A LIFE-COURSE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORCED MIGRATION TRAJECTORIES AND FOOD INSECURITY PATH IN CENTRAL NIGERIA

ABSTRACT Food insecurity resulting from forced migration has become a significant problem that continues to bring hardship to people worldwide. Previous studies showed that over one billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa are food insecure. About 35% of this population, representing 346 million people, are food insecure because of forced migration resulting from ethnic, religious, and political conflicts. About 1.6 million forced migrants in Central Nigeria in 2018 alone were food insecure; while the connection between forced migration and food insecurity is well recognized, the details of that connection are not yet well understood. A more detailed understanding of how food insecurity relates to the lived experience of forced migration is necessary for identifying worthwhile interventions that can help address the issues. This research, therefore, set out to uncover the detail of the connections between food insecurity and forced migration. A life-course approach based on in-depth narrative interviews was used to uncover the details of respondents involved in the forced migration, their food insecurity experiences, and the sequence of social and cultural events that characterized their movement over several years. This provides a suitable framework through which an in-depth understanding of what happened to the migrants concerning food insecurity and food strategies between the present and the past is revealed clearly, logically, and sequentially. The study examines and identifies the nature and forms of food security/insecurity experienced by the forced migrants on the trajectory. It examines and determines how the changes in their social, cultural, human, and economic capital shaped their food security/insecurity across the life course, moreover how life events shaped the decisions made during and after the conflicts. It also examines and identifies how links/delinks between the migrants and their livelihood sources determine when and how they experience food security/insecurity. Moreover, how does this affect sharing of resources among the forced migrant? It also examines and uncovers the migrant’s food strategies and changes in the strategy within the life course frame. About 25 male and female participants who experienced conflict-forced migration were recruited and interviewed. The study revealed that food security/insecurity is a trajectory and that the migrants experienced three forms of food insecurity; short-term, intermittent, and long-term. Social, cultural, human, and economic capital are factors of their livelihood. Six food strategies were, identified. These are simple food strategies, adaptive food strategies, complex food strategies, proxy food strategies, indirect adaptive strategies, and multi-approach food strategies. The participants lost social and cultural capital, resulting in the separation of families and causing adolescents to assume the responsibility of providing for the family. There is a strong relationship between forced migration and food insecurity. Keywords; Forced migration, Food security/insecurity, livelihood, Food strategies, and linked lives