Everyday Sovereignty in Exile

Abstract

This chapter examines sovereignty as a set of social relations explored through the case of the Sahrawi refugee camps. Full territorial sovereignty as desired by the refugees is absent in this setting; nevertheless, the various governance activities suggest that the social relations of sovereignty are very much present in the Sahrawi refugee camps. The chapter then addresses what kinds of ethnographic forms these social relations of sovereignty take in exile. The claimed territory of Western Sahara is an essential feature of Sahrawis' aspirations for full sovereignty in the future; the Polisario Front currently controls part of this claimed territory. In the context of Sahrawis' exile, the claimed territory either is not readily accessible for refugees on a daily basis due to distance, or is under Moroccan annexation. As a result, the chapter explores how, in exile, the social relations of sovereignty take the form of relations between people — governing authorities and governed constituencies — with these relations playing out with regard to resources that, due to displacement, take nonterritorial, mobile forms such as rations and refugees' labor.