Architecture of Migration: The Dadaab Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Settlement

Environments associated with migration are often seen as provisional, lacking history and architecture. However, Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi's book Architecture of Migration reveals that refugee camps have aesthetic and material landscapes that reveal histories, futures, politics, and rhetorics. She identifies forces of colonial and humanitarian settlement, tracing spatial and racial politics in the Dadaab refugee camps established in 1991 on the Kenya-Somalia border. By constructing a material and visual archive of Dadaab, Siddiqi shows that refugee camps are complex settlements, ecologies, and material archives created through histories of partition, sedentarization, domesticity, and migration.

Format: Hardback
Length: 432 pages
Publication date: 01 December 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

Migration often brings with it environments that are perceived as temporary, lacking both historical significance and architectural grandeur. However, as Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi highlights in her book Architecture of Migration, the aesthetic and material landscapes of refugee camps, even though they may arise from emergency situations, hold within them rich narratives of history, futurity, politics, and rhetoric. Through her meticulous exploration, Siddiqi identifies the forces of colonial and humanitarian settlement, tracing the spatial and racial politics that unfolded in the Dadaab refugee camps, which were established on the Kenya-Somalia border in 1991. These camps, which are characterized by their dense setting and the manifestation of decades of architectural, planning, and design initiatives, also reveal a much older constructed environment that reflects its unique ways of knowing.

By embarking on a comprehensive project to construct a material and visual archive of Dadaab, Siddiqi goes beyond ahistorical representations of camps and their inhabitants. She uncovers long migratory traditions embedded in the architecture, spatial practices, landscapes, and iconography of refugees and humanitarians. In contrast to conceptualizations of refugee camps as sites of border transgression, criminality, and placelessness, Siddiqi presents a different perspective. She theorizes these camps as complex settlements, ecologies, and material archives that have been shaped by histories of partition, sedentarization, domesticity, and migration.

Through her meticulous research and analysis, Siddiqi sheds light on the intricate ways in which migration and its associated environments have shaped the lives of individuals and communities. Architecture of Migration offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complexities of refugee experiences and the role of architecture in shaping their lives. It encourages us to look beyond the surface and recognize the rich tapestry of histories, futures, and narratives that exist within these temporary spaces.

Weight: 975g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478020387