Humanitarian assistance is framed around ‘protection’. Deciding whom to protect and against what is not straightforward, particularly during a pandemic. In Uganda, policies to protect against COVID-19 embraced containment through the reduction of movement and the securitisation of borders. Refugees in Uganda were described as particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 and therefore in need of protection, whilst simultaneously perceived to be a health security threat. This article critically explores containment and protection by focusing on refugee self-protection. Ethnographic research was carried out during COVID-19 in Palabek refugee settlement in northern Uganda, amongst refugees from South Sudan. In contrast to containment policies that curtailed mobility in order to ‘protect’, research findings demonstrate that self-protection included dynamic social boundaries around the settlement, and harnessed mobility. The latter drew on social, political, and historical borderland dynamics between (South) Sudan and Uganda. Effective social boundaries around Palabek were only created when policies of containment had legitimacy. Boundaries were circumvented when legitimacy waned and wider socio-economic challenges, particularly regarding food insecurity, came to the fore. If humanitarians and the Ugandan government had understood the essential need to consider self-protection, they might have paid more attention to ensuring the long-lasting legitimacy of COVID-19 containment policies amongst refugees.
Policy Implications
The following recommendations are relevant to humanitarian and state actors responsible for refugee protection, particularly those that utilise containment during disease outbreaks. This includes international humanitarian organisations, government and non-government organisations, and is particularly relevant for those in public health positions, or those working in outbreak preparedness and response. These actors should:
- Appreciate the agency of refugees in determining their own priorities, which may or may not align with formal policies of contain to protect. Conceptualising such agency in terms of self-protection may help shed light on dynamics that challenge official policies, revealing important social and economic challenges that will undoubtedly shape (dis)engagement with humanitarian agencies.
- Further explore the wider social and economic impacts of containment and consider how policies can mitigate these. For instance, livelihood opportunities and food security may take precedence over outbreak containment or risk of violence. In this way, food security could be considered an essential component of containment policy.
- Be aware of the dynamic nature of legitimacy surrounding policies of containment. Policies, therefore, need to be regularly reviewed, adapted and redefined, otherwise they lose their local legitimacy.
- Understand how historical and socio-political issues such as borderland dynamics, can be used to inform protection policies. This wider understanding can specifically shed light on how people might respond to rapidly changing social and economic challenges surrounding livelihood opportunities and food insecurity.
Photo by Daniel Abbatt