Brian Hoyer: NIPE NIKUPE—
Dependency, Reciprocity, and Paradoxes of Food Aid in Lugufu Refugee Camp in Kigoma, Tanzania
The following abstract was adapted from Brian Hoyer's full-length paper, which was submitted to The Forum on Education Abroad.
Brian Hoyer first considered refugee issues during his spring 2002 semester studying abroad in Uganda through the School for International Training (SIT) program in Development Studies. For the final part of the semester he traveled to a Sudanese refugee settlement in Moyo District, on the border of Sudan, where he interned with a humanitarian organization in charge of managing the settlement. He conducted fieldwork and “encountered some of the hopes and realities of refugees in East Africa,” he writes.
Enthused by his experience, he returned to East Africa to conduct research for his senior thesis. “The effort I poured into my thesis project during the following months grew from the feeling that I had something unique and important to say,” he writes. “In continuing my learning beyond the walls of the classroom I gained an invaluable experiential dimension to my research and was forced to think more creatively and confidently than ever before. Without the background of studying abroad I would never have possessed the confidence to conduct original primary research on a topic I had become passionate about.”
Brian’s research filled him with a deep respect for the people who chose to share their knowledge with him. “Quickly, through necessity,” he writes, “I learned many lessons that will stay with me for life. I came to understand the virtues of flexibility and trust. I improved my skills in Kiswahili conversation and harvesting cassava root during the dry season. I grasped the true meaning of trial and error and how to navigate bureaucratic mazes. I also learned the necessity of pushing one’s comfort zone in order to grow.”
Brian’s experiences also gave him the chance to understand and convey the tragic position of displaced persons, who exist in a state of limbo. “In Lugufu refugee camp in western Tanzania, food aid provides the foundation to a camp power structure and dramatically influences rapidly changing social roles,” writes Brian. “The patron-client relationship forged between refugees and relief agencies becomes entrenched during the distribution of food, establishing a demoralizing culture of dependency. Food aid provides another example of the power of humanitarian aid, which resonates with dangerous reproductions of the colonial framework based on domination and submission.”
Brian’s thesis focuses on the social implications of refugee food aid throughout a broad spectrum of geographic and anthropological scales. It explores the power inherent in humanitarian aid and shows how aid influences the ways refugees view their community, their families, and themselves. Analyzing hierarchies of authority, gift giving, and systems of exchange on a global to local level, he concluded that it is clear that the overall viability of food aid is in question. Brian writes, “When a collectivity that is defined by its ability to endure adversity becomes dependent on international institutions for survival, the fabric of the society comes undone. Rather than entering this vicious cycle, the international humanitarian relief regime must reconsider the system of food distribution to find an appropriate means of temporary relief.”
Brian Hoyer graduated from Middlebury College in February 2004. He earned a major in International Studies with a focus in Anthropology, African Studies, Kiswahili, and a minor in Spanish.