How do camps affect livelihoods?

Lens adapted to this topic: Critical and resident-centred perspectives

Critical perspectives argue that camps should not be understood merely as neutral humanitarian spaces. They emphasize how confinement, governance, power relations, and economic interests can structure residents’ opportunities, produce dependency, and turn camps into constrained markets. They also point to out-of-camp arrangements and resident agency as potentially better routes to self-reliance, where conditions permit.

• Encampment can create a prolonged “life in limbo,” with restricted movement and aid dependence undermining self-reliance rather than simply providing temporary protection.
• Critical scholarship examines camps as spaces shaped by power relations and by political and economic interests, not only by humanitarian need.
• Out-of-camp policies may expand freedom of movement, integration with host communities, and access to livelihoods, although they also involve policy and resource trade-offs.
• Livelihood activities inside camps are shaped by formal and informal power relations, meaning residents’ opportunities may depend on governance and access to decision-making as well as on aid or markets.

Featured sourceIntent Versus Impact: Is the Choice Between Encampment and Out-of-Camp a Factual Hard Policy Dilemma?sage.cnpereading.com6 sourcesView sources