Negotiating sexuality amidst refugee uncertainty Burundian adolescent refugees in Mahama camp in Rwanda and Nakivale settlement in Uganda

Based on ethnographic research with Burundian adolescents and their communities at two refugee sites in Uganda and Rwanda over a nine-month period in 2017–18, this dissertation explores how adolescents understand, experience and navigate sexuality in their everyday lives. This study aimed to move beyond the focus on health-related risks and girls’ victimhood that dominates sexuality research, particularly in humanitarian contexts. While appreciating the contributions of earlier research, such a focus is limiting, tending to disregard both the vulnerabilities of boys and adolescents’ agency. Using a variety of qualitative methods such as participant observation, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with adolescents, parents, teachers, community leaders and NGO staff, the study presents a unique perspective on how Burundian adolescents in refugee contexts perceive sexuality and negotiate their relational and sexual aspirations within their broader community.
The findings of the study are presented in four published articles. They point to adolescents’ sense of abandonment and a failure of their environment to answer their needs in caring ways. As a consequence, adolescents adopt strategies for negotiating their sexuality in ways that prioritise self-care, which I conceptualise as the strategic, deliberate decisions adopted by my participants to put their own needs first, (temporarily) disengaging from their social environment to navigate the various socio-economic and political factors affecting their sexual lives. The study concludes that despite their complex social navigation of sexuality, they proved adept in exercising agency in ways that gave them the best chances of focusing on themselves first when faced with a difficult situation.