Conclusion

Abstract

This has been a long journey and hopefully a valuable one for the reader as the book has attempted to make a contribution to the literature on refugees in general, and on refugees in Tanzania and Kenya in particular, during a specific time period. It was important to place the refugee crises within a historical, social, political, and economic context. People usually do not decide on the spur of the moment to uproot themselves and to seek asylum in another country. In order to do this, I have covered the six main countries that have generated refugees for Kenya and Tanzania—Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, and the DRC. It is not just important for the reader to have a basic understanding of the refugee-generating countries, but the refugee-hosting countries need to be explained and this is done by situating Kenya and Tanzania within the context of their histories of hosting refugees, changing refugee policies, and developments that stemmed from new democratization and economic liberalization policies. By putting forced migration within these contexts, refugee and host relations, along with the relations between refugees, the hosts, and the international community can be more thoroughly analyzed.