognosis have persisted over several decades, signaling a marked lack of progress in resolving and theorizing African refugee issues. In this section, we cover those sources that focus on refugees as a distinct academic, legal, and policy category, and several other sources that place refugees within the broader setting of forced displacement on the continent—both valuable approaches for understanding the subject.
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Article
- Achebe, Chinua
- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
- Africa in the Cold War
- African Masculinities
- African Political Parties
- African Refugees
- African Socialism
- Africans in the Atlantic World
- Agricultural History
- Aid and Economic Development
- Alcohol
- Algeria
- Angola
- Arab Spring
- Arabic Language and Literature
- Archaeology and the Study of Africa
- Archaeology of Central Africa
- Archaeology of Eastern Africa
- Archaeology of Southern Africa
- Archaeology of West Africa
- Architecture
- Art, Art History, and the Study of Africa
- Arts of Central Africa
- Arts of Western Africa
- Asante and the Akan and Mossi States
- Bantu Expansion
- Benin (Dahomey)
- Boer War
- Botswana (Bechuanaland)
- Brink, André
- British Colonial Rule in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
- Burundi
- Business History
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Central African Republic
- Children and Childhood
- China in Africa
- Christianity, African
- Cinema and Television
- Citizenship
- Cocoa
- Coetzee, J.M.
- Colonial Rule, Belgian
- Colonial Rule, French
- Colonial Rule, German
- Colonial Rule, Italian
- Colonial Rule, Portuguese
- Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and Socialism in Africa
- Comoro Islands
- Conflict in the Sahel
- Conflict Management and Resolution
- Congo, Republic of (Congo Brazzaville)
- Congo River Basin States
- Congo Wars
- Conservation and Wildlife
- Coups in Africa
- Crime and the Law in Colonial Africa
- Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire)
- Development of Early Farming and Pastoralism
- Diaspora, Kongo Atlantic
- Disease and African Society
- Djibouti
- Dyula
- Early States And State Formation In Africa
- Early States of the Western Sudan
- Eastern Africa and the South Asian Diaspora
- Economic Anthropology
- Economic History
- Economy, Informal
- Education
- Education and the Study of Africa
- Egypt
- Egypt, Ancient
- Environment
- Environmental History
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Ethnicity and Politics
- Europe and Africa, Medieval
- Family Planning
- Famine
- Farah, Nuruddin
- Feminism
- Food and Food Production
- Fugard, Athol
- Fulani
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Genocide in Rwanda
- Geography and the Study of Africa
- Ghana
- Gikuyu (Kikuyu) People of Kenya
- Globalization
- Gordimer, Nadine
- Great Lakes States of Eastern Africa, The
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Hausa
- Hausa Language and Literature
- Health, Medicine, and the Study of Africa
- Historiography and Methods of African History
- History and the Study of Africa
- Horn of Africa and South Asia
- Igbo
- Ijo/Niger Delta
- Image of Africa, The
- Indian Ocean and Middle Eastern Slave Trades
- Indian Ocean Trade
- Invention of Tradition
- Iron Working and the Iron Age in Africa
- Islam in Africa
- Islamic Politics
- Kenya
- Kongo and the Coastal States of West Central Africa
- Language and the Study of Africa
- Law and the Study of Sub-Saharan Africa
- Law, Islamic
- Lesotho
- LGBTI Minorities and Queer Politics in Eastern and Souther...
- Liberia
- Libya
- Literature and the Study of Africa
- Lord's Resistance Army
- Maasai and Maa-Speaking Peoples of East Africa, The
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mande
- Mau Mau
- Mauritania
- Media and Journalism
- Military History
- Mining
- Modern African Literature in European Languages
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Music, Dance, and the Study of Africa
- Music, Traditional
- Nairobi
- Namibia
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Nollywood
- North Africa from 600 to 1800
- North Africa to 600
- Northeastern African States, c. 1000 BCE-1800 CE
- Obama and Kenya
- Oman, the Gulf, and East Africa
- Oral and Written Traditions, African
- Oromo
- Ousmane Sembène
- Pastoralism
- Police and Policing
- Political Science and the Study of Africa
- Political Systems, Precolonial
- Popular Culture and the Study of Africa
- Popular Music
- Population and Demography
- Postcolonial Sub-Saharan African Politics
- Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sexualities in Africa
- Seychelles, The
- Siwa Oasis
- Slave Trade, Atlantic
- Slavery in Africa
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa
- Somalia
- South Africa Post c. 1850
- Southern Africa to c. 1850
- Soyinka, Wole
- Spanish Colonial Rule
- Sport
- States of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Zambezi Valley
- Sudan and South Sudan
- Swahili City-States of the East African Coast
- Swahili Language and Literature
- Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar)
- Togo
- Tourism
- Trade
- Trade Unions
- Traditional Authorities
- Traditional Religion, African
- Transportation
- Trans-Saharan Trade
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Urbanism and Urbanization
- Wars and Warlords
- Western Sahara
- White Settlers in East Africa
- Women and African History
- Women and Colonialism
- Women and Politics
- Women and Slavery
- Women and the Economy
- Women, Gender and the Study of Africa
- Women in 19th-Century West Africa
- Yoruba Diaspora
- Yoruba Language and Literature
- Yoruba States, Benin, and Dahomey
- Youth
- Zambia