Author Archives: Kirsten McConnachie

About Kirsten McConnachie

Kirsten McConnachie is assistant professor of law at the University of Warwick. She is a socio-legal researcher whose work studies governance, justice, and security in refugee situations. Her book Governing Refugees: Justice, Order and Legal Pluralism (Routledge, 2014) examined camp management and the administration of justice among Karen refugees on the Thai-Burma border and was awarded the 2015 Socio-Legal Studies Association early career book prize. She is currently working on a second book, examining the experiences of Chin urban refugees in India and Malaysia.

Camps of Containment: A Genealogy of the Refugee Camp

Introduction As forced migration becomes an increasingly prominent global challenge, political responses to it demand closer scrutiny. This essay considers one of the most widely used responses to refugee flows, the refugee camp. For the past seventy years camps have been a primary response to forced migration. In 2016, several hundred camps and settlements existed worldwide, housing more than twelve million refugees and internally displaced.1 From the Algerian desert to the Thai forest, these camps vary in almost every dimension. Some are the size of Continue reading → Continue reading →