2008

Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2008

The publications on the modernized gacaca courts dealing with the legacy of the Rwandan genocide are abundant and they often seem to be rife with diverging analysis and conclusions. This article argues that the seeming lack of consensus does not signal the impossibility of adequately representing the gacaca courts. This article does not dwell on the crisis of representation. Instead, an effort is made to provide clarity in a disorder of representations in the context of a political anthropology that works across localized, national and international networks and dynamics. The process of establishing a representation of the gacaca courts is scrutinized. Numerical legibility, magic syllogisms and performative speech lie at the heart of the process that generates an ideological representation of the modern gacaca courts upheld by the Rwandan regime and its agents. In addition, a first generation of academic studies on gacaca is characterized by magical legalism: they depict a theoretical model that is primarily based on law or law talk. A second generation of gacaca studies mainly adopt a bottom-up perspective that is often ethnographically informed. A focus on actual gacaca practice not only constitutes an alternative research approach but also unmasks and destabilizes the process of 'making models'. But dangers exist regarding these alternative types of representational strategies as well, especially due to uncritical blurring of reigning models and actual practice. The analysis suggests new avenues of investigation and reflection in the fields of the anthropology of transitional justice, international relations and peacebuilding.

2010

2013

Democratization, 2018

The lack of convergence towards liberal democracy in some African countries reflects neither a permanent state of political aberration, nor necessarily a prolonged transitional phase through which countries pass once the “right” conditions are met. Examining the cases of two ruling parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the African National Congress in South Africa, we develop the concept of productive liminality to explain countries suspended (potentially indefinitely) in a status “betwixt and between” mass violence, authoritarianism, and democracy. On the one hand, their societies are in a liminal status wherein a transition to democracy and socio-economic “revolution” remains forestalled; on the other hand, this liminality is instrumentalized to justify the party’s extraordinary mandate characterized by: (a) an idea of an incomplete project of liberation that the party alone is mandated to fulfil through an authoritarian social contract, and (b) the claim that this unfulfilled revolution is continuously under threat by a coterie of malevolent forces, which the party alone is mandated to identify and appropriately sanction.

African Studies Review, 2016

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.

2013

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