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Abstract
The concept of the ‘right to the city' (RTC), originally developed by Lefebvre, refers to the idea that justice is embedded in social and spatial processes, and accordingly cities are spaces of inequality and resistance. In this paper, Congolese refugees’ RTC is examined with regard to their city of exile, Kampala, Uganda. The analysis is based on extensive qualitative research conducted during 2010–2011. The notion of RTC is understood to signify refugees’ right to access and occupy urban space. This study also acknowledges and reinterprets the essentially Lefebvrian elements of appropriation and participation. Appropriation of space is featured in refugees’ discourses on how to transform insecure urban areas into protective spaces. Refugees’ participation in decision-making regarding their formal protection is analysed as a collective, community-based right argued for in different forms of resistance.
Acknowledgements
This paper was originally produced as part of my unpublished doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford. Thus I would like to thank my supervisors Associate Prof. Patricia Daley, Emeritus Prof. Roger Zetter and my colleagues. I am also grateful for the research permission granted by the Uganda National Council of Science and Technology, and for the support received from my colleagues at the Refugee Law Project, Uganda and Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku, Finland. My special gratitude goes to the peer-reviewers, editors and to all of those who were willing to participate in my study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. UN-HABITAT, Cities without Slums.
2. UN-HABITAT, Uganda.
3. UBS, National Population.
4. Ibid.
5. Bernstein and Okello, “To Be.”
6. UNHCR only kept statistics of registered urban refugees and asylum seekers in Kampala and not in other cities or towns of Uganda.
7. UN General Assembly, Convention Relating.
8. Organization of African Unity, Convention Governing.
9. Uganda, 1960 Control.
10. Uganda, The Refugee Act 2006.
11. Kaiser, “Participating in Development?”
12. RLP, Refugee Act 2006.
13. Sharpe and Namusobya, Refugee Status.
14. UNHCR, UNHCR Policy.
15. Bernstein and Okello, “To Be,” 47.
16. UNHCR, Uganda Statistics.
17. Clark, “Ethnicity, Leadership.”
18. UNHCR, UNHCR D.R. Congo.
19. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities.
20. Butler, Henri Lefebvre; Purcell, “Excavating Lefebvre”; Purcell, “Citizenship”; Attoh, “What Kind?”; Merrifield, “Right to the City”; and Marcuse, “From Critical.”
21. Kuymulu, “The Vortex.”
22. Butler, Henri Lefebvre; De Souza, “Which Right”; Kuymulu, “The Vortex”; Purcell, “Excavating Lefebvre”; Purcell, “Citizenship.”
23. See note 19 above.
24. Butler, Henri Lefebvre, 135.
25. De Souza, “Which Right?,” 323.
26. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities, 158.
27. Lefebvre, 1991, cited in Marcuse, “From Critical,” 189.
28. Mitchell, Right to the City.
29. Brenner, 2000, cited in Butler, Henri Lefebvre, 139.
30. Parnell and Pieterse, “‘Right to the City’,” 149.
31. For an explicitly scalar and spatial examination of Congolese refugees' conceptualizations of “protection space”, see Lyytinen, “Refugees’ Sense.”
32. Butler, Henri Lefebvre, 142.
33. Ibid., 141.
34. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities, 147.
35. Kofman and Lebas, “Introduction,” 20.
36. Bondi, Davidson and Smith, “Introduction,” 1.
37. Purcell, “Citizenship.”
38. There is a clear lack of studies on (urban) refugees that use the concept of RTC in a substantial manner. Grbac, Civitas, Polis, and Urbs has applied this concept in his examination of the refugee camp as he argues that it is useful to conceptualize the camp as urban. Sanyal's, Urbanizing Refuge recent article on “urbanizing refuge” also touches some of the aspects of refugees' rights to the city, however, again in camp settings.
39. For the work in sub-Saharan Africa, see, for instance, Simone, “Right to the City”, Parnell and Pieterse, “‘Right to the City’” and Huchzermeyer, “Invoking Lefebvre's ‘Right.
40. Iveson, “Social Or Spatial Justice?,” 258.
41. Marcuse, “From Critical,” 193.
42. Marcuse, “From Critical”, 190 highlights the fact that his analysis on “whose right” is consistent with Lefebvre's thinking.
43. Regarding the discussion on the legal aspect of the RTC, Marcuse, “From Critical,” 192) writes that RTC is a right based on ethics, justice and morality; this right is “not meant as a legal claim enforceable through a judicial process today (although that may be part of the claim as a step in the direction of realizing the “Right to the City).”
44. Marcuse, “From Critical ,” 190 (emphasis added).
45. Ibid., 190.
46. Bradshaw and Stratford, “Qualitative Research,” 74.
47. RLP (School of Law, Makerere University) was established in 1999 to provide legal aid to asylum seekers and refugees in Uganda.
48. See a list of the communities I worked with under the section of “Refugees' collective forms of participation”.
49. My home visits and some FGDs targeted women.
50. Waitt, “Doing Discourse.”
51. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities.
52. Marcuse, “From Critical.”
53. See note 51 above.
54. Sandvik, “Negotiating the Humanitarian Past.”
55. Interviews at OPM 7.1.2011, UNHCR 18.1.2011, 20.6.2011, 20.9.2011, and IAU 12.1.2011.
56. See note 51 above.
57. Interview, OPM officer, 7.1.2011.
58. Interview, OPM officer, 7.1.2011.
59. Observation, IASFM conference, 3.-5.7.2011.
60. Oola, “Overhauling Migration.”
61. Observation, 4 CRCU, 9.7.2011.
62. Interview, M36, 10.8.2011.
63. Interview, F9, 2.12.2010.
64. Russell, “Home, Music.”
65. Interview. F2, 24.11.2010.
66. Harvey, “Right to the City.”
67. Interview, M1, 27.10.2010.
68. Interview, M7, 24.6.2011.
69. Interview, M12, 28.6.2011.
70. General discussions with the RLP officers and with the Congolese refugees and their leaders.
71. Interview, M33, 4.8.2011.
72. Interview, M11, 28.6.2011.
73. Interview, F24, 16.9.2011.
74. Parnell and Pieterse, “‘Right to the City.”
75. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities; Mitchell, Right to the City.
76. HRW, Hidden in Plain View.
77. See note 54 above.
78. Observation, RLP backyard, 2.7.2011.
79. See note 28 above.
80. Observation, street by the RLP, 14.7.2011.
81. See note 51 above.
82. Sandvik, “Negotiating the Humanitarian Past,” 115–116.
83. At the time, UNHCR also had an extension office at the Department of Refugees/OPM where they could meet refugees.
84. Interview, IAU officer, 12.1.2011.
85. UNHCR, UNHCR Policy.
86. Ibid., 30 (emphasis added).
87. Interviews, UNHCR officers, 18.1.2011, 20.6.2011, 20.9.2011.
88. Interview, UNHCR officer, 20.9.2011.
89. Obi and Crisp, UNHCR Policy, 8.
90. Lyytinen, The Politics.
91. Interview, UNHCR officer, 20.9.2011.
92. See note 51 above.
93. Observation, 5 CRCU, 23.7.2011.
94. My analysis focuses on these five categories of communities and draws examples from the 12 different communities I worked with. The characteristics of and relations between these communities, including their significance at the scale of Kampala, are discussed in more detail in Lyytinen, Spaces of Trust.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. Goodfellow, “The Institutionalisation,” 8.
98. Throughout my fieldwork there were “walk-to-work” demonstrations held in the city by the Ugandan opposition. For a summary of the events, see Goodfellow, “The Institutionalisation,” 7–10.
99. Observation, 5 CRCU, 23.7.2011.
100. Griffiths, “Vile Liars.”
101. Observation, 5 CRCU, 23.7.2011.
102. In South Kivu, Tutsi are known locally as Banyamulenge. Banyamulenge refers to “those living in the hills of Mulenge”. Banyamulenge Tutsis are believed to have started to move from Rwanda to the DRC in the seventeenth century onwards (Autesserre, The Trouble, 138). The Banyamulenge Tutsis of Kampala (who were mostly from Uvira) referred to themselves using this term and presented themselves as a very tight community within the Congolese refugee population. Their collective identity was largely based on their shared belief of being discriminated against by other Congolese.
103. Observation, 5 CRCU, 23.7.2011.
104. Holzer, “I Am Only Looking,” 1–2.
105. Observation, 5 CRCU, 23.7.2011.
106. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities; Mitchell, Right to the City.
107. See note 51 above.
108. See note 52 above.
109. See note 51 above.
110. See note 24 above.
111. See note 51 above.