REFUGEE VOLUNTEERING AND RESPONSES TO DISPLACEMENT IN UGANDA: NAVIGATING SERVICE-DELIVERY, WORK AND PRECARITY

We are excited to share our new open access paper published in the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. This paper was led by Prof Matt Baillie Smith and co-authored by Dr Bianca Fadel, Dr Frank Ahimbisibwe and Dr Robert Turyamureeba.

The paper forms part of a Special Issue of the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, co-edited by Prof Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Dr Estella Carpi as part of the ‘Southern Responses to Displacement’ (SRD) research project. This insightful project explores why, how and with what effect Southern states, civil society networks and refugees have responded to support refugees from Syria (more information here). The Special Issue extends the project’s by examining a broader range of historical and geographical contexts, offering new perspectives on Southern-led responses to displacement.

The RYVU paper, co-authored by Prof Baillie Smith, Dr Fadel, Dr Ahimbisibwe and Dr Turyamureeba in this Special Issue, critically examines the role of voluntary labour in refugee-led responses to displacement in Uganda. While volunteering is often celebrated in the context of crises and community support, refugees and displaced populations are still frequently portrayed as passive recipients of aid. This paper challenges that assumption through a critical analysis of refugee volunteering experiences in Uganda.

It explores how volunteering intersects with humanitarian responses and examines its impacts on individuals’ skills, employability, and experiences of inequality. The paper highlights the complex relationship between voluntary labour, service delivery, and self-reliance, particularly in relation to the precarities refugees face in navigating employment and livelihoods.

The paper concludes by arguing that volunteering connects with responses to displacement in ways that are shaped by refugee subjectivities and livelihoods in particular places, and that its potential to de-stabilise existing systems is ambivalently situated between self-reliance strategies and the perpetuation of dependencies.

Click here to read and download the full open access article.