Refugee camps are typically perceived as militarised and patriarchal spaces, and yet the Sahrawi refugee camps and their inhabitants have consistently been represented as ideal in nature. Drawing on extensive research the author explores to what effect such idealised depictions have been projected onto the international arena.

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is departmental lecturer in forced migration at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, where she is also junior research fellow in refugee studies at Lady Margaret Hall.