Fear in Everyday Life - A Qualitative Study on the Everyday Routines of Burundian and Congolese Women Residing in Tanzanian Refugee Camps

Abstract: This master thesis is based on a field study, conducted in Lugufu 1 and Mtabila 1 refugee camps in Kigoma, western Tanzania, where we held twenty-eight interviews with Congolese and Burundian refugee women. The Congolese and Burundian refugees have fled to Tanzania due to long-lasting conflicts in Congo and Burundi respectively; most arrived in mid-1990s. Thereby, the camps are no longer in phases of emergency and refugees have, since long, established everyday routines and habits that shape their everyday lives; our main interests lie in these. Accordingly, our aim with this study has been to attain a deepened understanding of how these refugee women experience their everyday lives with regards to safety. Since the women themselves were the narrators, security-related problems connected to firewood collection were, inevitably, frequently brought up and are therefore given much space throughout the study. Of great importance for the study is the Sphere Project, in particular the three Cross-Cutting issues - Gender, Environment, and Security – which are all, we believe, intimately related to Feminist Geography. Moreover, our purpose has been to interpret the answers given by these refugee women through arguments and concepts included in Feminist Geography and thereby enable new ways of understanding how, for example, the physical environment affects the everyday routines of refugee women. Furthermore, as several feminist geographers (who, to this date, mainly have focused on western, urban areas) approach women’s fear by looking at the prevailing social and power structures, such structures have also been given much space in our study. Consequently, our study sheds light on security-related issues, which refugee women face in their everyday lives. From the results found in our study, we believe, that if feminist geographers were to include refugee women residing in a non-western, rural context, they would stand to gain a broadened knowledge of how different women experience and are affected by fear and safety.