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“Pushed to the edge of the cliff”: An analysis of practitioner perspectives on the governance of refugee livelihoods in Nairobi, Kenya

De Almeida Navega, Millena LU (2026) MIDM19 20261
LUMID International Master programme in applied International Development and Management
Department of Human Geography
Abstract
This thesis examines how urban refugee economic survival is governed within Nairobi, Kenya, through the perceptions of humanitarian-development practitioners. Despite Kenya's Refugee Act 2021 representing one of the region's more progressive frameworks for refugee economic inclusion, the distance between its formal provisions and operational reality remains vast. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with practitioners across NGOs, international organizations, and refugee-led organizations, supplemented by document analysis in a qualitative case study design. The analysis draws on Ferguson's (1990) anti-politics machine and Butler's (2004) concept of differential grievability, with additional grounding in post-structuralist... (More)
This thesis examines how urban refugee economic survival is governed within Nairobi, Kenya, through the perceptions of humanitarian-development practitioners. Despite Kenya's Refugee Act 2021 representing one of the region's more progressive frameworks for refugee economic inclusion, the distance between its formal provisions and operational reality remains vast. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with practitioners across NGOs, international organizations, and refugee-led organizations, supplemented by document analysis in a qualitative case study design. The analysis draws on Ferguson's (1990) anti-politics machine and Butler's (2004) concept of differential grievability, with additional grounding in post-structuralist and post-development scholarship. Three converging dynamics emerge from the findings. First, documentation and registration systems function as technologies of managed exclusion. Second, livelihood strategies are systematically directed toward informality as the principal permissible economic space, shaped by the intersection of legal constraints, nationality, gender identity, and sexual orientation in ways that produce differentiated but uniformly precarious outcomes. Third, the self-reliance paradigm depoliticizes disinvestment by reframing funding withdrawal as developmental empowerment through localization. Together, these findings reveal how refugees and asylum seekers in Nairobi occupy the margins of a governance system historically architectured around encampment, traced here through the practitioners who navigate its contradictions from within. (Less)
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author
De Almeida Navega, Millena LU
supervisor
organization
course
MIDM19 20261
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Refugees, Nairobi, Kenya, Humanitarian-development nexus, Livelihoods, Self-reliance, Asylum seekers
language
English
id
9226246
date added to LUP
2026-06-30 14:06:31
date last changed
2026-06-30 14:06:31
@misc{9226246,
  abstract     = {{This thesis examines how urban refugee economic survival is governed within Nairobi, Kenya, through the perceptions of humanitarian-development practitioners. Despite Kenya's Refugee Act 2021 representing one of the region's more progressive frameworks for refugee economic inclusion, the distance between its formal provisions and operational reality remains vast. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with practitioners across NGOs, international organizations, and refugee-led organizations, supplemented by document analysis in a qualitative case study design. The analysis draws on Ferguson's (1990) anti-politics machine and Butler's (2004) concept of differential grievability, with additional grounding in post-structuralist and post-development scholarship. Three converging dynamics emerge from the findings. First, documentation and registration systems function as technologies of managed exclusion. Second, livelihood strategies are systematically directed toward informality as the principal permissible economic space, shaped by the intersection of legal constraints, nationality, gender identity, and sexual orientation in ways that produce differentiated but uniformly precarious outcomes. Third, the self-reliance paradigm depoliticizes disinvestment by reframing funding withdrawal as developmental empowerment through localization. Together, these findings reveal how refugees and asylum seekers in Nairobi occupy the margins of a governance system historically architectured around encampment, traced here through the practitioners who navigate its contradictions from within.}},
  author       = {{De Almeida Navega, Millena}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{“Pushed to the edge of the cliff”: An analysis of practitioner perspectives on the governance of refugee livelihoods in Nairobi, Kenya}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}