'Online business does not demand who you are': the case of Congolese refugee YouTubers in Nairobi

<p dir="ltr">The digital economy has become central to the neoliberal reimagining of refugee governance in an increasingly digitised world. This shift has intensified since the pandemic, fuelling new scholarship on the digital livelihoods of forcibly displaced people in various contexts of protracted displacement. This article shifts the focus from top-down initiatives and dominant narratives about digital refugee entrepreneurship to a bottom-up approach emphasising existing refugee diasporic networks, aspirations, and imaginaries. Our study reveals that Congolese refugees living in Nairobi (Kenya) carve out a space beyond government regulation through their engagement with YouTube, challenging the state’s spatial, temporal, and legal frameworks for refugees. For Congolese refugee YouTubers, these channels are not merely a means to ‘make a living’ but also a way to ‘make a life.’ Building on the concept of ‘digital heterotopia’ as applied in the field of forced migration studies, the paper examines how refugees utilise YouTube as a social media platform to pursue life aspirations, reshape the politics of refugee voices, and establish new socialities at local, diasporic, and homeland levels. Positioned within complex power dynamics, these refugees navigate YouTube’s constraints and are seen as ‘confluencers’ rather than ‘influencers’, exercising agency within a limited confined space.</p>