“In the hands of the UN”: remembering Gatumba and resisting encampment in Kenya

Abstract In 2014, the Banyamulenge Congolese community in Nairobi commemorated the tenth anniversary of a massacre in Burundi’s Gatumba refugee camp. The anniversary coincided with a Kenyan government directive to deport refugees from the capital city to UN-run camps. In this context, the community invited UNHCR and NGO staff to the memorial, where they connected the violence they experienced in Gatumba to their resistance to future encampment. By hosting humanitarian workers, the community inverted the roles of host and guest, speaking in a collective voice that was impossible in individual bureaucratic interviews. An ethnographic account of the Gatumba memorial broadens boundaries for understanding refugees’ resistance to hegemonic regimes. It shows how the community made use of their status as victims, reframed standard roles and narratives, and demanded accountability for past harms. It illuminates the terror of camps and possibilities of cities for the material well-being and political imaginaries of refugees today.