My Master’s thesis, Narratives of the Journey to Exile and Transformative Agency of Residual Liberian Refugees in Oru, Southwestern Nigeria, examined post-refugee experiences outside closed camps. This thesis beat a strong shortlist of 10 others from universities in Europe, Asia, and other African countries to win the Global MSc Thesis Award organised by Routledge and the Border Criminologies network based at the University of Oxford.

The vast majority of refugees whose status has been terminated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) still find themselves in a protracted exilic situation in Africa. This study focuses on the Liberians who were displaced due to the Liberian Civil War of 1989 to 2003. The Oru Refugee Camp in Ogun State, Nigeria, was one of many camps created in the region by UNHCR, to offer temporary accommodation for Liberian refugees until normalcy returned to their homeland. After the war ended in 2003, UNHCR failed to decongest the camps in West Africa despite introducing three durable solutions to protracted refugee situations. In 2012, the Nigerian government closed the Oru Refugee Camp following UNHCR’s termination of Liberian refugees' status. This closure forced residual Liberian refugees to seek abode elsewhere in the host community without state or international protection. Although the termination of refugee status exposes residuals to vulnerability, not much of the extant literature explores their after-life outside camps. There is also a lacuna in the research on refugee journey which is one of the most significant processes of ‘being’ and ‘unbecoming’ a refugee. To fill the research gaps, this study examines the narratives of the journey to exile and the transformative agency of residual Liberian refugees in Oru, Southwestern Nigeria. 

This study is an ethnographic fieldwork at the residual Liberian refugee settlement of 305 population size in Oru, Ogun State. Data collection took place between July 2019 and December 2019. The major form of data collection was qualitative and it was collected through key informants interviews, snowball and purposive sampling, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and focus group discussions. The study engages Alex Honneth’s theory of recognition as a theoretical framework to probe the coping mechanisms and everyday lived experiences of displaced persons in a new, defamiliarised society, while connecting their present experience to the memory of their journeys from Liberia. Drawing upon the narratives of 29 participants, this study unpacks the actual exilic process of residual Liberian refugees, with emphasis on how their identity, resilience, and shared experiences of the journey to exile and transformative agency as a diaspora community have given rise to the common perception of being ‘Liberian’ in Oru town. This study also unravels how they have transformed the former uninhabitable space into a cultural colony and an economic hub, even as their daily mobilities, livelihoods, and thrusts continue to influence contiguous towns and cities. The findings tie this transformation to residual Liberian refugee’s home-making process, cultural practices, political integration, economic resourcefulness, and diaspora networks which strengthens their influence on the socio-economic and political development of their host, just as their present agency is informed by the memory of their journeys from Liberia. This study concludes that the perceived powerlessness and disadvantage of displaced persons are unreal, especially in the face of the audacity of the displaced to enact their sociocultural and economic agency and use same to contest the privileges and control of the indigenous population. This dissertation greatly benefited from my presentations at various international symposiums and conferences. I would like to mention the “2020 Oxford Migration Conference” organised by Oxford Migration Studies Society, United Kingdom, the Symposium on “Borders, Categories and Mobilities” organised by La Trobe University Higher Degree Research (HDR) Migration Reading Group, Australia, the “11th Annual African, African American, and Diaspora Studies” (AAAD) Interdisciplinary Conference, hosted by James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, the “20th Nordic Migration Research Conference” and the “17th Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and International Migration” (ETMU) conference organised by the Migration Institute of Finland (MIF), the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN), the Study of Ethnic Relations and International Migration (ETMU), Nordic Migration Research (NMR) and the University of Helsinki, Finland. 

In the course of writing this dissertation, I received assistance from the University of Oxford Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society, where some of my research findings were published in its Coronavirus and Mobility Forum. Part of this study has been accepted for inclusion as a chapter in the forthcoming Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Change: A Major Reference Work. I wish to thank the editorial team of these prestigious institutions including Routed Magazine’s “Epidemic, Labour and Mobility” issue for their review and publication. This study would not have been completed within such a short time without the financial support of the co-founder of African Women’s Development Fund and CEO, Above Whispers Foundation, Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi (First Lady of Ekiti State), and additional funds received from Dr. Edward Olowookere. I am indebted to all my respondents for creating the time to share their knowledge and insights. This study could not have been written without the information you provided.