Contested Identities: Power and the Fictions of Ethnicity, Ethnography and History in Rwanda

Authors

  • Villia Jefremovas Carleton University

Abstract

This article examines the process through which different interpretations of ethnicity and statehood in Rwanda have been used to create and justify policies of exclusion, inclusion and claims to legitimacy, from the colonial period to the present day. Arguing that the roots of such politics can be found in the politics of the precolonial state, it considers how they have been transformed, not created, by colonial and postcolonial governments. Viewing the representation of ethnicity and statehood over time as fictions of ethnicity, ethnography and history, this article illustrates the process of creation and recreation of these fictions and their impact on Rwandan lives.

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Author Biography

Villia Jefremovas, Carleton University

Villia Jefremovas is an anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Toronto. Currently she is a consultant working in International Development on social and health issues. She has also provided political briefings and analysis on the Great Lakes region of Africa for the UN, CBC, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Privy Council, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and various international NGOs. She teaches as a sessional lecturer at Carleton University in Geography and at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs. Her best-known publication is "Loose Women, Virtuous Wives and Timid Virgins: Gender and the Control of Resources in Rwanda" Canadian fournal of African Studies, 25(3), 1991.

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Published

2022-06-07

How to Cite

Jefremovas, V. (2022). Contested Identities: Power and the Fictions of Ethnicity, Ethnography and History in Rwanda. Anthropologica, 39(1-2), 91–104. Retrieved from https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/2055

Issue

Vol. 39 No. 1-2 (1997)

Section

Fictions of Law

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