Overview

In From Migrants to Refugees Jill Rosenthal tells the history of how Rwandan migrants in a Tanzanian border district became considered either citizens or refugees as nation-state boundaries solidified in the wake of decolonization. Outlining the process by which people who have long lived and circulated across the Rwanda-Tanzania border came to have a national identity, Rosenthal reveals humanitarian aid's central role in the ideological processes of decolonization and nation building. From precolonial histories to the first Rwandan refugee camps during decolonization in the 1960s to the massive refugee camps in the 1990s, Rosenthal highlights the way that this area became a testing ground for novel forms of transnational aid to refugees that had global implications. As local and national actors, refugees, and international officials all attempted to control the lives and futures of refugee groups, they contested the authority of the nation-state and the international refugee regime. This history, Rosenthal demonstrates, illuminates how tensions between state and international actors divided people who share a common history, culture, and language across national borders.

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9781478024996

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Reviews

In this conceptually adventurous, empirically rich, and engagingly written book, Jill Rosenthal brings a new perspective to histories of Tanzanian nationalism and to the comparative study of nationalism in postcolonial Africa. At the same time, she contributes to histories of decolonization, sovereignty, and state-making by showing how these questions were worked through in a border region. From Migrants to Refugees moves the field in exciting and innovative ways. --Emma Hunter, author of Political Thought and the Public Sphere in Tanzania: Freedom, Democracy, and Citizenship in the Era of Decolonization Jill Rosenthal's detailed history of border making and border crossing reveals both the identification of people with place and its blurring by extensive movement across space. From Migrants to Refugees is a compelling and important contribution not only to the cross-border consequences of the Rwandan quagmire, but also to our understanding of the relationship in an unequal world between international organizations, African people, and an African state. --Frederick Cooper, author of Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present

Author Information

Jill Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of History at Hunter College, City University of New York.

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