Cory Rodgers
Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford Pedro Arrupe Research Fellow in Forced Migration Studies
Oxford, England
I am an anthropologist researching displacement, refugee-hosting dynamics, pastoralism, and development trends in eastern Africa. Since 2015, I have focused primarily on Turkana County in northwestern Kenya, the site of the decades-old Kakuma refugee camps as well as the more recently established Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement.
I am currently investigating how programmes intended to foster inclusivity and integration among refugees and hosts can instigate political conflicts over representation, as various stakeholders attempt to define a ‘host community’ out of an otherwise diverse population. For my doctoral work, I undertook an ethnography of the development encounter in Turkana, with attention to the marginalisation of the pastoralist majority amidst education-based stratification and the rise of an urban political class.