Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Censuses, identity formation, and the struggle for political power
- 2 Racial categorization and censuses
- 3 Ethnic categorizations in censuses: comparative observations from Israel, Canada, and the United States
- 4 Language categories in censuses: backward- or forward-looking?
- 5 Resistance to identity categorization in France
- 6 On counting, categorizing, and violence in Burundi and Rwanda
- 7 Identity counts: the Soviet legacy and the census in Uzbekistan
- Index
- References
6 - On counting, categorizing, and violence in Burundi and Rwanda
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
By
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Censuses, identity formation, and the struggle for political power
- 2 Racial categorization and censuses
- 3 Ethnic categorizations in censuses: comparative observations from Israel, Canada, and the United States
- 4 Language categories in censuses: backward- or forward-looking?
- 5 Resistance to identity categorization in France
- 6 On counting, categorizing, and violence in Burundi and Rwanda
- 7 Identity counts: the Soviet legacy and the census in Uzbekistan
- Index
- References
Summary
There are few countries in the world where the acts of categorizing and counting people have been as omnipresent, crucial, and steeped in violent stakes as in Burundi and Rwanda. There are also few countries where social constructivist expectations regarding identity and category seem to be so well verified, and are actually being invoked (although without the scientific jargon) by local people themselves – alongside deeply essentialist interpretations. This article analyzes the techniques, functions, and stakes of population measurements and categorizations in both countries dating from the arrival of the colonial powers at the beginning of this century to the recent decades of independence, development, and violence.
This chapter focuses on two types of acts that are crucial to the exercise of power in Burundi and Rwanda. Part 1 deals with counting the administered: the process, during the colonial period and after, of calculating just how many people there actually were in each country. Although this seems the easiest and most value-neutral of all activities, the following pages will demonstrate that this is far from the case; these pages will also make clear to what extent even this simple act is linked to dynamics of power and resistance in the region.
In part 2, I discuss the much more complicated and sensitive matter of categorizing the population into relevant groups and then measuring these groups.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Census and IdentityThe Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses, pp. 148 - 175Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
References
Adelman, Howard and Suhrke, Astri 1996, Early Warning and Conflict Management, The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience, Copenhagen: Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, Vol. 2, March
Appadurai, Arjun 1993, “Number in the Colonial Imagination,” in Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van de Veer (eds.), Orientalism and the Post-colonial Predicament, Perspectives on South Asia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 314–39
Barandereka, Sylvestre and Berciu, Aurel 1988, “Burundi,” in Groupe de Démographie Africaine (ed.), Population Size in African Countries: An Evaluation, Vol. 2, Paris: IDP-INED-INSEE-MINCOOP-ORSTOM, pp. 49–70
Braeckman, Colette 1994, Génocide au Rwanda, Paris: Fayard
Chrétien, Jean-Pierre 1985, “Hutu et Tutsi au Rwanda et au Burundi,” in Jean-Loup Amselle and Edgar M'Bokolo (eds.), Au coeur de l'ethnie, Ethnies, tribalisme et Etat en Afrique, Paris: La Découverte, pp. 129–65
Chrétien, Jean-Pierre 1987, “Démographie et écologie en Afrique orientale à la fin du XIX siècle: une crise exceptionnelle,”Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 27: 43–59CrossRef
Chrétien, Jean-Pierre 1993, Burundi, L'histoire retrouvée. 25 ans de métier d'historien en Afrique, Paris: Karthala
Chrétien, Jean-Pierre (dir.) 1995, Rwanda, Les médias du genocide, Paris: Karthala
Coale, Ansley J. and Van De Walle, Etienne 1968, “Appendix: Notes on Areas for which Estimates Were Made but not Subject to a Detailed Study,” in William Brass, Ansley Coale, Paul Demeny et al. (eds.), The Demography of Tropical Africa, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 168–82
de Lame, Danielle 1996, Une colline entre mille ou le calme avant la tempête, Transformations et blocages du Rwanda rural, Tervure: Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale
Des Forges, Alison 1999, Leave None to Tell the Story, Genocide in Rwanda, New York: Human Rights Watch; Paris: Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme
, and 1991, “Deux mille collines pour les petits et les grands, Radioscopie des stéréotypes hutu et tutsi au Rwanda et au Burundi,”Politique Africaine 42: 65–73Google Scholar
Erny, Pierre 1994, Rwanda 1994, Paris: L'Harmattan
Feltz, Gaëtan 1995, “Ethnicité, Etat-nation et démocratisation au Rwanda et au Burundi,” in Manassé Esoavelomandroso and Gaëtan Feltz (eds.), Démocratie et développement, Mirrage ou espoir raisonnable?, Paris: Karthala, pp. 277–97
1995, “Généalogie du génocide rwandais, Hutu et Tutsi: Gaulois et Francs?”Les temps Modernes 50: 1–58Google Scholar
Funga, François 1991, “Pouvoir, ethnies et regions,” Dialogue, no. 149: 21–35
Gahama, Joseph 1983, Le Burundi sous administration belge, Paris: Karthala
Gravel, Pierre B. 1968, Remera, A Community in Eastern Ruanda, The Hague/Paris: Mouton
Grosse, Scott, Krasovec, K, Rwamasirabo, S, and Sibomana, J. B. E 1995, Evaluating Trends in Children's Nutritional Status in Rwanda, East Lansing: Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University
Grosse, Scott 1996, “Re: Critical Rwandology (2),” message on Rwandanet ([email protected]), 20 June
Guichaoua, André 1995, “Un lourd passé, un présent dramatique, un avenir des plus sombres,” in André Guichaou (ed.), Les crises politiques au Burundi et au Rwanda (1993–1994), Paris: Karthala; Lille: Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, pp. 19–51
Hiernaux, Jean 1954, Les caractères physiques des populations du Ruanda et de l'Urundi, Brussels: Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique
Kay, R. 1987, Burundi since the Genocide, London: Minority Rights Group
1966, “Power and Stratification in Rwanda: A Reconsideration,”Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 6, 4 (1966), 592–610CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemarchand, René 1970, Burundi and Rwanda, New York: Praeger
Lorimer, Frank 1961, Demographic Information on Tropical Africa, Boston: Boston University Press
Louis, Roger 1963, Ruanda-Urundi 1884–1919, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Mamdani, Mahmood 1996, Citizen and Subject, Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton: Princeton University Press
Maquet, Jacques 1961, The Premise of Inequality in Rwanda: A Study of Political Relations in a Central African Kingdom, London: Oxford University Press
Newbury, Catharine 1988, The Cohesion of Oppression, Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda 1860–1960, New York: Columbia University Press
Niyibizi, Silas 1986, “Rwanda,” in Groupe de Démographie Africaine (ed.), Population Size in African Countries: An Evaluation, Vol. 1, Paris: IDP-INED-INSEE-MINCOOP-ORSTOM, pp. 267–80
Nyrop, Richard F., Lyle E. Brennenman et al. 1974, Rwanda, A Country Study, Washington, DC: The American University, Foreign Area Studies
Physicians for Human Rights 1994, Rwanda 1994, A Report of the Genocide, London: Physicians for Human Rights
Prunier, Gérard 1995, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, New York: Columbia University Press
Ransdell, Eric 1994, “The Wounds of War,” US News and World Report 117 (28 November): 74–75
Rapport annuel sur l'administration belge du Ruanda et de l'Urundi, 1921 to 1961, Brussels: Gouvernement belge, Ministère des Colonies. (A report was published every year between 1921 and 1961.)
Reuters 1996, “UN Refugee Agency Suspends Operations in Camps,” 2 September
Schürings, Hildegard 1995, “La coopération de la République fédérale d'Allemagne avec le Burundi et le Rwanda,” in André Guichaoua (ed.), Les crises politiques au Burundi et au Rwanda (1993–1994), Paris: Karthala; Lille: Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, pp. 487–501
1998, “Population Statistics, the Holocaust, and the Nuremberg Trials,”Population and Development Review 24: 511–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1987, “Un siècle de croissance démographique au Burundi (1850–1950),”Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 27: 61–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1993, “Cultural Politics in an Age of Statistics: Numbers, Nations, and the Making of Basque Identity,”American Ethnologist 20: 818–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uvin, Peter 1998, Aiding Violence, The Development Enterprise in Rwanda, West Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press
Verrengia, Joseph B. 1996, “Gorilla Census to Begin as Civil War in Rwanda Subsides,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, 18 August
1974, “Economie de la société féodale rwandaise,”Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 14: 52–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Catherine 1991, Exile from Rwanda, Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees
Watson, Catherine 1993, Transition in Burundi, Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees
Willame, Jean-Claude 1995, Aux sources de l'hécatombe rwandaise, Paris: Karthala
- 7
- Cited by