Physical immobility and virtual mobility: Mediating everyday life from a Karen refugee camp in Thailand

This article reflects on how offline and online everyday life coexists for encamped, young Karen living in protracted displacement. As part of the special issue ‘Cultures of (im)mobile entanglements', edited by Earvin Cabalquinto and Koen Leurs, I centre the voices of young Karen living in Mae La refugee camp in Thailand and unpack how personal and social relationships are built and maintained physically in the camp, as well as in digitally mediated spaces. I focus on the tensions of (im)mobility and how life and presence were mediated before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. I emphasise the influence of culture, society, and infrastructure on my participants' living trajectories and find how social media expands their lived reality far beyond the confinement of the camp. © The Author(s) 2023.

Formal Micro-Credit for Refugees: New Evidence and Thoughts on an Elusive Path to Self-Reliance

The provision of formal micro-credit for refugees has been promoted as a dignified way to improve their ability to generate income through small-scale enterprises and reduce poverty. As humanitarian funding declines in protracted displacement situations, such approaches are sought to transform refugees into self-reliant, resilient, entrepreneurial agents who are no longer dependent on aid and can overcome a crisis with their own resources and financial confidence. The paper in hand questions this claim on the basis of new, comprehensive empirical insights on the financial lives of refugees in non-camp settings in Jordan. By applying the perspective of the credit users, not the suppliers, our evidence shows that the pervasive use of debt (mostly informal) does not signify latent demand for formal micro-credit. In a context where refugees face restrictions on right to work, move, set up businesses, and imagine a future in the host country, formal credit cannot improve self-reliance. The paper sheds light on a larger variety of sources of debt that are crucial for refugees to manage their lives. In conclusion, the paper argues that the rhetoric around micro-credit as a path to refugee self-reliance has to be re-visited as problematic, even damaging, and humanitarian actors should push this agenda with caution.