Institutionalizing displacement: Dispersal policy, camp legacies, and refugee integration in the United States

Refugee resettlement is conventionally framed as a “durable solution” for displacement. This article challenges that teleology, arguing that state-led dispersal policies often function as institutionalized extensions of displacement—specifically when they ignore refugees’ pre-resettlement histories. Drawing on 34 interviews with Congolese refugees, voluntary agency staff, and community leaders in a small community in the United States, I examine how “camp legacies” interact with the resource constraints of nontraditional destinations. The analysis reveals that placement in under-resourced, dispersed sites reproduces key features of camp governance: restricted mobility, enforced dependency on gatekeeping institutions, and distinct barriers to entry to the labor market. I term this dynamic the “re-camping effect.” It occurs when bureaucratic placement decisions collide with the specific dispositions formed during protracted exile, effectively recreating the structural conditions of encampment within the domestic welfare landscape. By reconceptualizing resettlement as a multi-scalar regime of governing forced migration, the article demonstrates that without background-informed policies, dispersal risks extending the very displacement it claims to resolve.