New book on Refugee-led Organizations published

We are delighted to announce the publication of our new book, Refugee-Led Organizations in Uganda: Agency, Gender, and Politics of Self-Organizing in Exile – a project long in the makingand in stock in mid-April.

The book was co-authored by Ulrike Krause, Gato Ndabaramiye Joshua, and Hannah Schmidt, and draws on the research project Global Refugee Protection and Local Refugee Engagement: Scope and Limits of the Agency of Refugee-led Community-based NGOs, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. It explores the vital yet often overlooked role of self-organization in the lives of refugees. Through empirical research in Uganda’s Kyaka II camp and Kampala, the work reveals how people challenge political restrictions, create economic opportunities, and foster social belonging – collectively by self-organizing. Spanning the spectrum from informal collectives to formalized organizations, it centers how people establish their own support systems in times of emergency and everyday life – and also what challenges they encounter. By placing particular focus on gender, it examines how power dynamics, social roles, and intersecting inequalities shape both the practices of self-organization and the possibilities for accessing self-organized support structures.

Published open access, the book is freely available to readers worldwide, ensuring that these insights reach the communities and also practitioners to whom they matter to.

A very special thank you goes to all our interlocutors who shared their experiences and insights, without whom this project would not have been possible. We are also deeply grateful to everyone who supported this work along the way.

Reference: Krause, Ulrike, Gato Ndabaramiye, Joshua, and Schmidt, Hannah (2026), Refugee-Led Organizations in Uganda. Agency, Gender, and Politics of Self-Organizing in Exile, eds. Megan Bradley and James Milner (Mcgill-Queen’s Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Series; Montreal, Kingston, London, Chicago: McGill-Queen’s University Press).

Description: Self-organization plays an essential yet often overlooked role in the everyday lives of refugees in exile. By self-organizing, they challenge restrictions, claim political representation, foster social relations and belonging, and create ongoing economic opportunities.

While government authorities and aid organizations are supposed to provide protection and assistance, refugees often continue to face adversities, restrictions, and risks, prompting them to establish and maintain their own support systems. Refugee-Led Organizations in Uganda offers nuanced insight into the problems arising from the aid system and especially the significance of the spectrum of informal and formalized self-organizations. Ulrike Krause, Gato Ndabaramiye Joshua, and Hannah Schmidt draw on a gender-sensitive understanding of relational agency and situated knowledge and use empirical research in Uganda’s camp Kyaka II and the capital, Kampala, to reveal how individuals collectively contribute to their own support in times of emergency and in everyday life.

Interwoven with reflections written by refugees in Uganda – Bengekya Mugay Gédéon, Noella Kabale, Paul, Janvier Hafasha, and Isreal Katembo, as well as the director of an LGBTQ+ refugee-led organization – the book centres on individuals’ lived experiences of self-organization in exile.

Online discussion about the Current State of Humanitarian Refugee Protection in Kakuma, Kenya

Amin Bolis, Gordon Ogutu and Nadine Segadlo are organizing an online exchange entitled „Learning to Live with It: Aid Cuts, New Humanitarianism, and Everyday Survival in Kakuma in a Post-Humanitarian Aid Era“ on 15 April 2026.

This session discuss the current state of humanitarian refugee protection in Kakuma camp in Kenya in the wake of massive aid cuts and dwindling global solidarity. It seeks to bring together different perspectives

• to reflect on the far-reaching impacts of reduced international funding and shifting donor priorities,
• to discuss the introduction of differentiated assistance and the scaling back of other humanitarian services, including healthcare, education and livelihood programmes, over the past year,
• to examine the responses of the Kenyan government in this situation, including the current state of implementation of Shirika Plan,
• to provide a platform for engagement among scholars, practitioners, leaders of refugee-led organisations, and camp residents to assess ongoing developments, share experiences, and highlight community-based responses and support structures that illustrate how refugees are navigating these emerging challenges.

Date: 15 April 2026
Time: 3pm (East Africa Time, EAT)
Format: Online via Zoom: link upon request

Podiumsdiskussion: Stoßen Menschenrechte in Europa an ihre Grenzen?

Am 08.01.2026 organisiert das Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Einheit und Vielfalt im Recht (EViR) die öffentliche Podiumsdiskussion: Stoßen Menschenrechte in Europa an ihre Grenzen?

Immer mehr europäische Länder verschärfen ihre Migrationspolitik und schließen die Grenzen. Während die europäischen Gerichte auf geltendes EU-Recht und die Menschenrechte pochen, sieht sich die Politik in ihrem Handlungsspielraum eingeschränkt.
Das Podium beleuchtet das Verhältnis von Rechtsprechung und Politik und diskutiert, welche Rolle die Rechtsstaatlichkeit in Europa spielt. Außerdem geht es um die Frage, wie ein zeitgemäßes Asylsystem aussehen könnte, das die Menschenrechte als Richtschnur ernst nimmt.

Es diskutieren: Carsten Gericke (Hamburg), Ulrike Krause (Münster), Anna Katharina Mangold (Flensburg) und Nora Markard (Münster).

Die Podiumsdiskussion findet im LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur am Domplatz 10 in Münster statt. Der Eintritt ist frei.

Weitere Informationen: https://www.uni-muenster.de/EViR/veranstaltungen/sonstige/Menschenrechte.html

New Open Access Publication

A new open-access chapter entitled “Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Conflict and Forced Migration in Africa” by Rose Jaji and Ulrike Krause has been published in The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies: Perspectives from the Global South, edited by Siddharth Tripathi and Solveig Richter. The chapter offers a historically grounded analysis of conflict and forced migration across Africa, challenging dominant Western perspectives and highlighting the importance of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial dynamics in shaping contemporary displacement on the continent.

Abstract: In this chapter we draw on our research with displaced people, conflict, violence, gender, and humanitarian aid between 2006 and 2024 in different African countries, which we conducted separately but were brought together by these shared research interests. We address the nexus between conflict, peace, and forced migration using examples from Africa. We situate the discussion within the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial eras, which we take not as mere footnotes but as salient periods in the continent’s history that have influenced current conflicts and forced displacement in Africa. We therefore emphasize the role of history in understanding contemporary conflicts and forced migration on the continent. In doing so, we critique Western research perspectives on forms of violence and their ahistorical explanations of contemporary violent conflicts in Africa. We explain the role of colonial borders not only in engendering conflict but also in creating structural obstacles for refugees to contribute to transformation in countries of origin. We also critique the separation of peacebuilding in the countries of origin from refugee protection in host countries and highlight this as a limitation of global (i.e., Western) perspectives on peacebuilding.

Jaji, Rose and Krause, Ulrike (2025), ‚Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Conflict and Forced Migration in Africa‘, in Siddharth Tripathi and Solveig Richter (eds.), The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies: Perspectives from the Global South (New York, London, Oxford, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic), 197–218. Open Access: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/encyclopedia-chapter?docid=b-9798881842390&tocid=b-9798881842390-chapter9&pdfid=9798881842390.ch-009.pdf 

Filmaufführung „She Said“

Heute ist Internationaler Tag zur Beseitigung von Gewalt gegen Frauen und queere Menschen.

Zu diesem Anlass wird der Film „She Said“ als Teil der Reihe „Politik & Film“ des IfPol der Uni Münster heute im Cinema&Kurbelkiste gezeigt.

Infos zum Film und zur Aufführung: Mit SHE SAID verfilmt Maria Schrader die investigative Arbeit zweier Journalistinnen der New York Times, die 2017 die sexualisierten Übergriffe des Filmproduzenten Harvey Weinstein öffentlich machten – ein zentraler Punkt der #MeToo-Bewegung. Der Film thematisiert nicht nur strukturelle Machtverhältnisse und das institutionelle Schweigen, sondern auch die Möglichkeiten politischer und gesellschaftlicher Veränderung durch solidarisches Handeln, Beharrlichkeit und Öffentlichkeit. Ulrike Krause diskutiert einführend die feministischen Kämpfe um politische Anerkennung sexualisierter Gewalt und reflektiert, wie der Film Fragen nach Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, Machtkritik und politischer Mobilisierung verhandelt.

Weitere Informationen zur Reihe „Politik & Film“ des IfPol: https://www.cinema-muenster.de/menu/programm/aktuelle-filmreihen/politik-film-20252026.html

Successful PhD Defense by Nadine Segadlo

We congratulate Nadine Segadlo, who successfully defended her PhD dissertation, “The Localisation of Peace Global Norms. Humanitarian Practices and Displaced People’s Responses in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya,” on Monday, 24 November 2025.

The dissertation was examined by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Krause (first reviewer) and Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Olivius (second reviewer, joining online). The defense featured a rich and engaging discussion that highlighted Nadine Segadlo’s critical contributions to understanding how global peace norms are localized and negotiated in displacement contexts, with particular attention to the crucial role played by people with lived experience of displacement.

Congratulations to Nadine on this important achievement!