2I argue that the very pattern through which humanitarian aid is offered provides similarities and constants in situations which otherwise may vary greatly from each other. One characteristic of such similarities is that actions, benefits and incentives are directed differently by gender, reproducing, more or less, highly conventional western standards ideologies of what gender relationships should be. Therefore, humanitarian actions may have a differential impact on future development for men and women. In other words, a comparatively uniform “refugee experience” in Africa results largely from becoming a recipient of aid in settlement areas/refugee camps according to some standard criteria.

3I define here a system of humanitarian aid provision as a set methods of supplying items and services to a human group considered in condition of urgent help for survival. The system is composed of a number of inputs (food items, non food items and basic services) which are provided according to certain rules by a community of expatriates together with some nationals from the host country. The actions of such community, and the rules used for providing aid, are integral part of the system of inputs offered to the refugees.

4The standard inputs produced by the system of aid provision are addressed differently by gender and, therefore, have a differential influence on men and women. The different ways men and women respond and/or strategise in relation to similar inputs from external agencies can be better estimated along the time; strategies and ways to respond may vary according to class, age and education of those involved.

6In this article, I shall present the case of the Somali Zigula and Shanbara who escaped from war along the Juba River in Somalia. Data were gathered between 1985 and 1988 in Somalia and, later, between 1994 and 1996 during displacement in Kenya and Tanzania’s refugee camps. I suggest that this group’s loss of control over production of staple food, during the first period of their forced migration, created a condition of weakness and uncertainty which largely determined the process of power negotiations between genders that followed. In such a situation of radical change, some people are endowed with power and some are disempowered. This occurs through micro-mechanisms which give rise to the establishment of new dynamics between genders. Such micro-mechanisms should be highlighted as much as possible in order to provide key points for a diachronic analysis of the changes that take place in the relations between gender in such situations. Among the Somali Zigula, for instance, it is already apparent that gender power relationships within the group are changing as a result of a certain management of the aforementioned period of uncertainty by humanitarian aid agencies. A renewed gendered construction of ethnicity is part of this process.

Bantu Refugees from Somalia

7Following the onset of the civil war in Mogadishu in the last days of 1990, thousands of people fled from Somalia. By the beginning of October 1992, Kenya hosted approximately 412,000 registered refugees and it was estimated that another 100,000 unregistered refugees were living in the country. More than 300,000 of these were Somalis (Gallagher & Forbes Martin 1992: 16).

Adoption, Patronage, Clientship and Occupational Castes in Somalia

9Before I discuss the present day ethnic classifications and labels it is useful to go back to detailed studies describing some processes which brought agriculturalist settlers of the Juba and Shebeli Somali Rivers (Shabelle, Shidle, Makanne, Eyle, Elay Baydabo, etc.) to be progressively overwhelmed by pastoral populations arriving from northern areas and seeking accessible water points along the Rivers.

10As inquired about in the second and third decade of the twentieth century and, later, diligently described, the struggle over the River access points and, to some extent, to rainfed cultivable lands, gave rise to repeated bloody clashes and violent fighting which resulted in different kinds of agreements between lineages and groups of people (Cerulli 1964: 78). The nature of such agreements have been described in terms of relationships of patronage, adoption and alliance (iskashaato); however, jural and actual nuances of these forms of interaction were a matter of negotiation and depended on the skills in public relations of the individuals, groups and communities involved, on the resources at stake and on the size of the groups involved.

11Patronage in Somalia is a relation in which groups of people seek an agreement of mutual dependence although one becomes patron and the other a client. A patronage relationship, for instance, occurs when agriculturalists give to a certain lineage/clan of pastoral people exclusive rights to River access points close to their village; in exchange for such an exclusive license, the agriculturalists may receive an annual payment in animals and a permanent protection against the intrusion of other foreign shepherds who might not respect their cultivated fields while approaching the River access points. The relationship of the agriculturalists Makanne with the pastoralists Badi Caddo is said to have been of this kind, during the first decades of the twentieth century (ibid.: 84), as well as that of the agriculturalists Shidle with the pastoralists Mobileen (ibid.: 78). There are also relationships of patronage between pastoralists; for example, it is reported that scattered Somalis (Harti, Ogaadeen and Marrehaan) entered the lower Juba area as clients of the “Galla” (Oromo) people. Initially, the Somalis looked after the “Galla’s” animals. Thereafter, the Somalis’ number increased and they gained a foothold: revolted against their patrons and started controlling those lands (ibid.: 79).

13During the years, the interactions created through adoption and patronage, fostered certain pastoral people to convert themselves to good farmers by occupying more and more arable land. Along the Shebeli River, Cerulli mentions some such people as: the Hillibi, the Daacud of the Balad area, the Mobileen, the Molkal, the Badi Caddo (Cerulli 1964: 83). Yet, some Somali pastoral groups were adopted in villages of riverine people; for instance, in the Shidle village of Shanloo, along the Shebeli, lived families of Somali Wacesla (ibid.: 82) and in the Zigula village of Mugambo, along the Juba, lived families of Somalis who spoke the Bantu language kizigula.

14Therefore, despite the general understanding of what is Somali society, there have been very complex ethnic interactions among pastoralists and agriculturalists in the last centuries; it would be difficult to keep track of all such interactions. These involved the concession of temporary rights over the use of land and territory, but did not necessarily entail that the adopted people (agriculturalists or pastoralists) were the losers (ibid.: 84). In fact, especially before colonial times, a patron/client relationship was one of mutual support in different economic activities or for the control of a territory rather than one of domination of a group over another. Until the present time a “distinction is made between those born into a clan and those who have become members by adoption” (Helander 1988: 133). However, case studies from the Hubeer (ibid.: 43) and the Hareyn (Lewis 1969: 68) show that in many cases those who have been adopted outnumber the others.

17During the twentieth century this local system of distinction and social stratification, initially based on a need for regulating access to natural resources as well as for managing specialisation of occupations, has been modified and divisions have been stressed as well as reinforced to fit within different ruling systems.

Rationale for Labelling: Past and Present

21The categorisation of these people according to economic activities, which was drawn in a local existing distinction, was consistent with the viewpoint of the Europeans of the colony. This consonance resulted in the reinforcement of divisions among people because Italians needed farmers for agriculture in the colony. All free people who farmed by tradition, whether slaves or ex-slaves or agriculturalists who had always been free, were basically included into the same category.

22Later, from 1925 to the end of Fascist Rule in Somalia determined in 1941 by the upwind of the British Military Administration, Italians continued to base ethnic categorisations on economic activities, in order to “recruit” people into forced labour to apparently build public infrastructures (Serrazanetti 1933: 20) and work on farms (Del Boca 1992: 203).

23Although they knew that many different lineages and group identities existed among the riverine agriculturalists, Italians did not hesitate to lump them all together into a unique whole of those who could be of some use as forced manpower. An informant imitated an Italian scolding Gosha farmers who attempted to escape conscription with the following words: “I do not accept your saying ‘I am a Mushunguli’, ‘I am a Bartire’, ‘I am a Shabelle’, ‘I am a Cawlyahan’, ‘I am a Marexan’. These do not exist for you. You are lying. You are all Mushunguli Mayasid [Bantu]. You have to participate [in forced labour]” (Besteman 1994: 52).

25Unfortunately, the nature of slavery in Somalia at the turn of the century has not been studied in depth as yet; however, scattered information suggests that mobility among social strata followed criteria nowadays imponderable. For instance, among the Majeerteen the sultan could free a male slave and such slave could then marry a free Somali woman, unlike other freed slaves (Cerulli 1964: 24). And yet, Borana captives were made slaves by the Marrehaan: however, if a Borana woman was taken as a captive, then married a Marrehaan and thereafter delivered a child she became free and equal to any other wife of the Marrehaan (id. 1959: 83).

26The fact that a certain mobility from one social strata to another for individuals and groups existed in Somalia has been overlooked; all “agriculturalists” were homogenised under the label of “liberti”, “freed slaves”, and became farmers who could be forced into labour.

27Along the Shebeli and Juba Rivers, agriculturalists men and women, all considered to be slave descendants or related peoples, were recruited through forced corvées and mostly under the Bertello farming contract (Del Boca 1992). So called “pure Somalis”, possibly bilis or “nobles” were to choose people belonging to those groups who were under their control to be forced into such corvées, under pressure of the colonial government. Chiefs of “docile” and “dedicated” clans had to send a set contribution of manpower to the estates (Serrazanetti 1933: 10-11). In other words, Italian colonialism supported the ethnic division of the Somali population by economic activities, which stigmatised agriculturalists in many aspects.

30A local system of oppositions among the others characterises nowadays membership in groups and is matter of distinction within people. A first subdivision distinguishes jareer from jileec. The jareer are those who are said to have curly hair and large noses; these features clearly identify them as originating from East Africa, and associates them with descendants from slaves who are believed to deserve scorn. The jileec are said to be Somalis with straight hair and a long-limbed build. The classification jareer/jileec is based on physical characteristics although not all those who in principle should look like jileec because of clan affiliation have a clear semblance of jileec. In fact, if ideally intermarriages between jileec and jareer do not occur, in practice during the centuries several dynamics, among which some have been described above, have fostered an intermingling of the members of the groups in different ways according to the geographical and political circumstances. The jareer/jileec classification, therefore, is an imprecise one but remains a sensitive issue in terms of identity for the Somali people: it takes a positional meaning depending on the geographical and cultural context in which it is mentioned. For somebody living along the Juba River a jareer who had sleek hair, because of one of her/is ancestors, might be considered slightly an outsider if not proving special commitment with the jareer’s way of life. On the other hand, the very fact of living among jareer makes of such person a jareer in the view of jileec. The jareer are believed to come from agricultural families, whereas the jileec are most often of pastoralist origin. Before the outburst of the civil war in 1990 such distinctions were already stereotypical. However, in the context of daily life relationships, these continued to be powerful distinctions which were used to marginalise jareer from access to jobs, benefits, education and family networks. Yet, descendants from families of ex-slaves in Mogadishu enjoyed some form of protection from the descendants of their relatives’ masters.

31Among the jareer of the riverine area of the Juba, however, other oppositions existed and people classified themselves into many other categories with specific positive and negative connotations. Oral traditions of the Zigulas, for instance, record their liberation from enslavement by escaping en masse, using this to explain why they have kept their Zigula language (Declich 1995b). The Somali Zigula—people who speak the Zigula language—call those who no longer speak a Bantu language “Mahaway”, which is a scoff at their pronunciation of the Somali language. The latter, on the other hand, call themselves Shanbara or Shanbarani which means, descendants from five original brothers who belonged to east African groups such as the Yao, Makua, Nyasa, Nyamwesi and others (id. 1987).

32The word “Bantu” to identify riverine peoples of Somalia was used in colonial times by racist anthropologists, like Puccioni (1937). The term “Negro” was instead used by more accurate Italian colonial officers, among whom the most famous are the lawyer Massimo Colucci (1924) and the orientalist and diplomat Enrico Cerulli. The latter, was in charge of studying Somali dialects at the R. Istituto Orientale in Naples in 1916 (Cerulli 1959: 9) and spent years in the Shebeli valley in Somalia during the first half of the twentieth century (1919-1922). As he attended a great deal of dispute settlements in those years, his reports are invaluable for the details he attaches to the many cases he describes. Puccioni was a member of the school of anthropology in Florence which advocated scientific reasons for the inferiority of the Bantu as a human “race”. Cerulli, using a more accurate approach to the study of the Somali people, clarifies that not all Somali “Bantu” were, indeed, descendants from slaves; rather, they were farmers who had originally inhabited the riverine areas that were later overwhelmed by Galla (i.e. Oromo) and further Somali (Cushitic language speaker) pastoral populations and runaway slaves (id. 1957: 161-163). The fact that they no longer spoke Bantu-based languages did not mean that they had been slaves. As such, Bantu had become a minority in an area largely inhabited by pastoral Somalis and because of their physical semblance to those who had been brought as slaves from the East African Coast, they had all been identified as descendants of slaves.

33Nowadays, within the civil war in Somalia and in the refugee camps, several factors foster the creation of a new ethnic consciousness and its internalisation by those who have been called jareer in Somalia. One such factor is the definition of different levels and strata of beneficiaries for the distribution of humanitarian aid, with the aim of providing equal access to all, in the refugee camps.

The Construction of Bantu Ethnicity in Refugee Camps

35People who do not have clear affiliation to Somali patrilineages and who have curly hair are now classified through a process of registration as “Bantu” by the refugee camps authorities. Such classification, has been applied by the UNHCR despite the fact that only a few of them actually speak a Bantu-based language (Declich 1995b). Ironically, the “Bantu” categorisation helps the jareer to increase their visibility in the camps, in which they would have been otherwise marginalised because of racial discrimination. However, the category “Bantu” was completely unknown to them before arriving in the camps. People I knew from Somalia, had never heard the word “Bantu” before, and said “we are now Bantu, we, the Zigula, are called Bantu here in the camp”. In an attempt to endow the jareer with some ethnic dignity and recognition, a field officer classified the Bantu as “Mushunguli” (Lehman 1993); a project manager identified them as Shanbarani—a name farmers of the Juba River who only speak Somali language give to themselves—, because the women she interviewed identified her group as such and distinguished such group from other Bantu in the camp (Musse 1993: 13). The different names people have used for themselves in different contexts in Somalia have been discussed elsewhere (Declich 1987; 1995b).

37The label of “Bantu”, however, has no precise meaning aside from singling out those who do not belong to Somali patrilineages, and thus, is a sort of device used by humanitarian agencies in order to identify this particular kind of beneficiary. On the other side, those who are called Bantu, even if they never defined themselves as such before then, for the first time in the camps meet vested interests in being pulled together under the same umbrella name. Not the jareer classification, as it was used in Somalia, nor the fact of being all agriculturalists, had been strong enough reasons to foster a common consciousness among these marginalised people in Somalia. In the camps, however, it has become clear that these people are a minority group and would have problems in receiving benefits if these were to be channelled through key persons among the Somali patrilineages.

Downplaying Female Gender in the New Ethnic Construction

39Undoubtedly, identifying the Bantu as a different ethnic group from other Somalis may help them to be protected, and to receive a share of the benefits provided by humanitarian agencies which they need in order to survive displacement. In other words, this strategy worked as a way to defend their access to benefits, incentives and, ultimately, human rights. In fact, by being allowed to settle together in one area of the camp, the so-called Bantu can benefit from channels of distribution managed by their own representatives, rather than by other Somali groups. However, it is exactly by claiming such equal access to benefits, combined with the “emergency” situation, that officers in the camp make choices which downplay the importance of women’s roles in crucial decision making processes. I would like to dwell on the usual procedure that officers apply to foster some participation in decision making in the refugee camps. This entails singling out those seen to be responsible persons, who wield some authority and control over groups of people, to be recognised as heads of clusters of compounds within the camps. They become councillors of sorts, who represent the wishes of the groups. Using such a method and participatory approach, a group of Bantu male elders were settled together in the refugee camp of Dagahaley.

41What was questionable, however, was the criteria of “representativeness” which was used to gather this group of male elders. The elders were supposed to represent each of the lineages/tribes/clans, or whatsoever these unexplained words meant, among the Bantu; the nature of such “ethnic” sections for the Bantu was not clear to the field officers of the camp. Yet, the Bantu themselves, had learned in Somalia that it was safer to keep underneath, without disclosing, their own traditional ways of being; rather, they should adapt publicly to what they were requested to be in order to be accepted among the Somali (Declich 1995b). The officers, therefore, assumed that, at registration, new arrivals to the camp declared their clanic subdivision, and that these were structured, more or less, as they were among Somalis. The assumption was that their “clans” must have been something like patrilineages. Accordingly, in order to foster a participation process representatives should be selected by field officers for each of the subdivisions (mviko and/or kolwa) of the “Bantu”: Makua, Yao, Nyasa, Zigula, Zalamo, etc. The point is that these “representatives” had never been recognised as such in Somalia because a pyramidal structure based on linear descent did not exist. No one, for example, during fieldwork in Somalia had ever claimed to be the chief of the Zalamo subdivision, which was a very small group of people. I suspect that the name Zalamo was, possibly, a loan word from the Tanzanian group living in the vicinity of Dar-es-Salaam, with whom the Bantu of the camp attempted to establish a fictive connection. In other words, in consideration of previous data about them in Somalia, I had the clear impression that through the camp’s experience those elders had been given the chance to negotiate their own power space within their group.

42The choice which the officers made, although driven by an understandably scarce knowledge of the kinship system of the Bantu, seemed to me even more cryptic because I knew the nature of the lineage system among the so-called “Bantu”. These Bantu do not have patrilineages, nor do they have chiefs who wield power over people of the same patri-lines. The mviko groups are mostly matri-kin groupings, namely, group of people united by the fact of recognising common female ancestors, deputed to the management and organisation of mviko rituals; the heads of such rituals are not necessarily men and most people can claim belongings to mviko of the father’s and mother’s line (id. 1994: 199, 203-204; 1995b: 107-108). As rituals are important in a public context, mainly because of their prophetic aspects, people involved in the organisation of such rituals, men or women, have a certain influence, sometimes a strong one, in the public life of their group. From an individual point of view, although the matri-kin grouping of the mother is the most important to anybody’s life, people can also claim belonging to the matri-kin grouping of the father, depending on the situation and the need for certain rituals. While the kinship system provides an opportunity to emphasise both the mother’s and father’s lines, in the camp only the father’s line was given recognition by the UNHCR authority.

43One could claim that all criteria of representativeness are questionable in one way or another because they always exclude someone from direct decision making; yet, some sort of screening, as well as negotiation of power, occurs in any case. This commonly occurs among refugees. For instance a recent article argues that the elite of refugees from Burundi eventually acquire a special role (Sommers 1995). However, it is not at all clear why women should be the ones who become marginal in the new invention of political representatives.

45When such processes occur in the field, it is difficult to disentangle what really happened while the participatory process was being established. If questioned about the way the elder representatives were selected in a group, managers commonly give many good reasons why men had to be chosen, neglecting women. Explanations such as “. . .when we did ask for representatives from the Bantu, we were pointed toward these men”, or “women would have been more at risk if they were put in such a group of elders” or “this matter was a concern of the male elders and we got them together in order to give them voice” or “the issue of resettlement is such a difficult one that there is more chance to succeed if male elders present the requests for resettlement” are put forward. However, by knowing the nature of matri-kin groupings among the Bantu and the non-existence of patrilineages like those of other Somalis, a question arises about whether none of the field officers 1) thought about looking for both, women and men representatives and 2) knew that women, as well as men, discuss whether they prefer to be resettled in Tanzania or somewhere else. Moreover, women were among the people who most felt at risk of being raped in the camps, especially if they found themselves without partners; it would seem logical to have female elder representative of them to be involved in decisions about leaving the camp.

46At any rate, as a result of all these conditions, the group of elders who were called together to analyse the feasibility or interest of a goal such as a group resettlement, only included men. In other words, no women elders were summoned to discuss the issue nor were women elders consulted to give their point of view on the idea of resettlement for the entire group. Women were left to speak among themselves about possible resettlement without be given a public space to express so, unlike male elders. The pattern of male representation established among the Somali Zigula during colonial time and followed by the Somali governments was repeated by representatives of the international community in the very person of the UNHCR’a officers.

47Besides the actual marginalisation women experience in such a decision making context for the specific issue of resettlement of the group, an important point is the influence such a choice may have on those women for the future. Elder and younger mostly uneducated women who for the first time enter an “international” context or community so directly may believe that in what they see as “modern” social contexts is not appropriate that women decide over the movement of their group or have not the right to do so, as it is shown to them by the officers of the humanitarian aid system. For the first time in centuries, the Bantu found themselves in a context where they are not discriminated against as a group. This brought about a relaxation of social tensions within the Bantu community so that, for example, women did not pay much attention to their public role being downplayed.

48The point is how influential can be such a negligence over the confidence of those elder and younger women as regards the appropriateness of their actions in the new international context, their appropriateness in such context and their right to decide over the movement of the entire group.

49In other words, the crucial choice of neglecting women elders was made with the commendable aims of supporting the rights of the “Bantu” group to seek a durable solution to displacement and of encouraging participation within the camp’s decision making system. Nevertheless, this choice had influential structural effects on power relations between genders within the public domain.

50Whether unintentional or for reasons deemed to be acceptable, the organised provision of international humanitarian aid wielded considerable power in the group’s gender relations, affecting both authority and personal identity. First, the procedure recognised the authority of male elders as important, while ignoring female elders in the camp; in fact, male elders were called to discuss the future plans and movements of the whole group in a plight, whereas female elders were not consulted and, therefore, excluded from public authority, with few chances to reverse the decisions. In the “Bantu” villages in Somalia, there were certain aged women with special authority as regards either ritual performances or other activities at the village level. It is not clear the reason why this sort of leaders were not singled out rather a new sort of ethnic chiefs was supported and given authority through the participation exercise. Secondly, only one kind of individual identity was reinforced and imbued with the status of being “relevant”: that which highlights membership in matri-kin groupings, as if they were patrilineages. In other words, the personal identity which is recognised as relevant within the camp is one for which the representative must be a male elder. Importance was attributed to the matri-kin group of the father, rather than the reverse.

51In conclusion, a rationale which was, perhaps, unconscious, underlined the procedure for managing camp’s issues. Camp personnel assumed first, that the “clanic” system of the Bantu, whatever this could mean, was strictly patrilineal, and second that, in patrilineal systems, women have no rights or choices to decisions about where to move with the family or group in future years. This of course would even be a misunderstanding in treating the actual patrilineal Somalis this way. All these assumptions, embedded in the procedural system of the UNHCR, concretely disempowered women in their possible future “resettlement” in Tanzania or elsewhere. Ironically, this happened also to Bantu speakers among the Somali Bantu, such as the Zigula, who maintain strong oral traditions about their previous forced displacements. In such traditions, women had an important role: the most famous personality in their oral narratives is a woman heroine, Wanankhucha, who lead the largest groups of them away from slavery. She is said to have been a prophet and diviner (mganga) who organised the flight from the Somali villages where the Zigula had been captives. She is remembered as having fostered community feeling among the Zigula by organising repeated performances of traditional Zigula songs. During the flight she was able to help the Zigula avoid danger by means of her divination and visions (ibid.: 105-108; Cassanelli 1987: 221; Grottanelli 1953).

Powerlessness and Persecution of Women by Rape

52In interviews with women and men in the refugee camps, most of whom had been my acquaintances in Somalia five to eight years previously, the major factors which they then asserted provoked their flight from Somalia became clear. Especially, at the end of 1991 and early 1992, raids by armed thieves and bandits increased. Refugees remembered that, in order to obtain money, food, clothes and other available items, bandits did not hesitate to commit crimes of many sorts and would threaten, kill, and/or if the victim was a woman, rape, those who did not surrender.

53Rape had become so frequent that, whenever women left the village to fetch firewood, they risked multiple rape. Almost all of the twenty women interviewed had been raped once, yet, parties of bandits commonly groupraped individual women. Another way to convince victims to surrender their property was to rape a woman in front of her relatives. Description of the brutal cases which occurred would be endless and I only mention one such narrative story here. One woman recounted that she would never forget the image of her friends chased by bandits. They were two sisters one of whom was pregnant. The women attempted to escape from gunmen, who wanted to rape them, by running towards the river. The pregnant sister could not run fast enough and was shot dead; the other sister, however, managed to escape by crossing the crocodile-infested water. Suffice it to say that rape was always mentioned by both women and men as a very good reason to seek a safer home.

54A male acquaintance of mine from Somalia explained why he had decided to flee. After repeated theft of food from his household, the choice was to flee or to remain at home without food and endure the regular rape of young women (daughters, wives, nieces and granddaughters) before his eyes. Adolescent females of thirteen to fifteen years of age were at the greatest risk of rape. Bandits generally preferred to rape young women. If they happened to arrive at night, bandits would rape both younger and older women, but if they arrived during the day they would only pick the younger ones. This acquaintance reported that before the 1992, when he flew from the Juba, in his village of origin, not less than two hundred women were raped out of approximately 1,500 female inhabitants. He warned me that many women do not admit to having been raped, because they are ashamed.

56Another striking memory was that bandits would steal everything, even clothes, often leaving the victim almost naked. More than one woman claimed that her clothes had been stolen after she had been raped. This practice demonstrates that assailants had reached an exceptional and excessive level of cruelty. Leaving someone who has already been abused, without anything, even clothes, marks a wish to render this person completely defenceless, i.e. unable even to present herself among other human beings.

58The experience of rape and the prospect of facing it again permanently alters women’s hopes for the future and, specifically, their plans about where they would like to settle next. One woman said: “We saw such terrible things. They raped everyone; I would like to return to Somalia, but the very idea that the war could begin there again, stops me.” Another woman emphasised the point that the memories of the violence that she witnessed and suffered could jeopardise her future pregnancies.

59In short, starvation and sexual violence, perceived as persecution were mentioned as the most important factors for fleeing Somalia during war. The rape of women created a context of powerlessness for both men and women during the war. Although sexual persecution was directed towards women, men were also humiliated by being forced to watch their relatives raped in front of them. Such feeling powerlessness was in addition to the usual impotence which characterises life conditions refugee camps.

Some Characteristics of Powerlessness: Alteration of Production/Reproduction Relationships

60One characteristic of Somali refugees in Daddab is that they have undergone a process of alteration in the production/reproduction relationships within the group. Refugees in the camp cannot produce for their own consumption nor is any improvement envisaged in the immediate future. This entails different problems depending upon the main economic activity of the Somali group involved. Whatever the main economic activity of the group, whether pastoral or agricultural, people without a means of production are unable to maintain the roles which are usual to gender in daily life. For instance, female farmers who are used to grow vegetables and sell them in the market, find themselves without the activity which allows them some control over their income; male farmers who do not have a plot of land where to grow staple food have no means to provide their wives with the prescribed daily maintenance. Pastoral women without camels are in trouble because their usual activity of distributing and selling milk is not possible any longer and young men are not ascribed their traditional responsibility of grazing cattle in the bush. In other words, most of the activities women and men of different ages perform daily are no longer possible.

61In the camps, both pastoral and agricultural people have no work and, almost literally, nothing to do during the day. For agriculturalists in 1994 there was not enough water to practice agriculture, and the few small gardens which had been set up by NGOs to produce vegetables could not be expanded because they consumed too much of the little water resources available in the camp. Traditional means of production for agriculturalists, such as the availability of fertile land to cultivate for both male and female farmers, were not forthcoming. Similarly, pastoral people had no way of maintaining their productive activities: most of the families had lost their camels and cows, and women no longer had goats. Even if all pastoral people had been provided with animals to raise, these activities would not have been sustainable because of obvious environmental constraints. There was neither sufficient water nor grass in the area for many big herds of camels, cattle or sheeps/goats.

63The change in the system of supplying goods for their survival created opportunities to renegotiate the control of provision and distribution channels; moreover, also provided a new arena for such renegotiation. This was because the control over resources, which was at the base of power dynamics within the group and between genders, no longer went through the same channels. Moreover, the new channels for distributing goods become arenas in which hopes for a future and survival are at stake.

64Individual and social dynamics were transformed by the arrival of convoys carrying food and non-food items for the supply of the camps. In 1994, the number of assaults and attacks on the camps by bandits increased on the days assigned to food distribution, when distribution vehicles were kidnapped and bandits attacked convoys transporting provisions. It was not only UNHCR that had to adopt measures to control and protect food provisions; each group of refugees and/or families also had to take particular care to defend their supplies. When provisions were available in the households, they had successfully avoided many chances of being stolen. The power wielded by distributors was magnified in relation to the powerlessness existing in the camps.

Distributing Benefits...

65It is precisely in the mechanisms for distributing benefits that outsiders, such as humanitarian and emergency aid agencies, become important and terribly potent in managing new sources of power, in predetermining opportunities and in offering capabilities (Sen 1994: 63-67, 1993: 86-87) to one individual in preference to another. Benefits do not only include goods needed for survival, such as food, housing and cooking material, but also other incentives, such as employment opportunities, which can change a refugee’s life forever.

66One case in point is illustrated by the story of a Zigula woman who had been a teacher and farmer when she lived in Somalia. I met her again after seven years in the Ifo camp where she was appointed as a social worker, because she knew how to read and write. Among Somali farmers this is a rather rare skill because, after literacy campaigns in the 1970’s, the level of education in rural areas was not been maintained; the woman had been educated by missionaries when she was a girl and had been chosen because she was an orphan. Between 1986 and 1988, in many villages of the Lower Juba district in Somalia the schools opened for just a few days due to the low salaries teachers received. As the school was opened only sporadically until the war broke out, the teacher had not practised her skills much in recent years; at the time, I almost doubted that she remembered how to read and write.

67After having escaped from Somalia where she had left her husband, however, and after having spent two years in the Ifo refugee camp together with her five children, she had undergone remarkable changes. She spoke much better Italian than she had six years previously in Somalia, was learning some English, and spoke Kiswahili as well. She was eager to find a way for her children to study, because she realised how important such skills had been for her survival after displacement. While working as a social worker, she had been sent to Tanzania for a short training course on bookkeeping and micro-credit for small enterprises; when I offered some money for the time she had spent accompanying me in the camp, she wanted me to show her a dollar bill, because she had never seen one before since mostly only trade men dealt with this currency. She considered whether she should ask me for Kenyan shillings or US dollars, and asked if dollars could be used anywhere in the world and if Kenyan shillings were valid in Europe. Moreover, being a social worker, she was in a key position to distribute commodities in the camp. Since it was she who made the lists of the families, she controlled how many items would be distributed to each person on distribution days.

68In other words, she used me as an informant since I had no vested interests in manipulating her and she took every opportunity to obtain new or better jobs. As a social worker, she was lucky to find herself in the right position to strategise in the distribution of commodities within the camp and, like other social workers, she played the game. She had been chosen as a social worker because she had the skills and was a single woman with children.

Micro-mechanisms of Empowerment and Disempowerment

69Simple and basic mechanisms like those described (new ethnic construction and job incentives) may appear small and rather irrelevant as compared to the need to solve problems as quickly as possible in the disrupted situation of a refugee camp. Some rationales for actions and choices are based upon the need for moving fast in order to solve problems. Other actions are justified as avoidance of problems connected with including women in the decision making process, whereas particular attention should be given to the effects of empowerment or disempowerment entailed in most actions taken.

Tribal Labelling as a Way to Strengthen Patrilineal Hierarchies?

71In a refugee camp, therefore, people are categorised by “tribes”, not very differently from the way they were during colonial times, because of insufficient knowledge and for practical reasons on the part of camp authorities. The consequences of labelling, however, may differ according to historical contexts. In Somalia at the beginning of the century, the ethnic categorisation “Bantu” satisfied the need for singling out a class of agricultural labourers. There were no distinctions by gender and such categorisation served, during the Fascist rule in Somalia, to conscript people to forced labour and “Bantu” women to forced marriages and forced labour (Declich 1995b: 111-113). A question rises as to whether a tribal classification should imply supporting the authority of men over women or whether there can be different and more accurate patterns of actions.

72In a refugee camp, ethnic classifications seem to satisfy the need for defining beneficiaries of certain commodities (food and non-food items of humanitarian aid in this case), as well as for fostering an “equal” distribution of benefits. However, a tribal label may not meet the interests of all beneficiaries. Rather, humanitarian and international agencies may support or create a new hierarchy among people, through tribal classification, in order to be able to distribute benefits.

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73In conclusion, humanitarian aid systems act through organising and distributing commodities, food and shelter materials in camps. The benefits distributed (e.g. food, housing, etc.) become not just goods needed for survival, but potential opportunities for camp residents to renegotiate their power, within the camp. Power within the camp, however, may also mean power in the future, after the camp’s life.

74The situation of powerlessness which is created in a refugee camp endows the humanitarian aid system with considerable power over refugees’ lives. In such a context, refugees need recognition from the outside because one of the traditional systems of managing power, based on the control of the means of production, is no longer in their hands. Key positions of control in the distribution of commodities and decision making in the camp become sources of power. When these are held unequally by men and women, such positions already have an a priori influence over the future development of gender relationships within a group. Although people react differently to similar pressures based upon a variety of factors, such as their traditions, cultural background, and historical experience, processes in a refugee camp may favour certain groups and objectives over others. This is especially true with regards to new opportunities and benefits, etc., presented to men and women after displacement.

75Because people respond differently to similar options and opportunities, it is not possible to forecast with certainty subsequent cultural changes; it is important, however, to highlight the micro-dynamics which endow some people with authority and disempower others.