team as an on-site representative body of the GRB. To assist in carrying out the wide range of responsibilities assigned to the camp management team, there was the Liberian Refugee Welfare Council (LRWC), a formal leadership structure comprised of appointed members from the Liberian refugee community in Buduburam camp. Along with a chairperson appointed by the Ghanaian camp commandant (sometimes called the ‘camp manager’ by refugees), the LRWC board was composed of two co-chairpersons and four executive members.
Due to the frequent influx of Liberian refugees to the camp during the fourteen years of Liberia’s civil war, the refugee community in Buduburam became quite diversified, with different tribal groups from both urban and rural backgrounds. It is said that there are sixteen identifiable indigenous ethnic groups in Liberia (Bøås 2015: 60; Olukoju 2006: 3), in addition to a small number of miscellaneous groups and the Americo-Liberians – descendants of liberated American slaves.
Because the Liberian civil war involved several ethnically based armed groups, there had been strong ethnic rivalry inside the camp. According to refugees who had lived in the camp since its foundation, tensions between different ethnicities in the camp reached a peak during the second half of the 1990s when military factions based on ethnicity mushroomed in Liberia. Some residents even began organizing camp-based political parties, which were mostly linked to specific tribes. However, the Ghanaian camp commandant saw the danger of increasing ethnic animosity between the refugees, and most of these political affiliations were subsequently dissolved.
At the time of my fieldwork, acute tension between different ethnic groups seemed no longer to exist or was at least largely diluted. At a micro-level, nevertheless, tribal solidarity of course remained among the camp residents and sometimes played an important part in their daily economic coping strategies. In particular, mutual help between members of the same tribal group or clan was widely observed. Additionally, as legacies of ethnic and political affiliations in the camp, county-based organizations still existed. Liberia consists of fifteen counties, which are mostly populated by specific ethnic groups. Within the camp population, those from the same county organized themselves and selected their own representative and executive body. Being part of these ethnic groupings often had economic implications for members as some of these organizations sometimes provided welfare support for their fellows when in an economic predicament.
Local Host Communities in and around Buduburam
The Gomoa district in which Buduburam camp was located is known as one of the poorest districts in Ghana (Porter et al. 2008: 235). Interviews with the local community confirmed that the area used to be a tiny village in what was virtually bush country, with very little commercial activity. There was unanimity among the Ghanaian interviewees that the development of this local area began after the arrival of Liberian refugees.
Despite the development induced by the influx of Liberian refugees, the economic level of local inhabitants had remained quite low. There were no official economic statistics at the district level in Ghana. According to my interviews with a Ghanaian bishop who had been living in the area since 1993, only a handful of local people could spend more than $1 per day for their own consumption besides food. When I asked twenty local villagers the question ‘Who is better off, Ghanaians or Liberian refugees?’ all but one answered that Liberians were better off than local Ghanaians.
Although the majority of the local people were considered poorer than the refugees, they did have some livelihood advantages over the Liberian exiles. Unlike refugees, they did not need to obtain permission from the government to apply for formal employment. Also, Ghanaians had better access to local markets, as refugees were often restricted to selling goods inside the camp area alone. Crucially, knowledge of local languages was a major asset for running local businesses as a command of English in the Buduburam area was not very strong.
The predominant livelihood activity of locals was the small-scale trading of groceries and other daily household items. Right next to the camp entrance, there was a Ghanaian market where many Liberians purchased their daily food and other necessities from Ghanaian traders. According to local merchants, the most important customers for Ghanaian retailers in the area were undoubtedly Liberian refugees residing in the camp. Edgar, a Ghanaian owner of a pharmacy in a village adjacent to the camp, told me:
Normally, I receive twenty customers per day. Ten out of the twenty are Liberians [refugees]. A Liberian normally spends more money than a Ghanaian customer … Before [repatriation started], I received many more Liberian customers. At its peak, I received almost fifty [Liberian customers] in one day … In this area, all Ghanaian shop owners are benefiting from Liberians’ money.1
I also saw other signs of interaction between refugees and Ghanaian villagers in the camp area. For example, many churches in and around the camp had both Liberians and locals in their congregations. Some friendly football matches were played between refugees and Ghanaian hosts. In the youth population, I observed several cases of intermarriage and dating between Ghanaians and refugees.
Whereas these observations and testimonies implied peaceful coexistence between local villagers and Liberian refugees, there was a view that, in recent years, the general relationship between Liberians and local people had cooled considerably, or even deteriorated. During my interviews with Liberian refugees, I occasionally heard complaints against Ghanaians. Some refugee business people said that economic transactions were almost entirely unilateral: only Ghanaian business people were benefiting from Liberian customers but not vice versa.
Also, I frequently heard from both refugees and local villagers about a land-related conflict between refugees and locals on excretion in the ‘Gulf’, a bushy area which many Liberians used as a latrine. In the camp, the use of public toilets was fee-based, so refugees without cash used this area regularly. In the local host community, this bushy area was perceived as a sacred place, and using it for excretion was seen as a disgrace and a huge insult against the (local) spirit. So whenever they found Liberians excreting there, Ghanaian villagers arrested and punished them violently. These incidents indicated that there was at least a certain level of tension between locals and refugees.
Distinctive Features of Buduburam Camp Life
Fee-Based Camp: ‘Nothing Is Free!’
‘Nothing is free in this camp!’ I heard this sentence repeatedly from Liberian residents. This was indeed true. As briefly mentioned above, refugees in Buduburam camp had to pay for basic services, including water, using a public latrine, medical treatment and electricity: for instance, 5 pesewas (3 to 4 cents) for a small bucket of water and 5 pesewas for each use of a public latrine. In addition, if a refugee was living outside the originally allocated camp area, they had to pay rent to a Ghanaian landlord. Monthly rent was roughly 10 GH
Education in the camp was no exception. The annual tuition fee in 2008/9 for Buduburam Refugee Community School, the largest school in the camp, was 45 GH
