This article presents a novel analytical framework to examine refugees’
journeys to exile from the perspective of ‘trust‘. I define trust as a
positive feeling about or evaluation of the intentions or behaviour of
another, and conceptualize it as a discursively created emotion and
practice which is based on the relations between the ‘trustor’ and the
‘trustee‘. I create a novel analytical framework for the study of
refugees’ ‘journeys of trust’ that consists of the temporal
characteristics, the drivers and contexts, and the contents and
orientations of ‘journeys of trust’, and the characteristics of the
voyagers and their intersectionality. This analytical framework is
applied in this article regarding Congolese refugees’ journeys to
Kampala, Uganda. Conceptually, I suggest that refugees’ exilic journeys
in this context need to be investigated by linking the trust-based
discourses of their reasons to flee, their travel from the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) to Uganda and, finally, their arrival to their
city of exile, Kampala. The usefulness of this trust-focused analytical
framework for the study of refugee journeys is reflected in the
conclusion.