and even the process of their economic reintegration, are deeply linked to their socio-economic conditions during exile and their livelihood networks (Omata 2013a, 2013b). Therefore, it is essential to examine repatriation and economic readjustment as a continuation of their experiences and resources during protracted displacement, rather than as an event that is independent from previous asylum experiences. Because I followed Liberian returnees from Ghana, I was able to observe and contextualize their economic transition upon return in relation to their socio-economic lives during exile.
Having obtained the ‘best’ durable solution, how did returnees perceive their post-repatriation life in Liberia compared to their experiences during exile? Upon return, were they able to construct meaningful economic foundations and ties in a new environment? Did the returnees improve their degree of ‘self-reliance’ upon repatriation? Were there any observable differences in the degree of economic reintegration? If so, what factors differentiated their economic adjustments? Did their personal networks, as I hypothesized, play a crucial role in their economic reintegration? I had a privileged opportunity to explore these compelling questions with returnees to Liberia from Buduburam, and discuss these research findings more extensively in Chapter 5.
A Note on Research Approaches and Methods
The Impact of the 2008 Refugee Protests in Buduburam
I commenced fieldwork for this study in 2008 during a period in which the Ghanaian government was tightening its refugee policy against the remaining Liberians in Ghana. This policy shift was triggered by the refugees’ large-scale demonstrations against the UNHCR’s promotion of local integration as a solution for Liberian refugees in Ghana, as explained above.
The consequences of these protests did not end with the arrest and deportation of demonstrators by the host government. The Ghanaian authorities took Liberians’ refusal to be integrated into the country as an unacceptable insult to the hospitality of the government, which had accommodated them for nearly two decades. Incensed by the demonstrations, the minister of the interior, Kwamena Bartels, made an official statement on 1 April 2008 that all Liberian refugees should go back to Liberia (MoI 2008). The government of Ghana subsequently expressed its intention to significantly reduce the residual number of Liberians in the country, as well as to break up Buduburam camp into more manageable, smaller pieces and to disperse the refugees to other parts of Ghana. The Ghanaian government also asked the UNHCR to apply the Cessation Clause to the refugee status of the residual Liberians in the country. Apparently, the protracted life of Liberian refugees in Buduburam was entering its final phase.
Concurrently, a tripartite committee comprising the governments of Ghana and Liberia and the UNHCR was formed in April 2008. By agreement, the UNHCR commenced the orderly voluntary repatriation of camp residents to Liberia in April 2008, involving an increase in the financial incentive offered to returnees, which went from $5 to $100 (for a person below the age of 18, the amount was $50).
Liberian refugees in Buduburam had been unwilling to repatriate to Liberia despite the UNHCR’s previous efforts to promote a repatriation programme (Essuman-Johnson 2011: 117). This time, in 2008, the reaction of the refugees changed after seeing the deployment of much tougher measures by the Ghanaians. Under strong pressure from the national authorities and international refugee regime to repatriate, many Liberian refugees decided to leave Ghana for Liberia. According to UNHCR internal statistics, more than 9,000 Liberians, about 40 per cent of the Buduburam refugee population, returned to Liberia between April 2008 and March 2009 under the UNHCR’s repatriation package (UNHCR 2009).
These policy shifts had an important impact on my research. At the outset of my fieldwork in Ghana, this latest repatriation programme was ongoing, and many of my interviewees were choosing to repatriate. Given the magnitude of repatriation, as noted above, I extended my fieldwork period so as to follow repatriating refugees from Buduburam back to Liberia, allowing me to study their post-return economic reintegration.
My Life as a Researcher in Buduburam
During thirteen months of research between 2008 and 2009, in order to obtain a better understanding of Buduburam refugee life, I lived inside the camp with two male Liberian refugees for over ten months. My co-residents were Philip and Sam. Philip was in his mid thirties and Sam was in his early twenties. Philip ran his own camp-based organization (CBO), providing school education for refugees in Buduburam camp, and also worked as a pastor. Initially I thought that both Philip and Sam were unmarried. Sam was, but later I found out that Philip had a wife and son, even though they had never lived in Ghana as refugees. He had met his wife in Liberia and had got married there before he left the country in 1999. His wife and son had stayed in Liberia throughout the country’s civil war, which lasted from 1989 to 2003.
The relationship between Philip and Sam was not clear to me at first. Due to their hierarchical relation, I first assumed that they were related. There was, however, no biological tie between them. Sam had at one time been a student at Philip’s school, but he had had to stop his schooling as he was unable to afford to pay his tuition fees. Impressed by Sam’s school performance, Philip had personally helped him continue his schooling. In exchange, Sam had started working for Philip as a housekeeper. When I started fieldwork in 2008, Sam had finished his high-school education in the camp some years earlier, but had continued working for Philip.
During the research, I attempted to adopt a similar lifestyle to that of camp residents. For instance, I always bought daily necessities and food such as vegetables, fish, meat and pasta from shops owned by Liberian refugees. I frequently ate out at canteens and fast-food stands and enjoyed (warm) beer at bars inside the camp. I shared the latrines and open shower space used by refugee residents. I purchased prepaid mobile-phone cards from refugee sellers, and used internet cafés in the camp whenever I needed to access my e-mail. In early 2009, our house faced a shortage of water when the tank we were using ran dry. I could perhaps have purchased water from other tanks but I did not do so. Instead, as my co-residents did, I minimized water usage and only took a bath once in a while.
In addition, I tried to become familiar with the Liberian refugee community as an external researcher. In particular, I did a lot of ‘hanging out’ (Rodgers 2004: 48) with refugees, which was not necessarily directly related to the research project. I participated in a youth football team as an assistant coach. Whenever the team played a game, I went to watch and cheered them on. Together with other football coaches, I occasionally went to a ‘theatre’ in the camp to see international football matches. Watching football was for my personal interest. Nevertheless, as football was undoubtedly the most popular sport for Liberians, I came to meet many refugees there. Also, I joined church prayers on Sundays whenever I was invited by refugees. There was always a moment when new church-goers were introduced to those gathered at the beginning of prayer meetings, and social hours after the meeting. Church visiting was thus a useful way to introduce myself and to explain what I was doing to many refugees at the same time.
Although I encountered numerous inconveniences, living with refugees in the camp returned tremendous rewards. For example, I could expand my contacts with refugees through my co-resident, Philip. Owing to his activities in the camp through his CBO and church, Philip had wide networks including other Liberian residents, and he put me in touch with other key refugee informants. Also, I was able to garner a clear sense of living costs in the camp as I understood the exact prices of household items and services, including food, water, clothing, transportation, internet access and pre-paid phone credit. This local knowledge proved to be essential, especially when I started to gather quantitative data from refugee households.
Data Collection
The main empirical data, including both
