By Sumayyah Arfan, Maia Gage, William Taylor, Inca Nash, Cara Becker, Jasmin Elvery, and Amy Grace Sewell

War and famine in East Africa and the Horn of Africa have made 23.6 million people refugees, displacing portions of the Rwandan, Ethiopian, Congolese, and Somali populations. There have been six million deaths in the DRC since 1998 and over 1.5 million deaths in Somalia since 1991. This has driven DRC citizens to migrate to the Nyarugusu United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) camp in Tanzania (opened in 1996), while Somalis have travelled to the Dadaab UNHCR-supported camp in Kenya (opened in 1992) (Thomson, 2012; Ikanda, 2018; Genocide Watch, 2022; CPA, 2024; UNCR, 2024).

We wanted to spotlight different refugee experiences from these different places. We also chose the game of Ludo to show the difficulty of seeking asylum as a refugee since the goal is the same for both: get all your people to the final destination. We decided to change the original design of the board slightly so that the end point the players try to reach is called “resettlement” as opposed to “home” as this shows how asylum seekers may not consider their new settlement to be home just yet, if ever. A card system was added where if a player’s piece lands on a black box, they must pick up a card and perform the action written on it, whether helpful or detrimental; this represents the heavy bureaucracy refugees face when seeking to resettle and shows the risk and chance involved. The elephant in the middle of the board is meant to embody the spirit of the process, reminding players how large and daunting it seems, but how slowly it moves. Overall, Ludo was chosen because it is difficult, as is the life and resettlement of a refugee.

The players in this game take on the role of a refugee. Readings from the class indicated that, from the perspective of many refugees, the UNHCR’s system for processing Congolese/Somali resettlement applications seems inconsistent, making it unclear and dependent on factors out of a refugee’s control. This leads refugees to describe their resettlement journey (from leaving the camps to arriving in the third country) as a game of luck rather than a fair process. What makes the UNHCR’s system seem particularly unjust is its basis in unequal power relations between powerful aid workers and vulnerable refugees. For example, the UNHCR proceeds with just one percent of applications and delays/dismisses (Thomson, 2012, p. 189; Ikanda, 2018, p. 580). Moreover, the process seems to deliberately try to catch out refugees, with agency workers assuming that refugees would lie in their applications (Thomson, 2012, p. 193). The criteria for resettlement also adopts a particular western definition of refugees, as those who flee their countries due to individual persecution rather than widespread violence (Thomson, 2012). Consequently, the requirement to produce particular evidence-based documents and cases fails to fully consider cultural differences, the social construction of violence and the unseen vulnerabilities of the refugees such as due to war and poverty. The system, therefore, appears as a bureaucratic, non-transparent, chaotic entity of disconnected parts that the refugees perceive as a game of chance (Thomson, 2012; Ikanda, 2018).

The game generates ‘doubting experts and deceptive refugees’, designed to make the players live in uncertainty and occasionally forces them back to the start of the process. The more they roll the dice (live in camps), the more they may potentially suffer (return to the starting point/home) and develop symptoms of this suffering (as a result of not reaching their new home). However, playing the game and taking chances may also heighten their chances of resettling (reaching the final stage of the game) and being successful in their journey. The game’s instructions delay the resettlement procedure and make the whole process akin to a slow-moving, unwieldy and unpredictable elephant (Thomson, 2012, p. 193).

Somali players must deal with factors out of their control that either support or harm their cases. Factors that might help them win the game include their cases being managed by Mzungu (white workers), handed to the UNHCR manager or removed from the black box. However, the players are more likely to lose the game when Tanzanian protection officer manage their cases and they lack access to electricity and printers (Thomson, 2012, 198).

The refugee resettlement process in Ikanda’s (2018) ethnography highlights the importance of socially constructed narratives of vulnerability. Refugees adapt their lives and stories to align with the expectations of humanitarian agencies and resettlement programs in order to increase their case’s chance of being considered and granted. This involves selectively highlighting their suffering and dependence on aid. The refugees need to appear ‘genuine’ because the humanitarian agencies rely on bureaucratic measures to assess vulnerability. Whilst the refugees are not aware of the exact metrics and so they seem arbitrary to them, they attempt to craft their claims to the expected profiles, such as emphasising familial loss, persecution, or health issues (Ikanda, 2018). If their narratives fit within the predefined categories of vulnerability, their case becomes more likely to be considered seriously. However, it is not definite, and cases can be dropped randomly without any proper reason.

This precarious uncertainty is what we wanted to highlight through our game. To do this, we placed multiple ‘black boxes’ (Thomson, 2012) across the board. Each black box comes with a coinciding event that could occur in the resettlement process, for example, ‘your resettlement application is denied’ and therefore you must start again (the game and the refugee process). We hope the game incurs uneasiness in the player, the same uneasiness a refugee might feel throughout the resettlement process.

Roll for Resettlement: The Game of Chance is a game designed to highlight the challenges refugees face when applying for third-country resettlement. Refugees take chances, such as presenting themselves as having certain vulnerabilities, that may aid their application process or hinder it. This game demonstrates the unpredictability and uncertainty of being a refugee, and how the process of resettlement is long, difficult, and largely dictated by chance.

References

Centre for Preventive Action CPA (2024). Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Available at: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker (Accessed: 17 November 2024).

Genocide Watch. (2022). Somalia Genocide and Famine Warning Genocide Watch. Available at: https://www.genocidewatch.com/ (Accessed: 18 November 2024).

Ikanda, F.N. (2018). Animating ‘refugeeness’ through vulnerabilities: worthiness of long-term exile in resettlement claims among Somali refugees in Kenya. Africa, 88(3), pp.579–596.

Thomson, M.J. (2012). Black Boxes of Bureaucracy: Transparency and Opacity in the Resettlement Process of Congolese Refugees. Political and legal anthropology review, 35(2), pp.186–205.

United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR. (2024). East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes. Available at: https://reporting.unhcr.org/ (Accessed: 17 November 2024).

Related

Written by Nobusuke Akaike, Charlotte Antilogus, Bethany Croucher, Natalie, Kaza, Tilly Neville, Samson Page, and Madeleine Raggett.

Aims

By the end of the lesson, students will understand:

• That who people choose to help is based on their political assumptions of who they see as ‘in need’
• That we all have these biases and they have a considerable impact on our understanding of important ideas such as compassion
• That these biases and the choices based upon them are informed by global unequal power relations
• That this unequal power relation does not simply span between nations, but also within each nation, and can come in many forms
• That anthropology’s look at compassion is important in exposing these kinds of power relations and denaturalising the way we look at humanitarian action as a top-down viewpoint

Resources

• Example Google Docs Presentation – compassion SOAN beyond dev
• Computer, Projector and Screen
• Access to PowerPoint
• Mobile phone and access to wifi
• Mentimeter website (menti) – this is a website that allows students to input their answers anonymously to pre-designed questions. Answers can be made into mind maps or graphs which enables easy discussion about the question and encourages collaborative work.
• YouTube

Background (for teachers)

Scholars in anthropology and beyond complicate our understanding of compassion by relating it to the concepts of ‘pity’ and ‘inequality’, for example.

Political philosopher Hannah Arendt argues that compassion exists in a face-to-face situation and that pity arises in a more public, distant situation (Boltanski 1999). In other words, Arendt suggests that distance creates pity and not compassion.

Social anthropologist Didier Fassin (2012) argues that humanitarianism is always a mix of assistance and domination, of solidarity and inequality. In other words, Fassin shows that the compassion central to humanitarian action inherently consists of domination, inequality, and power.

Political and legal anthropologist Heath Cabot (2012) analyses how the process of becoming an asylum seeker in Greece is filled with uncertainty, with some being favoured unfairly over others. This humanitarian aid takes place in Greece which is seen as a ‘developed country’ and this reading therefore complicates the assumption humanitarianism only happens in developing countries.

Social anthropologist Miriam Ticktin (2006) ethnographically shows that medical aid reproduces inequalities, as migrants purposefully infect themselves with HIV to qualify as ‘good’ victims who deserve humanitarian compassion. Like Cabot’s work, this aid takes place in France, a developed country.

These two ethnographic examples illustrate the theoretical claims made by Fassin and Arendt. They show how compassion is political – it is enmeshed in global power relations and produced by cultural and political assumptions of who is ‘in need’ (and who is not).

Student Brief

Anthropology is the cross-cultural study of human society and culture. Its main aim is to question assumptions we may have of the world in order to understand ourselves and others better. Within this lesson we will look at compassion in relation to humanitarian aid anthropologically. Humanitarian aid is the material and logistical assistance offered to those in need of help and is often assumed to be given to developing countries from developed countries. The concept of ‘developing countries’ refers to countries with a low quality of life, less developed economy and diminished technological infrastructure relative to other more industrialized countries. Meanwhile ‘developed countries’ are considered to have a high quality of life, a developed economy and developed technological infrastructure. Using anthropological work on compassion we plan to complicate the assumption humanitarian aid only takes place in developing countries.

To prepare for this lesson, start thinking about how you understand ‘compassion’ and what other things you associate it with.

Sections 1 – 4

Section 1 – Outlining objectives

• Revisit Aims section.
• Briefly go over and clarify ‘developing’ vs ‘developed’ countries (BBC bitesize definition).

Section 2 – Exploring compassion

• Exploring how the class understands and defines compassion using the menti task below:
  • Menti Task 1: Each student comes up with three words for what they understand ‘compassion’ as (see below mind map with potential answers). You might expect answers such as love, sympathy, giving, kindness, etc.
  • Menti Task 2: group discussion – where does compassion come from? You might expect answers such as ‘from a feeling’, ‘from the heart’, etc.

• Then show that compassion is more that a ‘natural’ impulse or feeling:
  • Menti Task 3: group discussion, how would we choose to show our compassion? The students will debate how they would distribute £100? You might expect answers such as Oliver Twist and Annie receiving more of the £100 and Tony Stark and Homer Simpson receiving less. Teachers can change the characters to accommodate the specific interests of their students.
• Teachers will root these activities and the complication of compassion as natural in Arendt’s and Fassin’s understandings of the concept. Through this, students should reach the understanding that the decisions they have just made were based on preconceived ideas of what compassion is, and that this idea is more complicated than that.

Section 3 – Compassion beyond the developing world

• Now that the students have been introduced to how compassion is entangled within problems of inequality, use Ticktin and Cabot’s ethnographic examples to expand their understanding, by situating compassion within the developed world.
• To further illustrate Arendt and Fassin’s ideas in an age-friendly way, use the examples from the “barbiesavior” Instagram (below). This should engage them in how top-down patterns of aid may be problematic, or deemed patronising, as compassion is given to those considered in the poorest conditions. It also introduces them to colonialism, a key topic addressed in anthropology, as aid is often seen to be given to ‘third-world’ countries, despite being needed even within the UK.

 

    

Source: Instagram 2019

• Teachers should encourage the students to research and apply this to real-word topics, such as with the European migrant crisis. Note, this may contain distressing material so should be approached sensitively.

Section 4 – Summary

• Revisit the key points and learning objectives: repeat Menti task 1 to show how class understandings of compassion might have changed from their initial thoughts on the subject.
• Get into small groups to discuss how their understandings have changed, with each group then sharing with the class what they have learnt and taken away from the lesson. 

Bibliography

BarbieSavior (2021). Instagram. [online] www.instagram.com. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/barbiesavior/.

BBC Bitesize (2021). ‘Differences in levels of development between developing countries’. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zt666sg/revision/1

Boltanski, L. (1999). Distant Suffering. [online] assets.cambridge.org. [online] Available at: https://assets.cambridge.org/97805216/59536/excerpt/9780521659536_excerpt.pdf.

Cabot, H. (2012) ‘The Governance of Things: Documenting Limbo in the Greek Asylum Procedure’, Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR), 35(1), pp. 11–29.

Child Poverty Action Group (2020). ‘Child poverty facts and figures’. [online] CPAG. Available at: https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

Fassin, D. (2012) Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2001) Critical Thinking: Tools for taking charge of your learning and your life. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ticktin, M. (2006) ‘Where Ethics and Politics Meet: The Violence of Humanitarianism in France’, American Ethnologist, 33(1), pp. 33–49.

UnicefUK (2012). ‘Pupils speak out about UK child poverty’. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBVYA-3ASt0

 

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