In this episode of the NUPI podcast The World Stage, Dr Cedric de Coning from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) takes listeners into the heart of the Lake Chad region and into a two‑year research project Managing climate, peace and security risks from the borderlands of the Lake Chad. Joined by Freedom Onuoha from the University of Nigeria, and Thor Olav Iversen and Andrew E. Yaw Tchie from NUPI, they explore how the Regional Strategy for Stabilization, Resilience and Recovery (RS‑SRR) is being used to address climate‑related conflict risks.
Watch the podcast episode below, or listen on Spotify, Apple podcasts or Acast
The Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994), which was fought between the army and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel group, was rooted in long-standing tensions between the two main ethnic groups in Rwanda, the Tutsis and the Hutus. The four-year conflict saw the RPF, a group primarily made up of Tutsis who had fled the country when the Hutu government came into power, clash with the government’s armed forces, and eventually culminated in the Rwandan genocide: a three-month period during which extreme Hutus massacred over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus[i]. In the aftermath of the civil war, the new Tutsi-led government sought to overcome these divisions by creating a unified identity. They proclaimed that there were no Hutus or Tutsis, only Rwandans.
Identity can play a key role in the origins, dynamics, and outcomes of a conflict. Intergroup conflicts can often be traced back to, or exacerbated by, people segregating their personal and their group’s identity from that of the group they are in conflict with. As the barriers between groups are defined, favouritism and superiority are often accredited to members of the ingroup, and there is greater exclusion of the outgroup group. When this occurs in combination with political divides, instability, or a perceived threat, it can increase hostility[ii] .On the other hand, promoting a common identity or encouraging identification with a benevolent group can be useful tools to promote post-conflict reconciliation. Understanding how identity can drive people towards reconciliation or radicalisation can help guide efforts to achieve post-conflict stability.
Group identity
As identity can cause division between groups, one strategy used to promote reconciliation in the aftermath of a conflict is ‘recategorisation’. This focuses on creating an all-encompassing larger group categorisation that both sides can identify with. The theory is that, by including the outgroup in a shared identity, the favouritism saved for those seen as members of the ingroup will be extended to include the outgroup[iii] .As noted above, reconstructing the national Rwandan identity was one way in which the Rwandan government sought to foster reconciliation following the end of the civil war. Ethnicity was removed from identity cards, and any mention of ethnic groups and identities was banned in the public sphere[iv] .Although enforcing this shared identity encouraged people to move beyond intergroup antagonism, it proved to be an ineffective method to promote reconciliation, as it limited freedom of discussion, and denied both sides the opportunity to express their grievances[v] .Recategorisation strategies often favour the dominant group, who want to focus on similarities, but they can cause difficulties for the disadvantaged group, who are denied opportunities to highlight power differences and systemic injustices. One study conducted with ‘survivors’ and ‘non-victims’ of the Rwandan genocide in 2009 found that, while the groups did not differ in their level of identification with the nation, the non-victim (i.e. dominant) group were more willing to reconcile than members of the survivor group[vi].
Dual identity
Depending on the situation, it is also unrealistic to assume people will be open to replacing one closely held identity with an entirely new, more inclusive one. In some circumstances, it can be more feasible to reframe people’s ideas of their identity by instead encouraging them to hold a dual identity. A dual identity means someone can retain their original identity, but, at the same time, adopt a second more inclusive identity, and it allows for recognition of both the similarities and differences between groups. This was studied in America by asking white Americans about their opinions on policies that were more favourable for ethnic minorities. Those who felt more strongly about their dual identities – identifying as Americans and with their ethnicity group – were more supportive of the policies than those who had more of a connection to their ethnicity than their American identity[vii]. Research in the case of migrants has also found that, when individuals identify with both their minority ingroup and their society of residence, it constrains politicisation, encouraging nonviolent forms of political action that are more likely to be widely accepted as legitimate. When two identities are incompatible, however, there is a risk this could encourage political radicalisation. In such cases, the dominant group has a responsibility to welcome the differences within a dual identity as a ‘promising contribution to a pluralistic society’, rather than treating them as a liability[viii].
Identity fusion
Aspects of identity can also fuel extremist behaviour when someone’s personal identity becomes intertwined with that of the group they are a member of. As the identities merge, people begin to view attacks on their group as a personal attack on them. This gives people a sense of responsibility for the group’s wellbeing and makes them more willing to fight back, give support, and risk themselves for the benefit of the group[ix]. It provides feelings of strength and immunity for the individual when they’re acting on behalf of something larger than themselves. The influence identity fusion can have on a person’s behaviour was analysed in a study on self-sacrificing behaviour in Spaniards. The participants’ fusion with their national identity was measured, and they were presented with a hypothetical situation and asked about their willingness to die to save multiple other lives. Those who were more strongly fused with their Spanish identity were more likely to sacrifice themselves for the ‘ingroup’ (fellow Spaniards), but not for the ‘outgroup’ (Americans)[x]. Having a strongly fused identity does not just encourage people to engage in radical or violent behaviour, however. If an individual’s identity becomes closely connected with a different group or with family members that do not take part in radical behaviour, it has the capability to move people towards more peaceful actions. One study in Spanish prisons with Latino gangs found fusion with one’s family helped to protect against radicalisation and prompted people to move away from more radical groups and behaviours[xi].
Conclusion
Exploring the role identity can play in encouraging reconciliation or radicalisation can provide insight into how to mitigate violence in a post-conflict setting. The influence of this factor is highly context dependent, so understanding the intricacies of a conflict is essential to being able to appropriately apply these theories. Interventions aimed at promoting a shared identity and fusion with an alternative identity could aid in the reconciliation process as long as they are adapted for each individual situation. If not, they could have the opposite effect and exacerbate the issue.
Rwandan flag waving at Kigali Genocide Memorial (August 8th 2008). Credit: MilanoPE / Shutterstock.com
[i] Sentama, E. (2022). National Reconciliation in Rwanda: Experiences and Lessons Learnt. European University Institute.
[ii] Brewer, M. B. (1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love and outgroup hate?. Journal of Social Issues, 55(3), 429-444. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022- 4537.00126
[iii] Gaertner, S., Dovidio, J., Nier, J., Banker, B., Ward, C., Houlette, M., & Loux, S. (Eds.) (2000). The common ingroup identity model for reducing intergroup bias: Progress and challenges. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446218617
[iv] Kanazayire, Clémentine, Laurent Licata, Patricia Mélotte, Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, and Assaad E. Azzi. “Does Identification With Rwanda Increase Reconciliation Sentiments Between Genocide Survivors and Non-Victims? The Mediating Roles of Perceived Intergroup Similarity and Self-Esteem During Commemorations.” Journal of social and political psychology 2, no. 1 (2014): 489–504.
[v] Staub, E. (2014). The challenging road to reconciliation in Rwanda: Societal processes, interventions and their evaluation. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2(1), 505-517. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v2i1.294
[vi] Kanazayire, Clémentine, Laurent Licata, Patricia Mélotte, Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, and Assaad E. Azzi. “Does Identification With Rwanda Increase Reconciliation Sentiments Between Genocide Survivors and Non-Victims? The Mediating Roles of Perceived Intergroup Similarity and Self-Esteem During Commemorations.” Journal of social and political psychology 2, no. 1 (2014): 489–504.
[vii] Huo, Y. J., Smith, H. J., Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1996). Superordinate identification, subgroup identification, and justice concerns: is separatism the problem: Is assimilation the answer? Psychological Science, 7(1), 40- 45. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00664.x
[viii] Simon, B., Reichert, F., & Grabow, O. (2013). When Dual Identity Becomes a Liability: Identity and Political Radicalism Among Migrants. Psychological Science, 24(3), 251-257. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612450889
[ix] Gómez, Á, Brooks, M. L., Buhrmester, M. D., Vázquez, A., Jetten, J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2011). On the nature of identity fusion: Insights into the construct and a new measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(5), 918-933. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022642
[x] Buhrmester, M., & Swann, W. (2015). Identity Fusion. In Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences: An interdisciplinary, searchable, and linkable resource. John Wiley & Sons; Swann, William B., Ángel Gómez, John F. Dovidio, Sonia Hart, and Jolanda Jetten. “Dying and Killing for One’s Group: Identity Fusion Moderates Responses to Intergroup Versions of the Trolley Problem.” Psychological science 21, no. 8 (2010): 1176–1183.
[xi] Gómez, A., Atran, S., Chinchilla, J., Vázquez, A., López-Rodríguez, L., Paredes, B., … & Davis, R. (2022). Willingness to sacrifice among convicted Islamist terrorists versus violent gang members and other criminals. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 1- 15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06590-0
Across Myanmar and its neighbouring borderlands, protracted conflict, sanctions regimes, illicit economies and gendered forms of agency continue to shape political order and everyday life. These border regions are characterised by overlapping authorities, militarised governance, fragmented markets and the circulation of goods, capital and people through both formal and illicit channels. Understanding how local actors adapt to sanctions, financial oversight, armed conflict and gendered constraints is vital for informing more effective policy responses.
XCEPT’s research on Myanmar and its neighbouring borderlands brings together four projects that examine how conflict actors navigate sanctions, how financial flows from borderland economies move through regional hubs, and how gendered norms create both obstacles and openings for women’s political and economic influence. These projects analyse how conflict economies evolve under international pressure, how anti‑money‑laundering and counterterrorism financing frameworks affect borderland financial networks, and how women in militarised borderlands shape governance, mobility and local security.
The projects
Sanctions and Conflict Economies in the Borderlands of Myanmar and Somalia
This project examines how borderland conflict actors adapt to increasingly targeted sanctions and how these adaptations affect local communities.
This study investigates how regional financial hubs such as Accra, Nairobi and Bangkok interact with illicit financial flows from conflict‑affected borderlands, and how AML and CFT frameworks can strengthen oversight and disrupt conflict‑linked networks.
Gendered authority and feminist agency across the Myanmar‑Bangladesh Rohingya borderlands
This project explores how women involved in border monitoring, armed groups, security structures and civil society navigate contradictory gender expectations to exert influence over territorial control and political economies.
Gendered frontlines: Structural disjunctures and women’s agency in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands
This project examines how women in the militarised Indo–Myanmar borderlands strategically exploit contradictions between overlapping gender systems to reshape conflict dynamics.
Across the Horn of Africa, shifting political centres, digital infrastructures, urban governance, historical state formations, and gendered forms of authority are reshaping how power is organised and contested. XCEPT’s 2026 research in the Horn of Africa brings together five studies that examine these dynamics across Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Somaliland.
The projects explore how historical legacies, new economic and geopolitical hubs, digital innovation, emerging urban centres, and women’s grassroots leadership are transforming political order across the region.
The projects
Historical and contemporary centers of power in Sudan
A study examining how historical state formation and shifting centres of authority in the greater Nile Valley help explain contemporary and future patterns of fragmentation.
Shifting centres & geopolitical futures of the Horn’s subnationalisms
Research on how emerging hubs such as Semera, Port Sudan, and Berbera are transforming political authority, investment dynamics, and centre–periphery relations.
Contested digital sovereignty in Sudan and Somali Horn of Africa
An examination of how digital innovation hubs and connective infrastructure shape state capacity and political contestation in fragmented contexts.
Beyond state fragmentation: How emerging urban centres are reshaping political order in Somalia
A study analysing how cities such as Garowe, Baidoa, Las Anod, and Kismayo act as quasi‑sovereign authorities through control over mobility, verification, and extraction.
Embodied Knowledge and Feminist Agency in a South Sudan borderland
Research examining how the Kabarze movement of older Murle women in Greater Pibor challenges invisibility in conflict‑affected borderlands and asserts culturally grounded moral authority.
Across the Levant, economic pressures, climate stress, and shifting political and security dynamics are transforming the way borderlands function. Fragmented governance, long‑running conflict, and illicit cross‑border flows continue to shape livelihoods and state authority along the region’s key frontiers, from the Syria–Iraq and Lebanon–Syria borders to Yemen’s coastal zones. Understanding these changes is essential for developing policies that support stability, formal trade, and climate resilience.
XCEPT’s Levant research brings together three projects that examine how border governance, climate‑driven adaptation, and illicit networks intersect across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. The projects explore practical pathways for more coordinated cross‑border commerce, assess how drought and livelihood strain influence informal and illicit trade, and analyse how evolving smuggling networks reflect wider geopolitical transformations. They offer a grounded picture of the forces reshaping borderland economies and political orders in the Levant.
The projects
The Levant corridor: Policy pathways for rebuilding cross‑border commerce
This project develops policy tools that support gradual economic reintegration across the Levant Corridor by strengthening cross‑border regulation, customs coordination, and key trade mechanisms.
Fragile borderlands: Drivers of drought adaptation and instability in MENA
This project examines how drought‑driven livelihood pressures reshape informal and illicit trade in food, fuel, livestock, and water, and how these networks can either support climate adaptation or increase insecurity.
Illicit networks in the Levant: Political and economic implications in a post-war order
This project investigates changing patterns of smuggling and illicit trade, analysing how they reflect broader political shifts, weakened state structures, and transnational economic networks.
Centring local knowledge and voices is key to conducting impactful research. On the Cross-border Conflict, Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, we are collaborating with South Sudanese poet, Peter Kidi. His poetry highlights the human experience behind many of the themes we explore on XCEPT – including the effect that material factors like food insecurity have on undermining social structures and community relationships – provoking all of us to think more deeply about the reality of our research.
Around the world, governments are slashing aid budgets in favour of increased spending on defence. These cuts have had a devastating impact on the provision of humanitarian services in many parts of the world, and experts warn that this could cause millions of avoidable deaths.[i] In Kakuma camp – Kenya’s second largest refugee camp – a new system of aid delivery, known as Differentiated Assistance, has been introduced in response to the cuts. This system is not just denying people access to food, but is stripping away their sense of agency. As parents face the heartbreaking reality of not being able to feed their children, it is having a significant impact on mental health, family structures, and family cohesion.
The aid cuts in Kakuma
USAID had funded over two-thirds of refugee food aid in Kenya, and Kakuma’s population felt the brunt of the cuts almost immediately. Faced with a severe funding shortfall, the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNHCR halted the Bamba Chakula cash transfer initiative, and, in an attempt to ensure that the most vulnerable continued to receive aid, they introduced the Differentiated Assistance framework.[ii] Under this system, households have been placed into categories of ‘need’, according to their perceived vulnerability. Households in categories 1, 2, and 3 are entitled to receive food rations at 55 percent, 35 percent, and 20 percent of the recommended minimum food basket respectively. Those in category 4 are deemed to have the ability to meet basic needs and so receive nothing.
The WFP and UNHCR have since reintroduced Bamba Chakula for those in categories 1, 2, and 3, but there are concerns about the reliability of the categorisations.[iii] There are also some households that have not yet been categorised or who have found themselves removed from the system in the second cycle. Not only this, but the assumption that those who don’t receive aid can find other sources of income is troubling. It is very difficult to find work in Kakuma, and the new system is exacerbating the problem. Although Differentiated Assistance was introduced in response to the funding cuts, it is also part of the Kenyan government’s longer-term strategy to promote self-reliance amongst refugees.[iv] Yet, when assistance is reduced, it also reduces purchasing power.[v] This means that local traders in Kakuma can no longer rely on customers, which undermines their ability to be self-reliant.
Peter Kidi, observational poet
Peter is 24 years old and was born in Kakuma after his family fled their home in what is now South Sudan, during the second Sudanese Civil War (1983 – 2005). A self-taught poet, he has spent the last ten months documenting the reality of the aid cuts on the ground in Kakuma. Peter spends much of his time observing, listening, and reflecting upon what he sees and hears in ‘normal’ spaces in the camp, such as in the market, the street, and within his own family. He has recently been working on a collection of poems focused on fatherhood, showing how the cuts have increased the difficulties of being able to fulfil the expected social role of being a father. One of his poems that highlights these difficulties is The father who stopped building.
The father who stopped building
Before the dust and the borders,
his hands could tame timber,
nails bent to his will,
and walls stood because he told them to.
He was the kind of man
whose shadow looked like a scaffold,
and every house he raised
was a promise to his children
that they would always be safe.
Now,
he sits in the shade of a leaning shelter,
eyes fixed on something only he can see.
The hammer sleeps under his bed,
its handle cracked and thirsty,
its head cold with silence.
I’ve seen him watch
the wind pull at the plastic walls,
as if the gusts are old friends
reminding him of roofs he once built
roofs that kept rain from his children’s beds,
that held the sound of their laughter inside.
But here,
there is no wood worth cutting,
only thin poles,
plastic sheets that rip in the sun,
and rations that feed the body
but starve the pride.
He can no longer build them a home,
only watch the years
and the dust settle around them.
At night, they say,
he dreams in brick dust,
hears the rhythm of nails finding home,
and builds a house in his sleep
with doors wide enough
to let his children run through laughing,
and his manhood
walk in after them.
Expectations of fatherhood in Kakuma
Understandings of fatherhood vary cross-nationally, but a traditional gendered order is the norm amongst populations in Kakuma camp, who predominantly come from South Sudan, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[vi] In this context, the father is associated with being the provider of resources, while mothers are associated more directly with the caring and nurturing of children.[vii] Fatherhood is also traditionally aligned with being the ‘protector’ of the family: within the home, from economic hardship, and from security threats.[viii] In addition to providing for the family, fathers are expected to give advice, love, and guidance to their children, whilst also being a role model to their male children.[ix] Importantly, a father is supposed to be able to provide additional support if a child is sick or if there is an emergency.[x]
Perpetuating tensions in the home
In Kakuma, the ability of men to carry out these roles has already been undermined by the government’s encampment policies which have created a dependency on aid among the camp’s residents.[xi] Following the aid cuts, the situation has been exacerbated, and this is having a negative impact on both the men and their families. The inability to fulfil the ‘breadwinner masculinity’ role has caused many men to feel powerless, useless, or as though they lack agency – and with this comes a fear of losing one’s family. [xii] Within the traditional gendered order in Kakuma, having a ‘useless’ husband is viewed by many as a legitimate reason for a woman to leave her husband and seek out someone who can better provide for her children.
In an attempt to fulfil their expected roles, some men have sought to migrate to neighbouring countries to find work, while others have attempted to make the perilous journey north in an effort to get to Europe. These efforts to provide for their families serve only to distance fathers from their children, and this can have far-reaching consequences. Research conducted with Syrian refugee children found that those children whose fathers were absent had higher levels of depression symptoms and lower self-efficacy and self-esteem, indicating there had been significant disruption to their development.[xiii]
The inability of men to fulfil expected roles can, in some cases, also contribute to increased domestic tension, gender-based violence (GBV), crime, and alcoholism.[xiv] In August 2025, the NGO Refugee Group carried out a survey to assess the combined impact of funding cuts and the rollout of Differentiated Assistance among refugees in Kenya, which found that cases of GBV had more than doubled in the previous six months. Over half of refugee respondents also reported witnessing an increase in domestic violence, while there has been an increase in thefts and assaults among refugees.[xv] Peter has also observed how feelings of despair have led to a rise in alcoholism and drug use amongst men who are not able to work. Unregulated and high-strength alcohol is easy to gain access to in Kakuma, and a rise in consumption has been visible since the fallout of the aid cuts has taken hold.
It has also been reported that suicidal thoughts in Kakuma are widespread and that there has been an increase in suicides since the aid cuts.[xvi] Although it is important to be cautious about generalisations, research shows that men are more likely to develop negative coping mechanisms in response to psychological and material strain,[xvii] including self-harm.[xviii]
In his poem I am still here, Peter recalls a case of a young father attempting suicide in the camp. This takes place after the young man has been left with no means of income, faces the loss of his family and, feeling like there is no other option, tries and fails to take his own life. However, after his failed suicide attempt, he faces further ostracisation due to the Kenyan legal system, which treats suicide as a criminal offence.
I am still here
Peter… before the cuts, my hands smelled of paper and stamps.
I could sign my name at the end of a day’s work and know I had brought something home.
Maize. Soap. Maybe sugar, if the month was kind.
My children would run to meet me,
and my wife’s shoulders would loosen when she saw my arms full.
Then, Peter, the U.S. closed its fist on the funds.
It was just a headline somewhere far away.
But here in the camp, it broke us.
Jobs vanished.
Men went quiet.
I walked from one gate to another until even the dust learned my footsteps.
Still, I came back with nothing.
Then came the rollout.
Differentiated Assistance, they called it.
Sounds harmless, doesn’t it?
It put my family in Category Four.
No rations.
No soap.
No oil.
Nothing.
Hunger I could live with.
But my wife’s voice at night…
that was harder.
“What kind of man are you?
Why can’t you bring something home?”
Her words cut in places I didn’t know could bleed.
One day she stopped speaking altogether.
She stepped out of our silence and into the arms of a man who could feed her.
Peter, I didn’t shout.
I didn’t beg.
I took a rope and walked into the dark.
The knot felt solid in my hands.
The rope was the last thing I wanted to speak to.
But death wouldn’t have me.
I woke up coughing in the arms of strangers.
The police came.
Not to ask why.
Not to listen.
To punish.
To drag me before a law that has no space for hunger,
only for crime.
Young people blocked their way,
but I knew the government would never want my story
only my name on a charge sheet.
Now I hide in the corners of this camp.
I breathe, but I am not alive.
I sleep where no one looks.
Eat when someone remembers I exist.
Some nights, I hear whispers
How many more Johns are still here,
measuring the distance between their heart and the end,
wondering if the rope will hold next time?
Peter… I am still here.
But I don’t know for how long.
The impact of aid cuts on the population of Kakuma has been devastating.[xix] While the Differentiated Assistance model aims to ensure that the most vulnerable still receive support, there is a hidden human cost. As highlighted in Peter’s poetry, one consequence has been the diminished ability of men to fulfil expected fathering roles. This has a significant impact on the mental health of these men, but it also affects the lives of their families and communities, as it can contribute to increased domestic tension, GBV, crime, and reduced support within the home as men seek work in other countries.
The experience in Kakuma also has important implications for other contexts, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected areas where the feelings of insecurity caused by the aid cuts risk reinforcing instability and violence. As aid agencies respond to the funding shortfalls, it is important to recognise that the impact of food insecurity extends beyond physical health and needs; it also affects mental health, family cohesion, and can, in some cases, contribute to increased tensions and violence.
About the authors
Dr Heidi Riley is an Adjunct Research Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, and a consultant for the XCEPT research programme at King’s College London. She is currently working with other XCEPT researchers to understand how conflict and insecurity have disrupted meanings and practices of fatherhood among pastoralist communities in South Sudan.
Peter Kidi is a South Sudanese poet and activist, who was born in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. His work has been published in The New Humanitarian and by the London School of Economics. He is collaborating with the XCEPT programme on our research on food insecurity, social roles, and moral personhood.
Clara May is the Communications Manager at the XCEPT research programme in King’s College London.
[i] Lau, Stuart, ‘Trump global aid cuts risk 14 million deaths in five years, report says’, 1 July 2025, BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2jjpm7zv8o
[ii] Bamba Chakula overview, available at: https://cdn.wfp.org/wfp.org/publications/BAMBA%20CHAKULA%20UPDATE%20MAR-JUN%202016.pdf
[iii] Bakewell, Madison, Vittorio Bruni, and Olivier Sterck, Why it’s a bad idea to triage refugee food aid when everyone’s hungry, 7 November 2025, The New Humanitarian. Available at: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2025/11/07/triage-refugee-food-aid-kakuma-camp-differentiated-assistance; Yahya, Joljol, Rethinking Refugee Differentiated Assistance Model: Refugees’ Struggle for Survival in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement, Turkana County, Kenya, 22 October 2025, Refugee Law Initiative. Available at: https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/10/22/rethinking-refugee-differentiated-assistance-model-refugees-struggle-for-survival-in-kakuma-refugee-camp-and-kalobeyei-integrated-settlement-turkana-county-kenya/
[iv] The Kenya Shirika Plan: An Overview, Available at: https://refugee.go.ke/kenya-shirika-plan-overview-and-action-plan; Yahya, Joljol, Rethinking Refugee Differentiated Assistance Model: Refugees’ Struggle for Survival in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement, Turkana County, Kenya, 22 October 2025, Refugee Law Initiative. Available at: https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/10/22/rethinking-refugee-differentiated-assistance-model-refugees-struggle-for-survival-in-kakuma-refugee-camp-and-kalobeyei-integrated-settlement-turkana-county-kenya/
[v] Maina, Joseph, Refugee entrepreneurs in Kenya’s Kakuma camp struggle to survive aid cuts, 7 August 2025,The New Humanitarian. Available at: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2025/08/07/refugee-entrepreneurs-kenya-kakuma-camp-struggle-aid-cuts
[vi] UNHCR Data Portal, https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/southsudan/location/9907
[vii] Lwambo, Desiree. (2013) Before the War, I Was a Man’: Men and Masculinities in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.” Gender and Development, 21(1), pp. 47–66
[viii] Wojnicka, K. (2021). Men and masculinities in times of crisis: between care and protection. NORMA, 16(1), 1–5.
[ix] McLean, K. E. (2020). ‘Post-crisis masculinities’ in Sierra Leone: revisiting masculinity theory. Gender, Place & Culture, 28(6), 786–805.
[x] Riley, Heidi, Killing is part of their life’: the men raised on violence who are both perpetrators and victims as South Sudan faces return to civil war, 28 May 2025, The Conversation, Available at: https://theconversation.com/killing-is-part-of-their-life-the-men-raised-on-violence-who-are-both-perpetrators-and-victims-as-south-sudan-faces-return-to-civil-war-256177
[xi] Maina, Joseph, Refugee entrepreneurs in Kenya’s Kakuma camp struggle to survive aid cuts, 7 August 2025,The New Humanitarian. Available at: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2025/08/07/refugee-entrepreneurs-kenya-kakuma-camp-struggle-aid-cuts; H. (2022). Perception of Refugees towards International Humanitarian Aid in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. Africa Journal for Social Transformation, 1(1), 1–13. Retrieved from https://journals.tangaza.ac.ke/index.php/AJST/article/view/8
[xii] Hanlon, N. (2012). Breadwinner Masculinities. In: Masculinities, Care and Equality. Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
[xiii] Eltanamly, H., A. May, F. McEwen, E. Karam, and Michael Pluess. (2024). “Father-Separation and Well-Being in Forcibly Displaced Syrian Children.” Attachment & Human Development 27 (5): 715–35. doi:10.1080/14616734.2024.2406610.
[xiv] CGIAR, He said – She said: Reflections on gender relations at Tongogara Refugee Settlement,16 December 2024, CGIAR. Available at: https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/he-said-she-said-reflections-on-gender-relations-at-tongogara-refugee-settlement/
[xv] The NGO Refugee Group, Kenya Refugee Response Under Strain: Funding Cuts, Differentiated Assistance, and the Rising Social Cohesion Crisis, August 2025, The NGO Refugee Group. Available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/kenya-refugee-response-under-strain-funding-cuts-differentiated-assistance-and-rising-social-cohesion-crisis-august-2025; Yahya, Joljol, Rethinking Refugee Differentiated Assistance Model: Refugees’ Struggle for Survival in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement, Turkana County, Kenya, 22 October 2025, Refugee Law Initiative. Available at: https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/10/22/rethinking-refugee-differentiated-assistance-model-refugees-struggle-for-survival-in-kakuma-refugee-camp-and-kalobeyei-integrated-settlement-turkana-county-kenya/
[xvi] Bakewell, Madison, Vittorio Bruni, and Olivier Sterck, Why it’s a bad idea to triage refugee food aid when everyone’s hungry, 7 November 2025, The New Humanitarian. Available at: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2025/11/07/triage-refugee-food-aid-kakuma-camp-differentiated-assistance
[xvii] Riley, Heidi and Clara May, The Cost of Ignoring Conflict Related Trauma Amongst Men and Boys, 13 February 2024, CSNS. Available at: https://www.xcept-research.org/the-costs-of-ignoring-conflict-trauma-in-men-and-boys/
[xviii] Slegh, H., W. Spielberg, and C. Ragonese. Masculinity and Male Trauma: Making the Connections. Washington: Promundo US, 2022.
[xix] Soy, Anna, Starvation alert as children fill Kenya refugee ward after US aid cuts, 12 June 2025, BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dew7zyg49o
COP30 was initially celebrated for the unprecedented effort to promote Indigenous participation. Yet this effort quickly rang hollow, as only a small handful of Indigenous delegates were granted access to the conference’s Blue Zone, where actual negotiations and high-level decisions took place. The resulting resentment and criticism were hardly surprising, given that Indigenous lands are among the first to bear the brunt of deforestation, resource degradation, and broader extractivist pressures. While Indigenous voices were formally sidelined from decision-making in the COP process, the summit was marked by numerous Indigenous-led protests that made visible a different reality: Several indigenous communities are actively building their own spaces of environmental mobilisation rather than waiting for recognition.
In the Chile-Argentina-Bolivia tri-border region, indigenous peoples have developed cross-border, self-organised initiatives to defend collective rights to land, territory, and resource management in the face of escalating lithium extraction. These communities are not passive victims of the green transition, but key political actors whose struggles expose the contradictions at the heart of global climate governance.
Mining and Indigenous communities in the Lithium Triangle
Lithium is a mineral essential for energy transition because it is the primary component in batteries that power electric vehicles and store energy from renewable sources. Characterised by the presence of lithium-rich salares (salt flats), the area of the Andes mountains that spans the borders of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile is known as the Lithium Triangle. It holds approximately 58% of the world’s lithium resources.
Exploration and mining in the Lithium Triangle occur on lands inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous communities, including the Aymara, Atacama, Colla, and Quechua. Mining projects are generally governed by national and provincial authorities, with laws regulating resource extraction, environmental impact assessments, and land rights. However, these legal frameworks often overlook and violate Indigenous rights, particularly the principles of free, prior, and informed consent.
Mining activities also have harmful environmental impacts on the surrounding ecosystem, depleting water sources and contaminating the land, as well as harmful socio-economic impacts, compromising traditional livelihood activities and encouraging forced evictions.
Tensions within communities are also emerging between those that oppose mining and its long-term consequences, such as desertification, and those that welcome mining for its immediate material benefits, such as job opportunities. Nonetheless, tensions within communities have not yet escalated into open conflict. They are being carefully managed and contained by community leaders determined to preserve harmony and coexistence.
By contrast, tensions between communities and government authorities have frequently escalated into violence and open confrontation. This occurs when the communities’ anti-mining protests are met with disproportionate police force, including the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and other crowd-control weapons. In several cases, anti-mining protesters have been arbitrarily detained or criminalized through dubious legal charges (such as accusations of ‘terrorism’, ‘sabotage’, or ‘obstruction of public services’) designed to delegitimise their demands, suppress activism, and instill fear.
Cross-border patterns of cooperation
Facing persistent tensions with their own governments and systematic exclusion from international decision-making spaces, Indigenous communities across the border regions of the Lithium Triangle have been coming together to defend their collective rights to land and resources and to oppose the expansion of lithium mining.
Among those cooperative initiatives, the Latin American Water Summits for the Peoples stand out. Begun in 2018 in Argentina’s Catamarca province, its goal is to reunite local communities and Indigenous peoples whose water sources are affected by lithium mining and who resist extractivism. The most relevant Summits – co-organised by Indigenous peoples themselves and held in Indigenous territories – were convened in September 2024 in El Moreno, Argentina, and in October 2025 in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. When I visited Jujuy, Argentina, in October 2025, I sat with an Indigenous leader who was preparing to travel to Chile. The seriousness and passion with which he talked about the upcoming event clearly communicated the importance that locals attach to these cross-border inter-community forums.
The Water Summits involve debates and presentations by regional communities that are directly affected by lithium mining, as well as by people with scientific, legal, and academic expertise who are supporting the communities in their struggle. Activities such as the mapping of socio-environmental conflicts are carried out during those events to spread knowledge and awareness across communities on the specific realities that each of them is facing. Training sessions are also devoted to strengthening the capacities of communities to protect their water sources from the effects of lithium mining.
Plenary discussions are then used to advance common strategies aimed at continuing and sustaining cross-border anti-mining cooperation. In both 2024 and 2025, the Water Summits culminated into a final declaration in which the various communities collectively reiterated their determination to defend the Pachamama (Mother Earth in Quechua), reaffirmed their rights to their territories and resources, and denounced the current patterns of extractivism led by foreign companies who pretend to act under the banner of the green energy transition.
In the same spirit of the Water Summits, in January 2025 Jujuy also hosted the first Andean Intercultural Summit of Communities Affected by Lithium Exploitation, a meeting of more than 200 Indigenous representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru who convened to reject lithium mining in their ancestral territories. During the Andean Summit, community representatives expressed unanimous rejection of the serious environmental, social, and cultural impacts caused by lithium mining. They also signed a powerful declaration that called for free, prior, and informed consent of all Indigenous people prior to the initiation of extractivist projects and reaffirmed the unity of Andean peoples against mining: ‘We identify as a single Andean people, without any division established by borders… . We share the same problems caused by mining and racism, and we will take joint action to protect our Mother Earth.’
However, it should be noted that the impact of these nascent and expanding initiatives of cross-border cooperation has so far been largely limited to amplifying Indigenous voices against lithium mining and encouraging greater awareness – both within the region and internationally – of the social and environmental costs of the green energy transition. By contrast, their ability to generate tangible political change remains comparatively modest, constrained by structural power imbalances, weak institutional channels for Indigenous participation, and the dominance of state and corporate interests in resource governance.
Conclusion
In the Andes, we are witnessing unique and unparalleled forms of Indigenous cross-border cooperation that demonstrate the resilience, agency, and transnational solidarity of Indigenous peoples in the face of systematic exclusion from international decision-making spaces and conflictive responses by local governments.
The Water Summits and the Andean Intercultural Summit reveal the power of self-organised, cross-border cooperation through which communities share knowledge, strengthen their advocacy capacities, and collectively defend their territories against harmful extractivism. These initiatives matter because they articulate approaches to resource governance that are inclusive, community-centered, and culturally grounded – offering valuable lessons and models. They also matter in that they show how Indigenous communities are building alternative channels and practices for environmental action that transcend national borders.
Recognising and integrating these Indigenous-led networks into formal policy frameworks – through advisory roles, strengthened consultation mechanisms, and the application of free, prior, and informed consent – could help ensure that resource governance aligns with both ecological sustainability and social justice. In this sense, grassroots practices in the Andes not only challenge the limited engagement of Indigenous voices at forums like COP30 and the persistent repression of Indigenous demands within their own countries but also point toward more equitable and effective models for managing natural resources within and across borders.
This views expressed in this article are those of the author.
In April 2025, the leader of the White Army Youth in Akobo, South Sudan, met with the region’s diaspora community via the online Lou Nuer Community Forum. The White Army members were given money to buy food for their families, and, in return, they agreed to keep out of the conflict taking place in Nasir and to maintain peace in Akobo. South Sudan’s diaspora population, which is estimated to be 1.2 million, plays a significant role in influencing developments at home. Between 2014 and 2022, the diaspora contributed $5.7 billion USD in the form of remittances.[i] These funds are often utilised to fulfil basic needs and support development, but they also provide an important source of finance to armed groups.[ii] Alongside this, the diaspora community uses its significant influence to shape the ways in which its home communities respond to, or view, political and ethnic issues.[iii]
In the Greater Akobo region of Jonglei state, an area marked by persistent conflict and marginalised by the central government – due both to its inaccessibility and its assumed support of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army–In Opposition (SPLM/A–IO) – understanding the way in which the diaspora influence conflict dynamics is crucial to ensure effective peacebuilding efforts. While many diaspora communities contribute positively through remittances, education sponsorships, and peace advocacy, others unintentionally or deliberately sustain cycles of violence through the support of kinship-based retaliation, cattle raiding, and politically charged rhetoric.[1] Clarifying this dual role can help inform efforts to strategically engage the diaspora and redirect their energies towards projects that promote reconciliation and help local communities build resilience against violence.
Who are Greater Akobo’s diaspora communities?
The diaspora communities from Greater Akobo are largely comprised of individuals from the counties of Akobo, Nyirol, and Uror, who fled South Sudan during the country’s civil wars or who left in search of safer living conditions and better economic opportunities. Many found asylum in the Global North, particularly in Australia, the United States, Canada, and Europe, and have established semi-formal kinship-based associations abroad. These often mirror the social organisation and politics back home and are frequently organised around ethnic identities.
The diaspora communities from Greater Akobo are largely comprised of individuals from the counties of Akobo, Nyirol, and Uror, who fled South Sudan during the country’s civil wars or who left in search of safer living conditions and better economic opportunities. Some found asylum in the Global North, particularly in Australia, the United States, Canada, and Europe, while others moved to different cities in South Sudan, notably to Juba. Many of these diaspora communities have since established semi-formal kinship-based associations, which often mirror the social organisation and politics back home and are frequently organised around ethnic identities.
Kinship-based mobilisation and resource transfers
Greater Akobo’s diaspora organisations take an active role in responding to incidents of conflict or communal grievances from afar. As they often view conflict through a lens of ethnic solidarity, however, this means that their assistance can take the form of support for retaliatory raids, often justified as self-defence, rather than initiatives for reconciliation. For example, diaspora members have provided support and mobile airtime to coordinate cattle raids and to transport the injured during conflict. In periods of heightened tensions, diaspora actors have also been known to fund armed youth groups under the guise of ‘community defence’.
While some diaspora groups are structured with formal leadership, collecting contributions and funding operations in response to particular incidents, others operate informally, transferring money to individuals or small groups for specific retaliatory actions. Members of the diaspora also act outside of the group setting, with individuals contributing money to buy bullets and airtime. In some cases, outspoken members of the diaspora emerge only when crises erupt, advocating for violence and offering rapid mobilisation support.
In most instances, the actions taken by the diaspora are intended to protect their families or communities, but the outcome is frequently the same: escalated violence, abduction of children and women, widespread trauma, and a deepening cycle of revenge.[v]
The problem of distance and diverging priorities
One of the fundamental issues with diaspora involvement is the gap in lived experiences between those abroad and those on the ground. Despite their ability to remain in communication with their home communities, through the use of social media and satellite services, diaspora actors are often far removed from daily insecurities. At the same time, they may have different priorities, including political recognition or ethnic dominance. Meanwhile, communities in Greater Akobo face urgent needs, such as food, water, health, and security.
This difference in situation can increase feelings of resentment and distrust towards the diaspora community, with some questioning their patriotism and motivations.[vi] Nevertheless, the reality of daily life in Greater Akobo means that the diaspora can use the resources at their disposal to influence actions. When faced with a lack of alternative livelihoods, young people often listen to the voices of those who can offer them material incentives.
The influence wielded by the diaspora has negatively affected peace efforts on the ground, especially in areas where state presence is minimal or absent. Locally driven efforts to promote dialogue and peace education are sometimes contradicted by diaspora narratives on social media that encourage revenge or ethnic exceptionalism. In one example, a South Sudanese resident in Canada presented himself as the spokesman for the Lou Nuer White Army and posted press releases online ‘which in effect urged South Sudanese in Jonglei to go on killing each other’.[vii] The South Sudan Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund similarly reported that the diaspora’s influence in Jonglei was largely negative and undermined local engagement with their peacebuilding work.[viii]
The positive influence of the diaspora
Greater Akobo’s diaspora community undoubtedly contributes to the cyclic violence in the region, but members of the community also work to support peace, maintaining relationships with local peace activists, religious leaders, and teachers in order to encourage unity. Many of the churches, which promote messages of peace within and between communities, were established by those who had lived in the diaspora. These churches serve as vital links between the diaspora and local communities, and their founders maintain this connection by visiting the congregations on a yearly basis.
One resident of Akobo County, when talking about the installation of internet in the youth centre, also remarked on how contact with family in the diaspora can actually build peace: ‘When you decide to [harm] the other clan, you can communicate with people far away through a video call with people in the outside world, especially if you have relatives in America, or even Kenya and Uganda. They can tell you: “You guys, this is not how life should be.”’[ix]
Similarly, just as remittances contribute towards instances of armed conflict, the diaspora also dedicates fundraising efforts to helping the welfare of their communities. From December 2024 to January 2025, the Lou Nuer diaspora community raised $6,000 USD for a local initiative to support Akobo Hospital’s operational costs. In April 2025, Australia’s Lou Nuer community also raised money through their local church to help youth who were undergoing treatment after fighting in Nasir. Most Nuer students who attend schools in East Africa and Ethiopia are able to do so largely thanks to the financial support of relatives in the diaspora. Alongside this, those living in refugee camps receive assistance from diaspora members to help fill critical gaps created by insufficient food supplies.
A double-edged sword
The role of the diaspora in the conflict in Greater Akobo is a double-edged sword. While the promotion of revenge narratives and remittances can sustain violence, the community also holds largely untapped potential for supporting peacebuilding and building resilience against violence. In order to ensure the diaspora’s energies contribute to positive outcomes, their influence should be strategically engaged, rather than ignored or condemned.
One example of successful strategic engagement can be seen in Jonglei State, where the Twic East community has established a forum to unite its local and diaspora associations under a common purpose: to ensure the groups work together to achieve shared goals and to ensure that these goals actually meet the needs of the Twic East community in Jonglei.
In the forum, the leaders of diaspora associations across the world meet with the leaders of local community groups to coordinate support. The Twic East community in Juba then takes charge of disseminating and implementing this support amongst the community in Jonglei. This joint initiative has built stronger ties between the community and diaspora members, and has shown success in achieving shared goals, such as funding and building flood defence systems and providing educational scholarships to young girls.
By recognising the influence and importance of diaspora voices, and steering them towards positive outcomes, the people of Greater Akobo may have a chance to break free from cycles of violence. The challenge is immense, but so is the opportunity.
[1] This blog post is based on the author’s own fieldwork and observations.
[i] African Development Bank Group. (2024, 31 July). Country Focus Report 2024 – South Sudan. Driving South Sudan’s Transformation: The Reform of the Global Financial Architecture. African Development Bank Group. Accessed at: https://vcda.afdb.org/en/system/files/report/south_sudan_2024.pdf
[ii] Carver, F., Deng, S. A., Kindersley, N., Kirr, G., Lorins, R. & Maher, 2. (2018). South Sudan Diaspora Impacts. Rift Valley Institute. Accessed at https://riftvalley.net/projects/sudan-and-south-sudan/south-sudan-diaspora-impacts/
[iii] Kiir Amoui, G., & Carver, F. (2022). Perceptions about Dual Citizenship and Diaspora Participation in Political, Economic, and Social Life in South Sudan. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies Vol. 22 (1); Voller, Y. (2020). Advantages and Challenges to Diaspora Transnational Civil Society Activism in the Homeland: Examples from Iraqi Kurdistan, Somaliland and South Sudan. Conflict Research Programme, LSE, p. 25.
[iv] Meraki Labs. (2021). Conflict Dynamics Driving Displacement in Akobo. Danish Refugee Council.
[v] POF South Sudan. (2025,17 March). Forging a sustainable path: Jonglei-GPAA Strategy Dialogue for a shared 2030 vision. Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund South Sudan. Accessed at: https://www.pofss.org/blog/forging-a-sustainable-path-jonglei-gpaa-strategy-dialogue
[vi] Kiir Amoui, G., & Carver, F. (2022). Perceptions about Dual Citizenship and Diaspora Participation in Political, Economic, and Social Life in South Sudan. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies Vol. 22 (1).
[vii] Johnson, D., H. (2014). South Sudan’s Experience at Peacemaking: The 22nd Annual Gandhi Peace Festival. In Bertrand Russell Peace Lecture: Symposium on Conflict and Peacemaking in South Sudan. Ontario, Canada: McMaster University.
[viii] Vincent, D. N., & Comerford, M. (2021, July). Lessons Learned #5 Practising peacebuilding in South Sudan. Peacebuilding Opportunities Fund South Sudan.
[ix] Trimble, J. (2022, 14 January). Building peace through connectivity. Norwegian Refugee Council. Accessed at: https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/stories/building-peace-through-connectivity/index.html
While walking through the streets of Hamra, Beirut, in autumn this year, I came across an advertisement for a restaurant. The poster promised that customers would be able to ‘taste the Golden Age of Beirut.’ A few metres later, another advertisement appeared: this time it was for an event inviting participants to ‘relive the Golden Era of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s Lebanon.’
Such references are not unusual. Beirut’s streets are saturated with nostalgic evocations of its once-prosperous past. In May 2025, ahead of the municipal elections, Downtown Beirut was littered with billboards bearing political messages. Against an image of 1950s Martyrs’ Square, an electoral coalition under the name of ‘Beirut Loves You’ promised its constituencies that ‘the glory days will return.’ Another billboard from the same campaign floated the identical line over a photo of a bustling Place de L’Etoile, this time taken in the early 2000s during the city centre’s post-war reconstruction – a project which itself drew heavily on nostalgia for Lebanon’s ‘Golden Age’. The campaign’s message was clear: Lebanon’s so-called glory days of the 1950s and 1960s can be recaptured, resuscitated, and projected onto the Lebanon of today. Within this interplay between memory and imagining, nostalgia becomes more than mere sentiment – it becomes a political tool.
Nostalgia is a complex emotion that describes a desire to recapture or revive aspects of the past, shaping the way people imagine their future. Although not inherently political, nostalgia has been progressively politicised, fuelling the rise of ethnic nationalism and the populist radical right in Europe and the United States, as it offers a ‘return’ to a secure, idealised past in the face of uncertainty and perceived threats from an increasingly globalised world.[i] In Lebanon, people may look back at the ‘Golden Age’ as a time of (relative) stability and prosperity – but allowing oneself to be continually swayed by this romanticised version of the past weakens the ability to respond to the demands of the present and the challenges of the future.
Lebanon’s ‘Golden Age’: prosperity for the few?
Lebanon’s ‘Golden Age’ refers to the 1950s and 1960s, when the country underwent rapid economic and infrastructural development.[i] With its flourishing banking sector and booming tourism industry, Beirut emerged as a regional cosmopolitan hub, and it was during this era that Lebanon gained prominence as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ and its capital the ‘Paris of the Orient.’ These labels were further cemented after the 1956 Bank Secrecy Law that attracted foreign capital and transformed Beirut into a financial haven.
Yet, while banks’ profits soared, the wealth they generated failed to translate into broader social development. An economy increasingly dependent on finance, commerce, and luxury services left little space for industrialisation or agricultural reform. As a result, despite its cosmopolitan façade, Beirut came to embody stark socioeconomic inequality, its prosperity flourishing at the expense of its peripheries, deepening the rural-urban divide. A select few – traders, bankers, and members of the oligarchic elite – accumulated immense wealth, while many others were left behind.[ii]
Unsurprisingly, the frustrations and grievances caused by this inequality erupted into protest. In 1958, while the country was split over Lebanon’s pro-Western foreign policy, citizens took to the streets to demonstrate their growing resentment at the uneven development. The protests exposed the fragility and injustice of the elite-dominated economic model, and these tensions continued to escalate right up to the eve of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, when they exploded again.[iii]
Utilising nostalgia after the civil war
Despite the fact that socioeconomic inequality was one of the factors that contributed to the outbreak of civil war, decision-makers drew heavily on nostalgia for Lebanon’s ‘Golden Age’ to shape the post-war reconstruction of Beirut. When Rafic Hariri became Prime Minister in 1992, his vision of transforming Beirut into the ‘Singapore of the Middle East’ reflected a desire to restore the city’s pre-war regional and international standing.[iv] Beirut’s Central District, once known for its cosmopolitan ‘Souk’ or ‘Bourj,’ became an exclusive retail centre hosting high-end brands that only a small segment of Lebanese society could afford. This space, which had previously welcomed people from all walks of life for business and social exchange, was transformed into an exclusive area which favoured the wealthy. The reconstruction may have aimed to revive the commercial spirit of the ‘glory days’, but it ultimately did so at the expense of reconciliation, further deepening divisions in the capital.
Alongside the physical reconstruction of Beirut, decision-makers also turned to the 1950s and 1960s to guide Lebanon’s post-war economic rehabilitation. In practice, this meant re-financialising Beirut through investments in luxury real estate, the banking sector, and transnational financial flows managed by the Central Bank. Other sectors, such as agriculture, manufacturing and public infrastructure, were pushed to the margins. This system, which again promoted the interests of a narrow elite over those of the rest of the population – and was characterised by a culture of corruption and impunity – ultimately led to the country’s economic collapse in 2019.
Lebanon following the financial crisis: Continuity, not reform
Today, six years after the 2019 financial crisis, Lebanon has once again failed to implement meaningful structural reforms to its economic model. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over potential aid and loans, which began in 2022 but were postponed several times, have yet to yield any results. While the IMF continues to push for reforms, Lebanon’s political elites and the banking sector remain unwilling to accept any agreement that might threaten their interests.[i]
Instead of confronting the flaws of a system that has repeatedly revealed its fragility, Lebanon’s ruling class has doubled down, further entrenching an economic model designed to self-destruct. In this light, calls for a return to the ‘Golden Age’ reflect more than a shared longing among decision-makers to recapture the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s. They signal a determination to preserve the old order: one that safeguarded the affluence and privilege of the few at the expense of the many.
Why looking back won’t save Lebanon
In Lebanon, the so-called ‘Golden Age’ continues to cast a long nostalgic shadow. It appears in familial stories passed down by grandparents recalling the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, and in taxi drivers’ tales of foreign tourists who once crowded the Hotel District, skiing in the snow-capped mountains by morning and swimming in the Mediterranean by afternoon. But beneath this seemingly harmless recollection lies something more threatening: a romanticisation of inequality, impunity, and injustice.
While idealised visions of the pre-war era may offer comfort to parts of the population in times of crisis, they also distract leaders from addressing present-day priorities. After the civil war, rather than pursuing meaningful state-building, decision-makers resurrected the economic model of the ‘Golden Age’ wholesale, without reckoning with its flaws or critically heeding the lessons of both 1958 and 1975.
This pattern persists today as Lebanon seeks to re-financialise its capital following the 2019 financial meltdown and the most recent war with Israel. Instead of delivering long-overdue reforms demanded by the international community, Beirut held a so-called ‘investor conference’ in November 2025, in an attempt to reinvigorate the Lebanese economy. Participants included Arab investment funds and prominent global firms, including BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and General Atlantic.[i] Lebanon once again turned to the economic model of the ‘Golden Age’ to rebuild its capital in the wake of crisis and conflict.
It is important to push back against the prevailing nostalgia for Lebanon’s so-called ‘glory days’ and instead expose the systems of violence and impunity that were already taking root at the time. It is only through a critical reflection of the past (both pre-war and post-war) that we can challenge the state’s capture by an entrenched ruling class and ultimately pursue an equitable reform agenda that holds the political, banking, and business elite accountable, without further burdening the Lebanese citizens, who have already borne the heaviest costs of the crisis.
Maria El Sammak is a Research Assistant on the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme. She holds an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College London, and she previously worked with the Berghof Foundation in Beirut, focusing on peacebuilding and conflict transformation. Maria’s research explores questions of memory, violent conflict, and post-conflict dynamics in Lebanon.
[i] “Economic Minister and Head of the Economic and Social Council Launch the ‘Beirut One’ Conference,” L’Orient Today, October 21, 2025. https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1482041/economy-minister-and-head-of-the-economic-and-social-council-launch-the-beirut-one-conference.html
[i] Philippe Hage Boutros, “Lebanon’s Unified Front for the IMF Falls Apart in Washington, ”L’Orient Today, October 20, 2025, https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1481884/lebanons-unified-front-for-the-imf-falls-apart-in-washington.html
[i] Sara Fregonese. “Between a Refuge and a Battleground: Beirut’s Discrepant Cosmopolitanisms.” Geographical Review 102, no. 3 (2012): 316–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2012.00154.x.
[ii] Fawwaz Traboulsi. A History of Modern Lebanon. 2nd Edition. London: Pluto Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183p4f5.
[iii] Cobban, Helena. The Making Of Modern Lebanon. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429312465; Trabousli, A History of Modern Lebanon, 2012, 165-166.
[iv] Guilain Denoeux and Robert Springborg. “Hariri’s Lebanon: Singapore of the Middle East or Sanaa of the Levant?” Middle East Policy 6, no. 2 (1998): 158-73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.1998.tb00317.x.[i] Gabrielle Elgenius and Jens Rydgren. “Nationalism and the Politics of Nostalgia.” Sociological Forum (Randolph, N.J.) 37, no. S1 (2022): 1230–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12836.
In this episode, Professor Roddy Brett, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of the Global Insecurities Centre at the University of Bristol, joins Dr Nafees Hamid, Co-PI of the XCEPT research programme, to discuss his new book, ‘Victim-Centred Peacemaking: Colombia’s Santos-FARC-EP Peace Process’.
Professor Brett reveals how the victims’ delegations changed the dynamics of the Santos-FARC-EP peace process, transforming victim-perpetrator relations and ultimately shaping the final agreement, which was signed in 2016. At a time when the number of civilian casualties in armed conflict is rising around the world, the Santos-FARC example offers valuable insights into how to effectively involve victims in peacemaking.
XCEPT is pleased to launch a new collection of research exploring how decentralisation and identity politics are reshaping governance and legitimacy in Sudan and South Sudan. Produced by leading researchers with deep regional expertise, these studies offer timely insights into how power is negotiated, contested, and reimagined in both countries.
About the Research
This collection includes three original studies:
Public webinar
To mark the launch of the collection, XCEPT hosted a public webinar on 23 October 2025, featuring authors Awet Weldemichael, Nicki Kindersley, Amar Jamal, and Machot Amoum Malou in conversation. The panel explored how decentralisation and identity politics are reshaping governance and legitimacy in Sudan and South Sudan.
In the last twenty years, a rapid succession of crises—floods, droughts, rebellions, and national wars in Sudan and South Sudan—have been capitalised on by commercial investors working with both state-allied and private security partners. These corporate interests have built a cheap and mobile waged labor force through layers of rents, taxes, fees and debts. This growing cash labor market securitises oilfields, farms, mines, businesses and compounds that stretch along the disputed national border between Sudan and South Sudan. In the center of this long border lies the oilfield state of Unity in South Sudan, which borders the Nuba Mountains in Sudan. Both regions now fall under a patchwork of armed authorities’ zones of control. These authorities remain relatively fixed despite the spreading frontiers of the war in Sudan since 2023 and the fragmentation of the South Sudan state, because they are rooted in military-commercial empires built since the wars of the 1990s.
To understand the dynamics of this military-commercial economy and the class stratification and labor relationships it generates, Marko and Manal spent a month travelling across this landscape in sustained conversations with its workers. This short intervention makes three arguments. First, we should understand pollution and (increasingly regular) climate disasters as part of the coercive arsenal of governing authorities in post-statist neoliberal borderlands like this one. Second, these authorities are interested in creating “labor traps” within their toxic geographies to capture cheap or free productive and social-reproductive labor (following Spiegel et al. 2023; Scott and Rye 2025). Third, creating this captive depressed market strengthens opportunities for the regional and international extraction of corporate profit.
Environmental coercion
In the last six years, climate change-related flooding events and extractive pollution have accelerated on the borderland between Sudan and South Sudan. Massive flooding has become an annual disaster, especially in the Rubkona area and across refugee camps in Ruweng in 2021, and across the whole region in 2022. The borders and Nuba mountains suffered a deeply destructive drought in 2023 followed almost immediately by massive flooding across the whole region as well as widespread locust destruction in the mountains; 2024 brought another year of widespread flooding. Repeated oil pipeline disruptions have created localized pumping and storage crises. This oil pollution, as well as cyanide waste from gold mining in the Nuba Mountains, has been carried further afield by increasingly wide flooding.
Public authorities use the region’s repeated environmental disasters as a tool in local government—in mobilizing communities against each other—and in economic control, driving people into refugee camps, towns and commercial farms for safety and job-seeking. This is a common logic of regional war tactics: like the Sudan Government’s bombardment of the Nuba Mountains from 2013, the South Sudan Government’s wars in Unity State in 2014-2017 and 2019-2022 aimed at destroying the socio-economic base of perceived opposition areas through the wholesale destruction of farms and herds. Climate change-induced floodings (controlled in part by decisions over where dykes and levees are built) are a cheaper method of population control than full military operations, but achieve the same ends: impoverishing perceived opposition strongholds and creating new displaced settlements of desperate workers.
Labor traps
War, floods, droughts, pollution and inflation are all economically productive for governing authorities because they create useful immobility, trapping people into urbanization, encampment, and market dependency. Governing authorities and their commercial partners have benefited from the urbanization of a large number of desperate people seeking rented homes and any work going. The region’s international and internal borders are not technically “closed,” but fees and taxes levied by a plethora of military and civil authorities at checkpoints are both immediate local authority revenues and create high costs of movement, making better-paid migrant work options north and south too expensive to access, especially for women.
This labor entrapment has provided significant opportunities for regional investors to build an extractive commercial economy based on rent monopolies and cheap labor costs. Members of the military-political classes running government and army systems in this region—many since the 1990s—have invested in long-term warehousing and domestic rental units, commercial agricultural and extractives projects, private transport and security companies. On the other hand, repeated losses from conflict and environmental disasters have undermined middle-class and working-class abilities to reconstruct and re-invest. This has generated the possibility of monopolies alongside rapid vertical class stratification, where a much smaller class of wealthy entrepreneurs compete to consolidate corporate and administrative controls that allow them to invest, selectively tax, suppress wages, and control population movements (see also Pattenden 2024 and Martiniello 2019, both on Uganda). This has created a market for very low-paid piecework and self-employed market supply work, including providing transport and food services. Human labor is now cheaper than renting transport: in the 2023 dry season, some Mayom traders hired women to carry goods to Rubkona, over at least 80 kilometres, instead of renting a truck.
Extraction and corporate profit
Ordinary workers are fully aware of these dynamics of class construction and exploitation. In our research, we gathered songs—written predominantly by women, including by famous female songwriters—that explicitly set out the analysis we presented above. Esteemed songwriter Elizabeth Nyaduiy Bidiet articulated the sense of broken vertical relationships and the abrogation of wealthy responsibilities in crises in a recent song: “the daughter of Mr. Mading doesn’t bother with us, because people greet only those with big buttocks [Neer ke ni ram mi te ke wuoth: only those with big buttocks are greeted or respected]. Then I ask: where will those with no buttocks go to?”
These conditions are dangerous for people to live and work in, with few rights and little recourse. This captive market, which continues to provide opportunities for enclosure and rent extraction, provides its monopoly capitalists with high returns at low cost. Securitisation of these zones of profit—the oilfields, farms, mines, markets, compounds, and transport systems that stretch across the borderland—is made cheap through the instrumentalization of climate change patterns and securitised corridors of (im)mobility.
This article originally appeared in American Ethnologist.
Martiniello, Giuliano. 2019. “Social Conflict and Agrarian Change in Uganda’s Countryside.” Journal of Agrarian Change 19 (3): 550–68. .
Pattenden, Jonathan. 2024. “Exploitation, Patriarchy and Petty Commodity Production: Class, Gender and Neocolonialism in Rural Eastern Uganda.” Review of African Political Economy 51 (May): 16–41.
Scott, Sam, and Johan Fredrik Rye. 2025. “The Mobility–Immobility Dynamic and the ‘Fixing’ of Migrants’ Labour Power.” Critical Sociology 51 (1): 71–86.
Spiegel, Samuel J., Lameck Kachena, and Juliet Gudhlanga. 2023. “Climate Disasters, Altered Migration and Pandemic Shocks: (Im)Mobilities and Interrelated Struggles in a Border Region.” Mobilities 18 (2): 328–47.
Our research assistants were Linda Madeng Gatduel, Nyaphean Phan Char, Bisal Hassan, Razaz Juma and Gisma Yousif.
