Ethnographic reflection on exilic narratives outside closed camps: The case of residual Liberian refugees in Nigeria

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

What happens when refugees’ status are terminated and camps are officially shut down? How do residual refugees construct home and space outside closed camps? How do their narratives of the journey to exile intersect with the agency deployed to transcend their location of dispossession within a shared space of marginality? This paper offers an ethnographic reflection on the post-refugee experience of residual Liberian refugees living outside the closed Oru Refugee Camp, Ogun State, Nigeria. This paper reflects on how their exilic narratives have given rise to the audacious desire to contest their position of dislocation following their eviction from Oru refugee camp to a nearby uninhabitable bushland area in 2012. In their exilic narratives, residual Liberian refugees are inclined to attribute their resistance, resilience and transformative agency in exile to both their experience of war and their exilic journey from Liberia, which has influenced their condition of arrival in Nigeria, their subsequent adjustment and integration, and their ambulant perception of home.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)79-94
Number of pages15
Journal Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration
Volume10
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2021

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Ethnographic reflection on exilic narratives outside closed camps: The case of residual Liberian refugees in Nigeria'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this