Angry young men in camps: international assistance and changing hierarchies of authority amongst Burundian refugees in Tanzania

This paper sets out to explore how life in a refugee camp affects gender, age and class relations among Burundian refugees in Tanzania. It focuses on how the relief operation’s policy of equality challenges older hierarchies of authority. Through an analysis of refugees’ representations of gender relations, relations between generations, and relations between peasants and ‘big men’, it is shown that there is a general feeling of social decay in the camp. In this situation young men are particularly challenged, as they are at a stage in life where they ought to be finding their place in society as fathers, husbands, protectors and providers; in short: as men.