Introduction
I had been in the Terai region of Nepal visiting the Bhutanese refugee camps for three weeks and was still unaccustomed to the sweltering heat. I groaned loudly, wiping the sweat pouring off my face, as I realized that it was still before noon and the day’s temperature had not yet neared its peak. “Come, let us break at my family’s hut,” said my translator, Vidhyapati, noticing my discomfort.
We treaded the bustling orange clay path running through the camp, dodging pedestrians, bicyclists and the occasional goat or chicken. We passed endless clusters of huts made of mud and thatch and wells where refugee women chatted while collecting drinking water for their families. We trudged through tiny gardens bursting with local fruits and vegetables that the refugees grew to supplement their meager rations. Finally we arrived at the hut, a mud and clay structure the size of a large living room with a thatch roof.
I was immediately greeted by a slew of Vidhyapati’s family members, all of whom only spoke Nepali. “Namaste!” I exclaimed in my thick American accent. They chuckled politely. “Priya is a friend of mine. She is here studying radio,” Vidhyapati explained, as he took a seat on the clay steps of the well-kept hut. “I never listen to radio,” his mother, commented. Her statement surprised me. I had spoken with refugees of all ages and backgrounds, but had yet to encounter anyone that did not listen to the radio.
At that moment I was distracted by an ethereal noise, seemingly disembodied from the cacophony of the camp. I turned in the direction of the sound and noticed that the neighbours, though nowhere in sight, had left a radio on outside. “Is that common? Aren’t they worried about wasting the battery?” I asked. “It is very common. I also do the same thing,” Vidhyapati’s mother replied.
I was struck by the contradictory nature of her response. “Oh, I thought you didn’t listen to radio,” I said. “I like it in the background,” she clarified. Though straightforward, I was puzzled by her answer. “If you don’t listen to radio, why do you like to keep it on?” The elderly woman’s brow furrowed, perhaps in deep concentration or in irritation from my persistent questioning. After a few moments, she finally responded – “Without radio, I feel lonely.”
Radios are powerful objects. They transmit information to societies, nurture communities and, as in the case of the Rwandan genocide, even destroy them (Kellow and Steeves 1998, 107). Though in the Western world radio is often perceived as an outdated artifact or a source of entertainment reserved for travel between two places, it is a ubiquitous fixture in many developing countries and plays an integral role as an affordable, accessible and mobile information medium. But does radio’s power go beyond its capacity to communicate to a wide audience?
Bhutanese refugees do not own much, but among their few possessions, you will often discover a radio. For these refugees, residing in camps located in eastern Nepal, radio is the primary means of accessing critical information. It commonly covers crime and other important occurrences in the camps, floods during the monsoon season, fires during the dry season and riots in this politically tumultuous region. Aside from relaying news, radio stations deliver a variety of recreational programmes, which occupied countless hours of refugees’ listening time.
I had traveled over 8,000 miles to assess the use of radio in the Bhutanese refugee camps. I was interested in the utility of such a medium for refugees, who themselves have been mobile, face isolation in their host countries, have high rates of illiteracy and function on limited resources. For such individuals, radio’s features make it highly adoptable and valuable. I immediately determined that radio was a heavily relied upon source for news and entertainment, but soon discovered that a critical aspect of its use had been overlooked.
It occurred to me after my conversation with Vidhyapati’s mother that, although his mother had never paid attention to the programmes, she felt isolated without radio. Such a sentiment suggested that the very presence of the radio had meaning. I had been fixated on radio’s utilitarian function – as a means of communicating information between transmitter and receiver – and had missed its deeper significance. The purpose of radio went beyond supplying content. In fact, it was woven into the lives of refugees, and the nature of its incorporation reflected the refugee condition, their state of being and very existence. This paper expands upon the above premise, exploring radio’s significance to refugees and the role it plays in their experiences.