Politics of Innocence: Hutu Identity, Conflict, and Camp Life by Simon Turner (review)

An insightful analysis of the political lives of Burundian Hutu refugees living in Lukole Refugee Camp in western Tanzania, Simon Turner’s Politics of Innocence: Hutu Identity, Conflict, and Camp Life explores the complex historical and contemporary experiences of the refugees. Based upon ethnographic research in 1997 and 1998 and drawing theoretical inspiration from the works of Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, Turner’s work reveals the political tensions shaping life in Lukole Refugee Camp. Turner combats the notion, often associated the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations working with refugee populations, that refugees are a homogenous population comprised of ahistorical and apolitical persons. Instead, he attempts to reveal the complex lived realities of refugee life in Lukole. Utilizing interviews, surveys, life histories, and other ethnographic methods couched in the historical context, the author analyzes the refugees’ attempts to create their own sovereign spaces separate from the UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations operating within the camp.

Victims of what Turner terms the “silent genocide” in 1972 perpetrated by the Tutsi, the Hutu population in Burundi fled from the country in successive waves. The Hutu were viewed as innocent victims of the 1972 violence; however, an ethnic self-awareness began to emerge during the 1970s and 1980s as a reaction to the conflict. There was increasing awareness that while the Burundian government prohibited any semblance of ethnic support, political or otherwise, and particularly among Hutu, the most powerful positions in government were reserved for the Tutsi elite. In 1993, amidst rumors of impending government-sponsored violence, the Hutu population in Burundi set up roadblocks throughout the country to prevent the army’s movement and killed approximately 30,000 Tutsi, as the Hutu “were determined not to be ‘killed like animals’” such as occurred in 1972 (p. 1). While the truth of how the violence erupted is unclear, political instability and violence have continued since, and thousands of refugees have fled the country seeking refuge in areas such as the western region of Tanzania. The preemptive strike by the Hutu population and the violence of 1993 complicate the notion of blameless victim-hood and places the Hutu in what Turner describes as an “ambiguous position of innocence” (p. 3). Humanitarian organizations and UNHCR in Lukole Refugee Camp portray the refugees as completely blameless, while the Hutu claim that after the violence of 1972, they lost their innocence and began to realize the “truth” of the Tutsi and the Burundian government in power. These contested conceptions of innocence form the basis of Turner’s analysis. The UNHCR views the refugees as innocent, apolitical, and ahistorical persons, while the refugees themselves, the majority of whom did not participate in direct violence and were themselves victims of persecution, attempt to reconcile their complicated and violent history and their current liminal state as refugees while redefining their political lives.

Contrasting with the tumultuous, uncertain history outlined previously, Turner describes Lukole Refugee Camp as highly bureaucratized, orderly, and laid out in a clearly defined grid pattern. Following Giorgio Agamben’s concept of refugees as exemplifying “bare life,” he examines the role of UNHCR, whose primary goal is to keep the refugees alive in the temporary, liminal, and exceptional space of the camp. The UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations encourage low-level participation among the refugees in an attempt to make them feel empowered without actually changing the power structures within the camp. In addition, UNHCR and other organizations consistently associate the “innocent” and vulnerable refugee figure with women and children, while associating males with violence and troublemaking. According to the author, “[B]y trying to create genuinely innocent victims without any past or culture, the humanitarian agencies were attempting to create tabula rasa, where politics was forgotten and the past was aestheticised into cultural performances” (p. 62), which primarily took the...