Abstract

The Great Lakes region of Africa (DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda) stands out as a region that has suffered tremendous violence in the colonial and post-colonial periods. From anti-slavery campaigns to today’s peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions, Westerners have often justified their involvement in the region using arguments about progress and peace. This presentation will discuss the effects of contemporary efforts to ‘bring peace’ to the region. Drawing on field-work primarily in Burundi, the presentation will discuss the tensions that occur within and between many of the actors involved in the peace industry as well as their intended beneficiaries. Rather than seeing peace programmes, activities and initiatives as practices that are conceived and authored in Western capitals and in the corridors of the United Nations, the presentation will discuss the multiple ways in which peacebuilding practices are questioned, subverted, re-appropriated and redesigned by Burundians. It explores the logic of peace, and the effects of the technologies, tools and language of peacebuilding.

More information about Dr Curtis and her research is available at http://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/Staff_and_Students/dr-devon-curtis