Papers by Andrea Purdekova
Memory Studies, 2018
While conflict is often understood across multiple levels, including its regional dimension, peac... more While conflict is often understood across multiple levels, including its regional dimension, peacebuilding and memory work are rarely put in conversation at this level. The article explores regional dimensions of memory and argues that these open a novel and analytically productive lens on the nature and legacy of cross-border conflict and can bolster peacebuilding approaches. Taking the key case study of the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and specifically the regionalizing dimensions of the Rwandan genocide, the article investigates the impact of two very different regional dimensions of memory on social cohesion. First, the article considers the more intuitive ways in which grievances that extend across borders and fractured regional memories continue to fuel conflict. Second, and pushing beyond this, the article considers the ways in which returning diaspora deploys memory born in the wider region in attempts at nation-building. The article thus deploys a dynamic approach to memor...
Development and Change, 2017
This article investigates the politics and social impact of postwar 'respacing for peace' strateg... more This article investigates the politics and social impact of postwar 'respacing for peace' strategies in Burundi from within a set of contested spatial arrangementspost-war socio-spatial experiments properly speaking-including peace villages, IDP site clearances, and land sharing. The paper takes a critical look at these reconfigurations, and the resistances and manipulations that result when people (or their remains) are moved or placed in the name of coexistence, integration and sharing after the war. In this way, the paper contributes to post-conflict planning literature that is mostly concerned with overcoming segregation and cleansing through integration by exploring some of the complexities and problems that can arise with unquestioned embrace of the latter. The paper shows that a very particular and problematic logic of ethnic coexistence and physical integration drives postwar respacing in Burundi and that people resist it with strategies in both physical and reflexive space. Proceeding through a set of paradoxesrefusal to return and staying put, or re-emigration as a response to settlingthe article explores how and why respacing-for-peace might produce, or fail to prevent, the opposite outcome: community conflict, social tension and segregation.
International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2017
The paper investigates unofficial commemoration practices, interaction with sites of memory and t... more The paper investigates unofficial commemoration practices, interaction with sites of memory and the fate of materiality of memory-mass gravesites and their remains-in the context of Burundi's stalled transitional justice process. The focus lies on postwar spaces where material remnants of a violent past struggle against new layers of developmental, infrastructural build-up and political disincentive. The paper explores three concrete sites of violence in Burundi as these confront different forms of erasure and displacement of memory ranging from physical removal, misplacement of remains to symbolic delinkage. In the process, the paper revisits notions of the public secret, the labor of the negative and truth as revelation. The paper closes with reflections on the latest developments and concretely whether the establishment in 2014 of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission spells a decisive break with the past.
Journal of Refugee Studies, 2016
Ahead of the 2015 contested elections, Burundi got embroiled in a vast refugee crisis only a deca... more Ahead of the 2015 contested elections, Burundi got embroiled in a vast refugee crisis only a decade after the end of the civil war. Against the official government efforts to depoliticize the crisis, the paper draws on interviews with Burundians across space and time to underscore the fundamentally political character of migration decisions after the war, and argues for the applicability of the social contract theory for a bottom-up conception of political incorporation and citizenship. The evidence suggests that the current wave is no 'repeat' but rather that people are entrenching in displacement against the negative trust capital incurred by the state. People's narratives complicate the very terms of displacement by offering an alternative conception of belonging-through transtemporal and transnational comparisons, they see their movements as amongst a set of 'partial citizenship regimes.' More broadly, the paper hopes to contribute to our understanding of anticipatory movement, re-displacement and entrenchment (as the refusal to move) and, more broadly, people's politico-spatial orientations in postwar space as well as the subversions of this order from below through strategies both physical and discursive. 1 Most Burundians left before the elections took place in July 2015, amidst intimidation and uncertainty about the future. The main countries of destination include Tanzania, Rwanda and the DRC. 2 The UNHCR has proclaimed the 2002 mass repatriation of close to a half-million refugees as 'one of the most successful operations on the African continent' (see UNHCR 2008). 3 See IRRI reports on the different types of pressure faced by the 1990s refugees (IRRI 2009, 2011, 2013).
Choice Reviews Online, 2016
Rwanda Fast Forward
rwanda-e91beac73aca. 2 The failure to intervene and the silent bystander status of the internatio... more rwanda-e91beac73aca. 2 The failure to intervene and the silent bystander status of the international community in 1994 is the cornerstone of political narratives in Rwanda and is often highlighted during commemorative periods by the President and the political class more broadly. The guilt, argues Filip Reyntjens, has been turned into 'genocide credit.' See, Filip Reyntjens, "Rwanda, Ten Years on: From Genocide to Dictatorship," African Affairs 103, no. 411 (2004), 200. Beyond Rwanda, the lack of international effort to prevent and later stop the genocide has left a deep imprint on international conscience and has made genocide a cornerstone of the R2P norm and accompanying architecture developed since 1994. 3 Early warning specifically, rather than risk assessment.
The Journal of Modern African Studies, 2011
ABSTRACTBased on seven months of fieldwork research, the present article explores the nature and ... more ABSTRACTBased on seven months of fieldwork research, the present article explores the nature and ‘reach’ of the state in post-genocide Rwanda, and its effects on decentralisation, participation and assertion of voice at the local level. Rwanda as a case of a ‘strong’ African state is explored through a number of lenses: the vertical structure (administrative and information apparatuses of the state); the lateral structure (multiple responsibilities, imihigo, indirect control); the spectrum of state-led ‘local’ activities; and, last but not least, the ‘counterweights’ to the state. The article suggests an increasing penetration of state in terms of surveillance as well as exactions (couched in terms of umusanzu or contribution) and control over voice at local level. Decentralisation amounts to mere ‘dispatching of control’, making central power more, not less, effective.
Critical African Studies
While academic literature has long explored the ways in which colonial reification of identity an... more While academic literature has long explored the ways in which colonial reification of identity and narratives underpinning unequal racialised status of colonial subjects contributed to cycles of vi...
International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2019
The paper investigates whether and how public amnesia of violent incidents such as mass drownings... more The paper investigates whether and how public amnesia of violent incidents such as mass drownings or mass killings impacts ongoing conflict dynamics. Specifically, the paper compares and contrasts two forms of public amnesia in the relatively little-studied space of the rectified site-a site of violence returned to prior use without 'monumentation' or commemoration. Looking at the unmarked sites of violence in East Africa's confrontation with Al-Shabaab such as the Westgate Mall and the Mediterranean crossings within the system of migration deterrence, the paper asks: How do rectification practices and associated public production of silence feed into conflict dynamics and conflict transformation? The paper shows that while public amnesia tends to entrench the confrontation, recognition through commemoration needs to be calibrated carefully in order to avoid further conflict escalation. Epistemic redress must precede physical and symbolic memory work in rectified sites of violence.
International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2017
This article investigates unofficial commemoration practices, interaction with sites of memory an... more This article investigates unofficial commemoration practices, interaction with sites of memory and the fate of the materiality of memory – mass gravesites and their remains – in the context of Burundi's stalled transitional justice (TJ) process. The focus lies on postwar spaces where material remnants of a violent past struggle against new layers of developmental, infrastructural build-up and political disincentive. The article explores three concrete sites of violence in Burundi as these confront different forms of erasure and displacement of memory, ranging from physical removal and misplacement of remains to symbolic delinkage. In the process, the notions of the public secret, the labor of the negative and truth as revelation are revisited. The article closes with reflections on the latest developments in TJ in Burundi and whether the establishment in 2014 of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission spells a decisive break with the past.
K E Y W OR D S : commemoration, sites of violence, exhumation, Burundi, labor of the negative
African Studies Review, 2016
By tracing the Rwandan state’s “mundane sights”—everyday forms of pres- ence and monitoring—the a... more By tracing the Rwandan state’s “mundane sights”—everyday forms of pres- ence and monitoring—the article sheds light on the historical development and striking continuities in “interactive surveillance” across a century of turbulent polit- ical change. It considers three emblematic surveillance technologies—the institu- tion of nyumbakumi, the identity card, and umuganda works (and public activities more broadly)—which, despite their implication in genocide, were retained, reworked, and even bolstered after the conflict ended. The article investigates what drives the observed continuity and “layering” of social monitoring over time, highlighting the key role played by ambiguity and ambivalence in this process. The research expands the concept of political surveillance, moving away from the unidirectional notion of “forms of watching,” and questions any easy distinctions between visibility and invis- ibility in the exercise of power or its subversion.
Ahead of the 2015 contested elections, Burundi got embroiled in a vast refugee crisis only a deca... more Ahead of the 2015 contested elections, Burundi got embroiled in a vast refugee crisis only a decade after the end of the civil war. Against the official government efforts to depoliticize the crisis, the article draws on interviews with Burundians across space and time to underscore the fundamentally political character of migration decisions after the war, and argues for the applicability of the social contract theory for a bottom-up conception of political incorporation and citizenship. The evidence suggests that the current wave is no ‘repeat’, but rather that people are entrenching in displacement against the negative trust capital incurred by the state. People’s narratives complicate the very terms of displacement by offering an alternative conception of belonging—through transtemporal and transnational comparisons, they see their movements as amongst a set of ‘partial citizenship regimes’. More broadly, the article hopes to contribute to our understanding of re-displacement and entrenchment (as the refusal to move) and, more broadly, people’s politico-spatial orientations in post-war space as well as the subversions of this order from below through strategies both physical and discursive.
Le présent article examine l' « espace intermédiaire » peu étudié de la gouvernementalité -les ra... more Le présent article examine l' « espace intermédiaire » peu étudié de la gouvernementalité -les rationalités et les stratégies destinées à faciliter le progrès dans la réalisation des buts du gouvernement, quels qu'ils soient (c'est-à-dire la préservation du pouvoir lui-même ou de la biopolitique). Surtout, notre article situe la gouvernementalité rwandaise dans un contexte social et culturel plus large et explore trois stratégies dominantes de la gouvernementalité -la mise en ordre, le confinement et la purification -ainsi que trois « méta-modes » transversales de gouvernementalité -création de la présence, création de surfaces et direction. Notre étude tente de contester la conception d'une gouvernementalité qui totalise et contrôle, en montrant comment elle s'efforce non seulement de mouler les « socio-paysages » environnants, mais aussi comment elle est elle-même « formée » par une dynamique plus large. Ainsi qu'on le verra, une analyse assez fine de la gouvernementalité rwandaise souligne à la fois la force et la fragilité du système de gouvernement post-génocide. 3 PURDEKOVÁ, A., Political Projects
Based on seven months of fieldwork research, the present article explores the nature and 'reach' ... more Based on seven months of fieldwork research, the present article explores the nature and 'reach' of the state in post-genocide Rwanda, and its effects on decentralisation, participation and assertion of voice at the local level. Rwanda as a case of a 'strong' African state is explored through a number of lenses: the vertical structure (administrative and information apparatuses of the state); the lateral structure (multiple responsibilities, imihigo, indirect control); the spectrum of state-led 'local' activities; and, last but not least, the 'counterweights' to the state. The article suggests an increasing penetration of state in terms of surveillance as well as exactions (couched in terms of umusanzu or contribution) and control over voice at local level. Decentralisation amounts to mere 'dispatching of control', making central power more, not less, effective.
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Jan 1, 2008
Uploads
Papers by Andrea Purdekova
K E Y W OR D S : commemoration, sites of violence, exhumation, Burundi, labor of the negative
K E Y W OR D S : commemoration, sites of violence, exhumation, Burundi, labor of the negative