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ABSTRACT
Community policing has been a popular paradigm for local anti-crime activities in Africa since the 1990s and spread rapidly across the continent. Humanitarian agencies have increasingly embraced versions of the framework to administer refugee camps and ostensibly foster security, protection and peaceful co-existence among residents. This article demonstrates that the deployment of community policing in Kakuma camp in north-western Kenya has been far more contested. Aid organisations and Kenyan authorities have competed in determining the orientation and implementation of community policing at a time when the government was intensifying both securitisation of refugees and counter-terrorism measures. Kakuma‘s Community Peace and Protection Teams (CPPTs) were therefore torn between humanitarian conceptions of localised refugee protection and more illiberal forms of security work which bound them closer to the Kenyan state. The permanent negotiation between these parallel ‘technologies of government' was reflected in contestations over uniforms, trainings and everyday practices. Powerful institutions attempted to script refugee conduct and thus discipline the camp's pluralistic social networks and forms of counter-organisation embedded in a ‘deep community’. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the article illustrates that governing refugees through community policing blurs the lines between humanitarian protection, domesticating local systems of governance, and expanding the security state.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Patricia Daley, Olly Owen and Joël Glasman for their comments on drafts of this article. In addition, I appreciate the generous feedback from two anonymous reviewers and the editors of the Journal of Eastern African Studies. Most importantly, however, I would like to thank all refugees, police officers, humanitarian workers, and government officials in Kakuma and Nairobi who willingly shared their stories and experiences with me. Of course, all mistakes remain my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Police officer training refugees in community policing, Kakuma, 27.09.2016.
2 The phrase ‘suspicious characters‘ is frequently used during LWF and police trainings for CPPTs.
3 Brankamp, “Community Policing”.
4 Li, “Governmentality,”.
5 Ramadan, “Spatialising”.
6 Jaji, “Social Technology”.
7 Bulley, “Inside the Tent”, 64.
8 Foucault, “Governmentality”.
9 CPPT Manual, undated.
10 Brogden and Nijar, Community Policing; Steinberg, “Crime Prevention”.
11 Abrahamsen and Williams, Security Beyond the State.
12 Buur and Jensen, “Everyday Life”; Lund, “Twilight Institutions”.
13 Baker, Multi-Choice Policing.
14 Sen and Pratten, “Global Vigilantes”.
15 Cross, “Local Development”; Di Nunzio, “Thugs, Spies”; Kyed, “Post-War Mozambique”.
16 Cross, “Local Development”.
17 Di Nunzio, “Thugs, Spies”.
18 Baker, “Reconstructing”.
19 Kyed, “Post-War Mozambique”.
20 Tapscott, “Wild Things”.
21 Fourchard, “Politics of Mobilization”.
22 Stenson, “Governmental Technology”, 373.
23 Rose, “Death”, 332.
24 Foucault, “Governmentality”.
25 Foucault., “Governmentality”, 102; McConnell, “Practise the state”.
26 Rose, “Death”, 332.
27 Sen and Pratten, “Global Vigilantes”, 3.
28 Brogden and Nijhar, Community Policing.
29 Opitz, “Government Unlimited”.
30 Mbembe, Postcolony.
31 Ibid., 21.
32 Government of Kenya, Draft Guidelines for Implementation of Community Policing – Nyumba Kumi, Nairobi, 30 March 2015.
33 Anderson and McKnight, “Kenya at War”.
34 Glück, “Security Urbanism”, 7.
35 Until 2010, Mashujaa Day was officially known as Kenyatta Day, commemorating Kenya‘s first president Jomo Kenyatta.
36 The Standard. “Speech by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Mashujaa Day 2013”, 20 October 2013. https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000095874/speech-by-president-uhuru-kenyatta-on-mashujaa-day-2013 (accessed 12 March 2018).
37 IPOA official, 15.08.2017.
38 Kibera community policing chairman, 14.07.2017.
39 Ruteere and Pommerolle, “Democratizing Security”, 604.
40 Stephen Muiruri, “Policing a Willing Community”, Daily Nation, 1 May 2005. https://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/1190-57354-dmr26dz/index.html (accessed 8 February 2018).
41 Members of PeaceNet were interviewed on 12.07.2017.
42 Saferworld, “Implementing”.
43 Skilling, “Kenya”.
44 Ruteere, “Political Tools”, 14.
45 Government of Kenya, “Report of the National Task Force on Police Reforms.”, Nairobi, 2009.
46 Government of Kenya, The National Police Service Act, Nairobi, 2011.
47 Kioki, “Conflict”.
48 ‘Nyumba Kumi’ literally means ‘ten houses’ in Kiswahili and draws on Tanzania’s model of decentralised local governance.
49 The Swahili word ‘ulinzi’ also translates to ‘surveillance’ or ‘protection’.
50 Government of Kenya, “Ulinzi Unaanza Na Mimi, Ulinzi Unaanza Na Wewe”, Youtube.com, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X6xFNwjaSk. (accessed 9 February 2018).
51 Mogire et al., “Policing Terrorism”, 93.
52 Glück, “Security Urbanism”, 311.
53 Hillyard, Suspect Community.
54 Balakian, “‘Money”; HRW, “Terrorists”.
55 Government of Kenya, Government Statement on Refugees and Closure of Refugee Camps, 6 May 2016.
56 UNHCR Head of Protection, Nairobi, 03.03.2017
57 Jansen, “The Accidental City”, 8.
58 Crisp, “Insecurity”, Griek, “Traditional”.
59 UNHCR official, Kakuma, 21.07.2017.
60 Jansen, “The Accidental City”, 90–93.
61 UNHCR document: Kakuma Camp Leadership Structure, 18.08.2014.
62 Sagy, “Peace as Knowledge”, 366.
63 Ibid, 361.
64 Ibid, 372.
65 Interview, Head of LWF Peace-building, Kakuma, 19.01.2017.
66 UNHCR document: Kakuma Refugee Camp Community: Constitution and Rules, November 2011.
67 Verdirame and Harrell-Bond, Rights in Exile, 141.
68 Kenyan LWF Security officer, 26.11.2016.
69 Mkutu and Wandera, “Policing the Periphery”.
70 Senior police officer, 14.01.2017, Nairobi.
71 Senior CPPA, 26.11.2016.
72 CPPT, Hagadera, Dadaab, 12.04.2017.
73 Director of LWF Djibouti-Kenya Programme in Nairobi, 03.04.2017.
74 Crisp, “Lessons Learned”; Hanno Brankamp, “Community policing”; Julie Veroff, “Administration of Justice”.
75 UNHCR, “Community-Based Protection”.
76 Bulley, “Inside the Tent”, 64.
77 UNHCR, “Development Approach”.
78 Sagy, “Peace as Knowledge”.
79 Bulley, “Inside the Tent”, 68–70.
80 Skilling, “Kenya”; Ruteere and Pommerolle, “Democratizing Security”.
81 UNHCR, “Community-Based Protection”, 7.
82 Bulley, “Inside the Tent”, 68.
83 Foucault, “Subject and Power.”
84 Verdirame and Harrell-Bond, Rights in Exile.
85 Foucault, Discipline & Punish, 181.
86 LWF senior supervisor, 02.03.2015.
87 CPPT, 26.01.2017
88 Communication with Head of LWF, 07.10.2015. The budget for community policing consists of contributions from UNHCR (77%), Church of Sweden (12%) and DanChurchAid (11%).
89 Kenyan CPPT supervisor, 03.11.2016.
90 Interviews in Nairobi, 03.04.2017 and in Kakuma, 03.08.2017.
91 Jason Straziuso and Tom Odula. “One of Westgate Mall Attackers Lived in Kenyan Refugee Camp.” The Washington Times, 11 November 2013. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/11/one-westgate-mall-attackers-lived-kenyan-refugee-c/ (accessed 7 February 2018); Aggrey Mutambo, “In Wake of Garissa Attack, Kenya Frustrated by Dadaab Issue.”, Daily Nation, 14 April 2015. https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Dadaab-Refugee-Camp-Terrorism-Somalia-Repatriation/1056-2686320-crh6po/index.html (accessed 10 January 2018).
92 Intelligence officer, 14.12.2016.
93 Spalek and Lambert, “Muslim Communities”.
94 The notion of ‘real refugees‘ was constantly evoked by government officials and police officers when talking about camp security.
95 Hillyard, Suspect Community.
96 RAS officer, 08.08.2016.
97 CPPT, 01.03.2017
98 CPPT, 16.05.2017.
99 Spalek and Lambert, “Muslim Communities”, 13.
100 Bulley, “Inside the Tent”.
101 Opitz, “Government Unlimited”, 110.
102 Government official, Kakuma, 24.02.2017.
103 Interview, 03.08.2017.
104 Li, “Governmentality,” 279.
105 Turner, “Angry Young Men”, 13.
106 McConnachie, Governing Refugees, 41.
107 Bulley, “Inside the Tent”, 72.
108 CPPT office, 27.02.2017.
109 Li, “Governmentality.”
110 See Hagmann and Péclard, “Negotiating Statehood”, 549.
111 Flavie Halais, “‘They Call Him the Millionaire’: The Refugee Who Turned His Camp into a Business Empire.” The Guardian, 10 May 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/may/10/millionaire-refugee-mesfin-getahun-kakuma-refugee-camp (accessed 10 March 2018).
112 CPPT supervisor, 01.08.2016.
113 CPPT, 20.03.2015.
114 Buur and Jensen, “Everyday Life”; Sen and Pratten, “Global Vigilantes”; Kirsch and Grätz, “Vigilantism”; Kyed, “Contested Role”.