Education as a Means of Facilitating Onward Migration and Transnational Participation for South Sudanese Refugee Communities

Abstract

In Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya, education is perceived by its South Sudanese population to be a key tool needed to escape the social and economic marginalisation experienced within the humanitarian aid system as victims of conflict. This chapter explores the ways in which members of the South Sudanese diaspora have utilised transnational social and financial networks to pursue education throughout East Africa and the Global North, thus facilitating cross-generational onward migration practices. With Kakuma at the epicentre of this population, displaced for decades by civil war, family and community transnational networks utilise financial remittances to help the next generation of their families to access education and facilitate onward migration patterns between East African and Western nations. From the perspective of the refugees of this diaspora and their transnational families who support them, this chapter argues that the pursuit of education was perceived to be the solution to their displacement by offering unique opportunities to migrate beyond the refugee camp as well as to invest in their capacity to develop their livelihoods independent of their protracted vulnerable status.