New book explores the daily realities of an African refugee campSimon Turner challenges common perceptions of innocence, gender and humanitarianism

Simon Turner's "The Politics of Innocence: Hutu Identity, Conflict and Camp Life" has been published in Berghahn Books’ Forced Migration Series (vol 30).

Based on thorough ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in Tanzania the book provides a rich account of the benevolent ‘disciplining mechanisms’ of humanitarian agencies, led by the UNHCR, and of the situated, dynamic, indeterminate and fluid nature of identity (re)construction in the camp. While the refugees are expected to behave as innocent, helpless victims, the question of victimhood among Burundian Hutu is increasingly challenged, following the 1993 massacres in Burundi and the Rwandan genocide.The book explores how different groups within the camp apply different strategies to cope with these issues and how the question of innocence and victimhood is itself imbued with ambiguity, as young men struggle to recuperate their masculinity and their political subjectivity.

Read more aboutthe bookon Berghan Books' website.