Refugees' Livelihood Strategies in Long-term Encampment (Thesis)

Overview

Refugees’ Livelihood Strategies in a Setting of Long-term Encampment: The Case of Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi is a 2022 academic master’s thesis published by Erasmus University Rotterdam. The research offers a critical empirical examination of how long-term camp residents adapt, survive, and build economic agency despite severe legal restrictions on formal employment, business ownership, and land tenure under Malawi’s 1989 Refugee Act.

Drawing on extensive qualitative fieldwork inside Dzaleka, the study analyzes the divergence between humanitarian policy narratives of “self-reliance” and the day-to-day realities of navigating chronic economic vulnerability.

Key Research Findings

1. Social Capital as Survival Infrastructure

The thesis documents that access to financial capital in Dzaleka is heavily reliant on informal social infrastructure rather than institutional credit. Residents rely on:

• Peer Mutual-Aid Associations (Ikirimba): Rotating savings and credit associations organized along nationality, language, or sector lines.
• Transnational Remittances: Financial support from diaspora family networks in South Africa, North America, and Europe.
• Inter-Household Resource Sharing: Informal food and cash borrowing between long-term residents and newly arrived asylum seekers.

2. Critique of Humanitarian “Self-Reliance”

The author critically evaluates international humanitarian programs promoting “self-reliance,” arguing that micro-grants and vocational training often fail to deliver sustainable independence when encampment laws restrict freedom of movement and right to work outside Dowa District.

3. Informal Market Economy

The study highlights how residents transform internal spaces within Dzaleka—such as the Katudza sector—into vibrant commercial nodes featuring tailoring shops, grocery stores, barber shops, mobile money transfers, and tech repair centers.

Academic & Policy Impact

The thesis contributes to critical forced migration studies by underscoring that refugee agency cannot replace structural policy reform. It has been cited in literature on African encampment dynamics, refugee-led social capital, and Southern African refugee economics.