Living as citizens, governed as foreigners: recognition strategies and intergenerational invisibility among abavandimwe in Uganda

Abstract

This article examines ‘unrecognised refugees’ through the experiences of second- and third-generation abavandimwe: people of Rwandan descent born and raised in Uganda to forebears who fled successive waves of violence in Rwanda from 1959 onwards and who remained outside formal recognition regimes across generations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with second- and third- generation abavandimwe, Ugandan host community members, and selected government officials, we analyse how belonging and exclusion are produced through everyday social relations and state documentation practices. Conceptually, the article distinguishes everyday recognition, expressed through local acceptance, schooling, work, and community ties, from juridical recognition, expressed through nationality law, identity documentation, and naturalisation procedures. The findings show that intergenerational invisibility is actively reproduced when administrative encounters deny nationality claims, even for individuals who have lived in Uganda their entire lives, including cases where parents are absent or deceased. Everyday recognition enables participation in social life, but its protections collapse during legal and bureaucratic verification, especially when seeking national identity cards, passports, or mobility. By theorising this invisibility as a structural gap between lived citizenship and juridical recognition, the article contributes to debates on citizenship, statelessness risk, and intergenerational displacement, with implications for protection and durable solutions in protracted displacement contexts.