Quiet Inclusion: Explaining Informality in Refugee Integration in Africa

Shelby Carvalho, Harvard University

As the scale and length of forced of displacement grows, countries in the Global South are facing heightened pressure to formalize the scope and boundaries of refugee integration in national systems. De jure refugee policies vary considerably across countries. However, de facto inclusion and exclusion are consistently characterized by informality and volatility often leaving refugee rights to the will of elites and service providers in hosting countries. In this paper, I show that the persistence of informality in refugee integration is intentional because it allows decisionmakers to strategically exercise discretion in moderating inclusion as political and economic conditions change.

Keywords: Population Policies, Population and Development, Mixed methods research, International Migration

See extended abstract.