Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Table
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Researching Precarious Urbanism and the Displacement–Urbanization Nexus
- 2 Histories of Conflict and Mobility: The View from the City
- 3 Camp Urbanization and Humanitarian Entrepreneurship
- 4 Improvising Infrastructure: The Micropolitics of Camp Life
- 5 Techno Relief? Connectivity, Inequality and Mobile Urban Livelihoods
- 6 Liminal Durability: Belonging in the City and Enduring Solutions
- 7 Conclusion: Living at the Precarious Edges of Planetary Urbanization
- Appendix
- Notes
- References
- Index
3 - Camp Urbanization and Humanitarian Entrepreneurship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Table
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Researching Precarious Urbanism and the Displacement–Urbanization Nexus
- 2 Histories of Conflict and Mobility: The View from the City
- 3 Camp Urbanization and Humanitarian Entrepreneurship
- 4 Improvising Infrastructure: The Micropolitics of Camp Life
- 5 Techno Relief? Connectivity, Inequality and Mobile Urban Livelihoods
- 6 Liminal Durability: Belonging in the City and Enduring Solutions
- 7 Conclusion: Living at the Precarious Edges of Planetary Urbanization
- Appendix
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
‘So, we came to Mogadishu. Two of my brothers and I were living in a place owned by the government […] that I now forget the name of. After some time, we were told to vacate the camp because the land belonged to the government. We then moved to Maslah camp and lived there for one or two years. We then moved and settled at Shabelle University [another camp] and that is where we stayed for a while. We worked for ourselves. We woke up early in the morning to go into Xamar [Mogadishu] to look for work, like laundry, when it was available. Someone came in the camp one day and wrote something on a red painted area. I didn't understand it because I cannot read. I can just write my name. Some of the elders came and read it for us and said that it was a notice for us to vacate the camp. We would have a month before we would be kicked out. “The man who warns you is not responsible for killing you”! [Proverb: Nin kuu digay kuma dilin]. My father told us before the notice time ends, he will go and look for a place for us to move to. My brothers were living in Maslah camp, and we then moved there and lived there for about a year. Then we came here to my current camp where I have lived for three years. So, I came to Mogadishu five years ago.’ (Wiilo, Mogadishu, January 2018)
Wiilo – whose experiences of rural to urban migration were introduced in the previous chapter – speaks about how her forced mobility continued after her arrival in Mogadishu from Lower Shabelle region. Over a period of five years, Wiilo lived in four camps, and had been evicted from three as the land was reclaimed by its purported owners. This chapter explores urbanization processes through the lens of settlement experiences of people like Wiilo, who have arrived in cities, some of them decades ago, and others only a few weeks before they were interviewed. We examine different types of urban settlements, namely urban camps established at the outskirts of the city, and squatter settlements in core city areas. Displaced people have developed various strategies to settle and obtain necessary physical protections.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Precarious UrbanismDisplacement, Belonging and the Reconstruction of Somali Cities, pp. 52 - 77Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023