Search results

Based on multisited fieldwork in Kigali, Rwanda, Belgium, and the Netherlands following the political crisis in Burundi in 2015, we explore decisions and plans for the future among Burundians in exile. In this way, we contribute to research about future making and social reproduction in families in a transnational social field affected by crisis. Adding to the literature, we show the specific effe

African migrants have become increasingly demonised in public debate and political rhetoric. There is much speculation about the incentives and trajectories of Africans on the move, and often these speculations are implicitly or overtly geared towards discouraging and policing their movements. What is rarely understood or scrutinised however, are the intricate ways in which African migrants are ma

Through the lens of Burundians who have been displaced by the recent crisis in Burundi and their anticipations of possible futures for themselves and their country, expressed in the emotions of hope, anxiety and despair, this paper explores the shift from a situation characterized by upheaval towards the crystallization of authoritarian rule in Burundi. Through ethnographic research amongst Burund

Burundi has been through several cycles of violence and relative peace over the past decades, resulting in a sizable diaspora in the region and in Europe and North America. This diaspora has been engaged in long-distance politics, aided by the development of ICT. Based on long term fieldwork in the diaspora for two decades, we explore how the relations between the digital diasporas and the conflic

Reflections on Life in Ghettos, Camps and Prisons explores the relationship between ghettos, camps, places of detention and prisons with a focus on those people who are confined, encamped, imprisoned, detained, stuck, or forcibly removed through the lens of ‘stuckness’.From a point of departure in anthropology, with important contributions from criminology, geography and philosophy, the chapters e

This article analyses Iwawa, a rehabilitation centre for ‘delinquent’ young men in Rwanda. Like prisons, detention centres and refugee camps elsewhere, Iwawa is both a place of nurture and abandonment; of improving life and disallowing it. We argue that in order to grasp these tensions, we might pay attention to the role of death in disciplining those who are confined. A common way for these young

This Introduction to the special issue develops a theoretical argument around the interrelations of space and time in sites of confinement by exploring the relationships between ghettos, camps, places of detention, prisons and the like with a focus on those people who are confined, encamped, imprisoned, detained, stuck, or forcibly removed and who are doing their utmost to cope or escape. We explo

In this chapter, the author deals with how moral attributes are assigned to particular diasporas or parts of a diaspora, developing his argument both conceptually and with respect to the Rwandan government's construction of diaspora. The Rwandan government does what it can to attract investments and encourage return migration of those abroad who are believed to be supportive of the regime (its 'po

This article is a commentary on Saskia Sassen's recent book, 'Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy'. in the Book Forum, Sassen responds to this commentary together with two others.