The Temporary City: A Brief History of the Refugee Camp

A refugee camp is one of modern history’s most profound and paradoxical inventions. In its simplest definition, it is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and other displaced people. These individuals are fleeing persecution, war, or natural disaster, and the camp is intended to provide immediate, life-saving protection and humanitarian assistance. Managed by governments, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), or a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the camp is a space of organized care, offering shelter, food, water, and medical aid. Yet, this definition barely scratches the surface of its complex reality. A refugee camp is an emergency measure that often becomes a permanent reality, a space of sanctuary that is also a site of confinement. It is an ad hoc solution that has evolved into a highly bureaucratized, technologically sophisticated global system. It is a non-place, existing outside the normal bounds of a state, yet it can grow into a bustling city with its own economy, social hierarchy, and culture. The story of the refugee camp is the story of modern displacement itself, a chronicle of humanity's attempts to manage the fallout of its own conflicts and cataclysms.

The act of seeking refuge is as old as human conflict, but the camp is a distinctly modern creation. For millennia, displaced populations moved across porous borders, their absorption or rejection dictated by the needs and whims of local rulers. Ancient Greece offered the concept of asylia, a sacred immunity granted within the confines of a temple, a sanctuary for the pursued. Empires like Rome or Persia might resettle entire populations for political or economic reasons, a brutal form of forced migration, but the idea of a purpose-built, long-term settlement to merely house the displaced was alien. People were either integrated, enslaved, or left to fend for themselves. There was no international system, no legal category of “refugee,” and thus no need for the specialized architecture of the camp. The seeds of the camp were sown with the rise of the modern nation-state in the 17th and 18th centuries. As kingdoms solidified into countries with rigorously defined borders, passports, and concepts of citizenship, humanity was neatly divided into insiders and outsiders. This new world order had a critical flaw: it had no place for those who belonged nowhere. To be stripped of one's nationality was to be stripped of the “right to have rights.” This legal void, coupled with the industrial era's capacity for mass organization and surveillance, created the necessary conditions for the camp to emerge.

The direct ancestor of the refugee camp was not born of humanitarian impulse, but of military and colonial control. The term “concentration camp” was first used by the Spanish in the 1890s during the Cuban War of Independence, where they forcibly relocated rural populations into fortified camps to sever their ties with guerrilla fighters. Shortly after, the British Empire adopted the model with devastating effect during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). To defeat the elusive Boer commandos, British forces rounded up over a hundred thousand Boer civilians—mostly women and children—and interned them in vast, squalid camps. These early camps were instruments of total war, designed for containment and control. Surrounded by Barbed Wire, a new and cruel technology of the age, their inhabitants were subject to the authority of the camp commandant. Disease, malnutrition, and despair were rampant. The British camps in South Africa were a public scandal, but the logic behind them proved grimly influential. They demonstrated that it was possible to isolate, manage, and sustain a large, unwanted population within a confined geographical space. This principle of mass encampment, stripped of its explicitly military purpose and cloaked in the language of care, would form the blueprint for the refugee camp to come.

The 20th century, with its world wars, collapsing empires, and ideological frenzies, turned displacement from a regional problem into a global crisis. It was in this crucible of unprecedented human suffering that the refugee camp as we know it was forged, shifting from a tool of military oppression to one of international humanitarianism.

The First World War did more than redraw the map of Europe; it shattered the old imperial order. The collapse of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires unleashed a torrent of humanity. Poles, Ukrainians, Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution, and, most tragically, Armenian survivors of genocide found themselves as stateless minorities in newly formed, often hostile, nations. They were the first to fall through the cracks of the nation-state system. In response, the international community took its first faltering steps toward a coordinated response. Makeshift camps sprang up across Europe and the Middle East, from the outskirts of Athens to the Syrian desert. These were often little more than sprawling tent cities, lacking sanitation and organized support. The League of Nations appointed Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen as the first High Commissioner for Refugees, a role that led to the creation of the Nansen Passport. This identity document for stateless refugees was a revolutionary invention—a substitute for national belonging that granted its holder the right to travel across borders and seek work. It was a tacit admission that humanity was now divided into two tiers: those with a state, and those without. The camps were the physical manifestation of this new reality, the waiting rooms for those hoping to one day rejoin the world of nations.

If World War I created the refugee problem, World War II perfected the refugee camp. The scale of displacement was staggering, dwarfing all that had come before. At the war's end in 1945, more than 40 million people were uprooted in Europe alone. The Allies found themselves responsible for millions of “Displaced Persons” or DPs: concentration camp survivors, former forced laborers, and civilians who had fled the fighting. To manage this crisis, the Allies and the newly formed United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) established hundreds of DP camps across Germany, Austria, and Italy. Housed in former military barracks, schools, and factories, these camps were a significant evolution. They were highly organized and bureaucratized. Residents were registered, issued ration cards, and underwent medical screening. For the first time, a comprehensive system of Humanitarian Aid was deployed, providing not just food and shelter, but also education, vocational training, and psychological support. Life in the DP camps was a surreal mix of trauma and renewal. They were places where survivors of the Holocaust began to rebuild their lives, where “lost” children were reunited with families, and where new communities were forged in the shadow of loss. Yet they were also places of immense frustration, as people waited for months, even years, for permission to emigrate. The DP camps established the modern template: the camp as a structured, internationally managed, and prolonged state of exception. This system was codified with the creation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950 and the signing of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which for the first time provided a binding international legal definition of a refugee. The camp was no longer an ad hoc emergency measure; it was now a permanent fixture of the international legal and political landscape.

In the second half of the 20th century, the epicenter of the global refugee crisis shifted from post-war Europe to the decolonizing world of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. As proxy wars fueled by the Cold War and struggles for independence erupted, new waves of displacement occurred. In this new context, the “temporary” camp began its slow, inexorable transformation into something far more permanent: a city in all but name.

No story illustrates this transformation more powerfully than that of the Palestinian refugees. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. They found shelter in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip, in what were intended to be short-term camps. The United Nations established a unique agency, the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), to care for them until a political solution could be found. That solution never came. Decades passed, and the camps became a permanent feature of the Middle Eastern landscape. The canvas Tents of 1948 gave way to mud-brick shelters, which were then replaced by multi-story concrete buildings, constructed illegally or semi-legally by residents. Camps like Ein al-Hilweh in Lebanon or Jabalia in Gaza evolved into dense, labyrinthine urban neighborhoods. They developed their own economies, political structures, and a powerful collective identity rooted in the memory of a lost homeland and the dream of return. The Palestinian camps became the ultimate symbol of the camp's paradox: a place of indefinite waiting that had, over generations, become home. They challenged the very idea of temporariness, proving that a refugee camp could become a multi-generational society, a nation in exile.

As refugee crises became a recurring feature of the late 20th century—from the Vietnamese “boat people” to the millions fleeing the Soviet-Afghan War—the science of camp management was born. What had once been a matter of improvisation became a highly specialized field of knowledge. The UNHCR and a growing constellation of NGOs developed standardized handbooks and best practices for creating a camp from scratch. This new expertise covered every aspect of camp life:

• Spatial Planning: Camps were meticulously designed on a grid system. Planners calculated the minimum square meters of living space per person, the ideal distance between shelters to prevent the spread of fire, and the optimal location for water points, latrines, and clinics. The goal was efficiency and order, but the result was often a monotonous, dehumanizing landscape.
• Logistics: A vast global supply chain emerged to provide for camp populations. This “humanitarian industry” involved procuring and shipping millions of tons of food, medicine, and shelter materials. The logistics of aid became as complex as a military operation.
• Biopower: The camp became a laboratory for managing life itself. Experts determined the minimum daily caloric intake (2,100 calories per person), vaccination schedules were rigorously implemented, and population movements were tracked. The refugee was transformed from a person with a story into a statistic, a “beneficiary” to be managed.

This rational, top-down approach saved countless lives. It prevented epidemics and staved off famine. But it also reinforced the powerlessness of refugees, who became passive recipients of aid rather than active agents in their own lives. The very architecture of the camp—the neat rows of identical tents, the fences, the administrative zones—was an architecture of control.

The 21st century has witnessed the apotheosis of the refugee camp. Driven by protracted conflicts, state collapse, and the new threat of climate change, camps have grown to an unprecedented scale, housing hundreds of thousands of people for decades. They have become complex, technologically mediated spaces that blur the lines between city, camp, and open-air prison, raising profound questions about the future of humanitarianism.

In places like northern Kenya and the Jordanian desert, the contemporary mega-camp has taken form. Kenya's Dadaab and Kakuma camps, established in the early 1990s, have grown into sprawling urban areas, each with populations approaching or exceeding a quarter of a million people. Zaatari camp in Jordan, which opened in 2012 to house Syrians fleeing civil war, mushroomed from a patch of desert into the country's fourth-largest “city” in a matter of months. These are not just collections of shelters; they are complex social and economic organisms. They have bustling main streets lined with thousands of refugee-run businesses, from mobile phone repair shops and restaurants to barbershops and fashion boutiques. A vibrant informal economy thrives, often connected to global networks through remittances and trade. Technology is ubiquitous. Refugees use smartphones to stay connected with relatives across the globe. The UNHCR and other agencies use advanced Biometrics, such as iris scans and fingerprinting, to register residents and distribute aid, often through mobile money platforms. This technological integration brings efficiency but also raises concerns about surveillance and the loss of privacy. The refugee is now a data point in a global system, their identity reducible to a scannable code.

Despite this semblance of urban normality, life in the mega-camp remains a life in limbo. Residents are often legally barred from leaving the camp or seeking formal employment in the host country. Their future is uncertain, dependent on three “durable solutions,” none of which are readily available for the majority:

1. Voluntary Repatriation: Returning to their home country, which is often impossible as conflicts drag on for years.
2. Local Integration: Being absorbed into the host country, an option most governments are reluctant to offer.
3. Resettlement: Being relocated to a third country, a chance available to less than 1% of the world's refugees.

Caught in this protracted state of waiting, refugees display incredible resilience and creativity. They establish schools, cultural centers, and religious institutions. Art, music, and theatre flourish, providing ways to process trauma and maintain cultural identity. Social media allows camp-based journalists and activists to tell their own stories, challenging the stereotypical image of the helpless victim. The camp, while a space of confinement, is also a testament to the indomitable human spirit and the relentless drive to create community and meaning even in the most constrained of circumstances.

Today, the refugee camp model is facing a crisis of legitimacy. For all its life-saving utility, many critics—including aid workers and refugees themselves—argue that it is a flawed and unsustainable solution. Camps are incredibly expensive to maintain, create dependencies, and can have negative environmental and social impacts on host communities. Most damningly, they serve the political interests of states that wish to contain and isolate refugee populations, keeping them out of sight and out of mind. The search for alternatives is gaining momentum. There is a growing shift towards cash and voucher assistance, which gives refugees the dignity and autonomy to make their own economic choices. There is a greater focus on supporting “urban refugees,” the more than 60% of refugees worldwide who live not in camps but in towns and cities, where they can be more self-reliant. Innovators are designing better forms of emergency shelter that are more durable, dignified, and adaptable than the traditional tent. The brief history of the refugee camp is a mirror held up to the modern world. It reflects our greatest humanitarian impulses and our deepest political failings. It is the story of a temporary solution that has become a permanent condition for millions. As long as war, persecution, and catastrophe continue to drive people from their homes, the need for refuge will remain. Whether that refuge will continue to take the form of the camp—the temporary city of indefinite waiting—or whether humanity can invent a more just and humane alternative, remains one of the most urgent questions of our time.