Refugee Repatriation and Local Politics in Angola: Conflict and Creativity Following the Return of Chiefs and Party Functionaries

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Migration and return migration are challenging phenomena of creativity and adaptation, both in past and contemporary Africa. They cause changes in local structures and induce conflicts, which propel further cycles of adaptation and creativity by locals and migrants.The project focuses on the political dimension of such changes by analyzing the case of returning Angolan refugees after years or decades in Zambian refugee camps. More specifically, it studies the return of refugees who held political positions prior to their flight from Angola, either as neo-traditional chiefs or as functionaries of the UNITA party/rebel group. The project addresses a twofold question. Firstly, it is asked what kinds of repercussions are invoked by the return of such refugees and their re-immersion into the local political structures which will have changed during their years of absence. What kind of political order emerges from the interaction between returned political leaders and those who stayed? Secondly, it is asked how this new political order is influenced by the experiences of the returnees during their time as camp refugees. In particular, the project will examine the influence, if any, of their exposure to the international refugee regime, which propagates humanitarian and democratic values (often seen as Western values) in the camps. Has this experience shaped the new political engagement in Angola of local leaders, who have returned after staying in the refugee camps of Zambia?