Although refugee camps are established to accommodate, protect, and assist those fleeing from violent conflict and persecution, life often remains difficult there. Building on empirical research with refugees in a Ugandan camp, Ulrike Krause offers nuanced insights into violence, humanitarian protection, gender relations, and coping of refugees who mainly escaped the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This book explores how risks of gender-based violence against women, in particular, but also against men, persist despite and partly due to their settlement in the camp and the system established there. It reflects on modes and shortcomings of humanitarian protection, changes in gender relations, as well as strategies that the women and men use to cope with insecurities, everyday struggles, and structural problems occurring across different levels and temporalities.

’This important and original work unpacks the ways in which confinement and encampment exacerbate gender-based violence against both women and men. Providing a granular focus on a single Ugandan refugee camp, it integrates insight into refugees' lived experiences with critical engagement with the role of humanitarian organizations. Ulrike Krause offers a voice to harrowing human stories and shows why they matter for policy and practice.’

Alexander Betts - University of Oxford

‘Whether you are a scholar, a policy maker or a practitioner, you will find this thought provoking book extremely valuable and its richly informed polyphonic analysis persuasive. Drawing from her experience in a refugee camp in Uganda, Dr Krause engages in an in- depth, thoughtful yet robust dialogical interaction which unravels, contests or refines a wide range of theories, concepts and practices on gender based violence as a continuum (i.e: humanitarian/dehumanizing aid; women vulnerable objects/actors). Forced migration is a complex process in which gender roles and relationships are continuously and contextually renegotiated. A must-read.’

Maroussia Hajdukowski-Ahmed - McMaster University

‘Through her in-depth knowledge of life and coping in a refugee camp and her careful attention to detail, Krause explores how gender-based violence needs to be understood in relation to humanitarian governance and coping strategies in the camp - moving beyond the moral binaries of much work on this contentious subject.’

Simon Turner - University of Copenhagen

‘Difficult Life in a Refugee Camp: Gender, Violence, and Coping in Uganda by Ulrike Krause is a well documented and meaningful work related to subjects like gender-based violence, gender roles and relations, humanitarian aid as well as strategies of displayed women and men in encampment in Uganda’s camp Kyaka II, for the refugees who mainly escaped the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’

Carmen Ungur-Brehoi Source: Journal of Identity and Migration Studies

‘This book … will not only be a valuable reference for academics and students in related areas but also offer useful lessons for aid practitioners, particularly in light of increasing interest in the role of gender in refugee contexts. For these reasons, this inspiring work by Krause deserves wider readership amongst scholars, students and policymakers interested in gaining nuanced insights into gender dynamics taking place inside a long-term encampment.’

Naohiko Omata Source: International Migration

‘… a well documented and meaningful work related to subjects like gender-based violence, gender roles and relations, humanitarian aid as well as strategies of displaced women and men … The message that the work transmits is a lucid, sympathetic and painful one.’

Carmen Ungur-Brehoi Source: Journal of Identity and Migration Studies

'… a masterpiece, a must-read for any scholar, policymaker, practitioner, or person seeking to work with refugees and/or study forced migrations and refugee studies from a feminist standpoint.'

Tatiana Morais Source: Journal of Refugee Studies