On counting, categorizing, and violence in Burundi and Rwanda

Abstract

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.

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