Event Title

Everyday Forms of Resistance in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Location

Diamond 242

Start Date

1-5-2014 1:00 PM

End Date

1-5-2014 1:45 PM

Project Type

Presentation- Restricted to Campus Access

Description

Contemporary Rwanda is often lauded as an economic miracle and a model for post-conflict reconciliation and development. The Rwandan government, let by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), has transformed this small nation in the middle of central Africa through a number of social engineering projects. One of these projects takes the form of the governments comprehensive development agenda, termed Vision 2020. Using a both archival and ethnographic research, I explore how Vision 2020 programs translate into the everyday lives of Kigali residents who occupy the poorest sector of society. My research reveals stringent lines of exclusion that work to deny the poorest people in Kigali access to powerful government development programs, including cooperatives and small business loans. These lines of exclusion created through in-access to Vision 2020 coincide with other lines of exclusion that are produced through the governments construction of an official narrative of Rwandan history. By drawing on a comprehensive literature review of resistance theory, I attempt to make sense of the landscape of resistance inside Kigali. How do people who are excluded from both development and history navigate, react, and resist this exclusion? I end my project by using the varying forms of resistance I encountered in Kigali as a diagnostic of power. What interwoven forms of power are ordinary Rwandans caught up everyday? As Rwanda commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide this year in the midst of the controversial 2017 presidential elections, understanding how ordinary Rwandans make sense of their place and voice in society is critical.

Faculty Sponsor

Mary Beth Mills

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Anthropology Dept.

CLAS Field of Study

Social Sciences

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

657

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May 1st, 1:00 PM May 1st, 1:45 PM

Everyday Forms of Resistance in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Diamond 242

Contemporary Rwanda is often lauded as an economic miracle and a model for post-conflict reconciliation and development. The Rwandan government, let by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), has transformed this small nation in the middle of central Africa through a number of social engineering projects. One of these projects takes the form of the governments comprehensive development agenda, termed Vision 2020. Using a both archival and ethnographic research, I explore how Vision 2020 programs translate into the everyday lives of Kigali residents who occupy the poorest sector of society. My research reveals stringent lines of exclusion that work to deny the poorest people in Kigali access to powerful government development programs, including cooperatives and small business loans. These lines of exclusion created through in-access to Vision 2020 coincide with other lines of exclusion that are produced through the governments construction of an official narrative of Rwandan history. By drawing on a comprehensive literature review of resistance theory, I attempt to make sense of the landscape of resistance inside Kigali. How do people who are excluded from both development and history navigate, react, and resist this exclusion? I end my project by using the varying forms of resistance I encountered in Kigali as a diagnostic of power. What interwoven forms of power are ordinary Rwandans caught up everyday? As Rwanda commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide this year in the midst of the controversial 2017 presidential elections, understanding how ordinary Rwandans make sense of their place and voice in society is critical.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2014/program/242