Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi
The paper investigates the politics and social impact of post-war ‘respacing for peace’ strategies in Burundi from within a set of concrete and contested spatial arrangements –post-war socio-spatial experiments properly speaking— including ‘peace villages,’ IDP site clearances, and land sharing. The...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Wiley
2017
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| _version_ | 1797053642739548160 |
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| author | Purdekova, A |
| author_facet | Purdekova, A |
| author_sort | Purdekova, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | The paper investigates the politics and social impact of post-war ‘respacing for peace’ strategies in Burundi from within a set of concrete and contested spatial arrangements –post-war socio-spatial experiments properly speaking— including ‘peace villages,’ IDP site clearances, and land sharing. The paper takes a critical look at these reconfigurations, and the resistances and manipulations that result when people (or their remains) are moved or placed in the name of ‘coexistence,’ ‘integration’ and ‘sharing’ after the war. In this way, the paper contributes to post-conflict planning literature that is mostly concerned with overcoming segregation and cleansing through ‘integration’ by exploring some of the complexities and problems that can arise with unquestioned embrace of the latter. The paper shows that a very particular and problematic logic of ‘ethnic’ coexistence and ‘physical’ integration drives post-war respacing in Burundi, and that people resist it both with reflexive and physical space strategies. Through a set of paradoxes – refusal to return and staying put, or re-emigration as a response to settling — the paper explores why respacing-for-peace might produce, or fail to prevent, its opposite— conflict, tension and segregation. In the process, the paper questions the dominant ethnic frame through which Burundi conflict (and peace-building) continue to be analysed. The fraught ‘social production,’ however, derives not only from flawed conceptual grids but also political utilities that drive post-war placement and build-up alongside and in contradiction to stated social goals. Finally, the paper shows the utility of a bottom-up approach to tracing transitions to peace. Concepts of ‘ontopolitics’ and ‘orientations’ in space are used to observe the state-citizen bond in production, negotiation, under discussion and in question. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T18:46:32Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:0eb71e8b-0748-4a7a-ab92-c74c0a8dd079 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T18:46:32Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:0eb71e8b-0748-4a7a-ab92-c74c0a8dd0792022-03-26T09:47:25ZRespacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in BurundiJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:0eb71e8b-0748-4a7a-ab92-c74c0a8dd079Symplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2017Purdekova, AThe paper investigates the politics and social impact of post-war ‘respacing for peace’ strategies in Burundi from within a set of concrete and contested spatial arrangements –post-war socio-spatial experiments properly speaking— including ‘peace villages,’ IDP site clearances, and land sharing. The paper takes a critical look at these reconfigurations, and the resistances and manipulations that result when people (or their remains) are moved or placed in the name of ‘coexistence,’ ‘integration’ and ‘sharing’ after the war. In this way, the paper contributes to post-conflict planning literature that is mostly concerned with overcoming segregation and cleansing through ‘integration’ by exploring some of the complexities and problems that can arise with unquestioned embrace of the latter. The paper shows that a very particular and problematic logic of ‘ethnic’ coexistence and ‘physical’ integration drives post-war respacing in Burundi, and that people resist it both with reflexive and physical space strategies. Through a set of paradoxes – refusal to return and staying put, or re-emigration as a response to settling — the paper explores why respacing-for-peace might produce, or fail to prevent, its opposite— conflict, tension and segregation. In the process, the paper questions the dominant ethnic frame through which Burundi conflict (and peace-building) continue to be analysed. The fraught ‘social production,’ however, derives not only from flawed conceptual grids but also political utilities that drive post-war placement and build-up alongside and in contradiction to stated social goals. Finally, the paper shows the utility of a bottom-up approach to tracing transitions to peace. Concepts of ‘ontopolitics’ and ‘orientations’ in space are used to observe the state-citizen bond in production, negotiation, under discussion and in question. |
| spellingShingle | Purdekova, A Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi |
| title | Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi |
| title_full | Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi |
| title_fullStr | Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi |
| title_full_unstemmed | Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi |
| title_short | Respacing for peace? Post-war socio-spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in Burundi |
| title_sort | respacing for peace post war socio spatial experiments and the ontopolitics of rural planning in burundi |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT purdekovaa respacingforpeacepostwarsociospatialexperimentsandtheontopoliticsofruralplanninginburundi |