War, Displacement and Rural–Urban Transformation: Kivu’s Boomtowns, Eastern D.R. Congo
Abstract
This article addresses rural–urban transformations in the war-torn Kivu provinces. The spectacular growth and development processes of fast-expanding boomtowns in Kivu’s rural areas serve as an entry point to investigate the relationship between conflict, displacement, urbanisation and development in Eastern D.R. Congo. Based on qualitative research on urban expansion in different smaller towns in North and South Kivu, this article analyses the characteristics of these ‘new’ urban spaces. It demonstrates that boomtowns represent centres of opportunities as well as contestation, and that they play an important role in the economic dynamics of development as well as in the political dynamics of stability and conflict.
Keywords
DRC D.R. Congo Boomtown Conflict Urbanisation KivuRésumé
Cette étude traite les transformations rurales–urbaines dans les provinces du Nord et Sud Kivu (République Démocratique du Congo), ravagés par la guerre. La croissance et le développement spectaculaire des villes d'expansion rapide (en anglais : boomtowns) dans les zones rurales de Nord et Sud Kivu est utilisé comme point de départ pour étudier la relation entre le conflit, le déplacement, l’urbanisation et le développement dans l’est de la République Démocratique du Congo. Basé sur des recherches qualitatives sur l’expansion urbaine dans diverses petites villes au Nord et Sud du Kivu, cette étude analyse les caractéristiques de ces ‘nouveaux’ espaces urbaines. On démontre que les « boomtowns » sont des centres au même temps pleins d’opportunités et de contestation, et qu’elles jouent un rôle très important dans les dynamiques de l’économie du développement, ainsi que dans les dynamiques politiques du conflit et de la stabilité.
Notes
Acknowledgements
The research on Hombo Sud and Numbi has been made possible with the FWO Grant (G098012N) of the project “The social-economic impact of artisanal mining in Eastern Congo”. The research on Kitchanga was made possible through a grant from NWO-WOTRO (W 08.400.104) within the project “Looking through the lens of land”. Special thanks to Jeroen Cuvelier, Mathijs Van Leeuwen, Gemma van der Haar, and Lotje Devries for their indispensable help and input during the research. The authors wish to explicitly thank APC Bukavu and L.N, O.N, J.A.N, and one anonymous researcher for their indispensable help during the collection of data.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author states that there are no conflicts of interest.
References
- Bakewell, O., and A. Bonfiglio. 2013. Moving Beyond Conflict: Re-framing Mobility in the African Great Lakes Region. Working Paper 71, IMI Working Paper Series. Oxford: Oxford University.Google Scholar
- Beall, J., and S. Fox. 2009. Cities and Development. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Bertrand, M., and A. Dubresson. 1997. Petites et moyennes villes d’Afrique noire. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
- Björkdahl, and S. Buckley-Zistel (eds.). 2014. Spatializing Peace and Conflict; Mapping the Production of Places, Sites and Scales of Violence. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
- Branch, A. 2013. Gulu in War… and Peace? The Town as a Camp in Northern Uganda. Urban Studies 50 (15): 3152–3167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bryceson, D., and D. Mackinnon. 2012. Eureka and Beyond: Mining’s Impact on African Urbanisation. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 30 (4): 513–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Büscher, K. 2011. Violent Conflict, State Weakening and Processes of Urban Transformation in the Eastern Congolese Periphery. The Case of Goma. PhD, Ghent University. https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/2092391/file/4335807.
- Büscher, K. 2018a. African Cities and Violent Conflict: The Urban Dimension of Conflict and Post Conflict Dynamics in Central and Eastern Africa. Journal of Eastern African Studies 12 (2): 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Büscher, K. 2018b. Urbanisation and the Political Geographies of Violent Struggle for Power and Control: Mining Boomtowns in Eastern Congo. In African Cities and the Development Conundrum, ed. Amman, 302–324. Geneva: International Development Policy.Google Scholar
- Büscher, K., J. Cuvelier, and F. Mushobekwa. 2014. La dimension politique de l’urbanisme minière dans un context fragile de conflict armé; le cas de Nyabibwe. Annuaire de l’Afrique des Grands Lacs, 2013–2014.Google Scholar
- De Boeck, F. 2011. Inhabiting Ocular Ground: Kinshasa’s Future in the Light of Congo’s Spectral Urban Politics. Cultural Anthropology 26 (2): 263–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- De Boeck, F., A. Cassiman, and S. Van Wolputte. 2010. Recentering the City: An Anthropology of Secondary Cities in Africa. Leuven: IARA.Google Scholar
- De Saint Moulin, L. 2010. Villes et Organisation de l’Espace en République Démocratique du Congo. Cahiers Africains, 77.Google Scholar
- Della Porta, D., and M. Keating. 2008. Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Dobler, G. 2009. Oshikango: The Dynamics of Growth and Regulation in a Namibian Boom Town. Journal of Southern African Studies 35: 115–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Englebert, P., and E. Kasongo. 2016. Misguided and Misdiagnosed: The Failure of Decentralisation Reforms in the DR Congo. African Studies Review 59 (1): 5–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Freund, B. 2011. Kinshasa: An Urban Elite Considers City, Nation and State. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 29 (1): 33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Geenen, K. 2012. How the People of Butembo (RDC) Were Chosen to Embody ‘The New Congo’: or What the Appearance of a Poster in a City’s Public Places Can Teach About Its Social Tissue. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36 (3): 448–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Geenen, S. 2011. Local Livelihoods, Global Interests and the State in the Congolese Mining Sector. In Natural Resources and Local Livelihoods in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, ed. Ansoms, 149–169. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hoffman, D. 2007. The city as barracks: Freetown, Monrovia, and the Organization of Violence in Postcolonial African Cities. Cultural Anthropology 22 (3):400–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hoffmann, K., and K. Vlassenroot. 2014. Armed Groups and the Exercise of Public Authority: The Cases of the Mayi- Mayi and Raya Mutomboki in Kalehe, South Kivu. Peacebuilding 2 (2): 202–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Iyenda, G. 2001. Street Food and Income Generation for Poor Households in Kinshasa. Environment and Urbanisation 13 (2): 233–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Jackson, S. 2006. Sons of Which Soil? The Language and Politics of Autochthony in Eastern D.R. Congo. African Studies Review 49 (2): 95–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lange, M. 2010. Refugee Return and Root Causes of Conflict. Forced Migration Review 36: 48–49.Google Scholar
- Lourenço-Lindell, I. 2007. The Multiple Sites of Urban Governance: Insights from an African City. Urban Studies 45 (9): 1879–1901.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Mathys, G. 2017. Bringing history back in: Past, present, and conflict in rwanda and the eastern democratic republic of congo. The Journal of African History 58 (03):465–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Mathys, G., and K. Büscher. 2018. Violent Conflict, Displacement and Urbanisation in Eastern Congo: The Case of Kitchanga. Journal of Eastern African Studies 12 (2): 232–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Oldenburg, S. 2018. Agency, Social Space and Conflict-Urbanism in Eastern Congo. Journal of Eastern African Studies 12 (2): 254–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Peyton, D. 2018. Wartime Speculation: Property Markets and Institutional Change in Eastern Congo’s Urban Centres. Journal of Eastern African Studies 12 (2): 211–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Raeymaekers, T. 2014. Captured Lives: the Precarious Space of Youth Displacement in Eastern DRC. In Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity, ed. Amanda Hammer. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
- Robinson, J. 2006. Inventions and Interventions: Transforming Cities—An Introduction. Urban Studies 43 (2): 251–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Schouten, P., J. Murairi, and S. Kubuya. 2017. Everything that Moves Will Be Taxed; The Political Economy of Roadblocks in North and South Kivu. Research Report Antwerp/Copenhagen: IPIS/DISS.Google Scholar
- Stearns, J. 2012. The Background to Conflict in North Kivu Province of Eastern Congo. London: Rift Valley Institute.Google Scholar
- Stearns, J., and C. Vogel. 2015. The Landscape of Armed Groups in Eastern Congo. Congo Research Group, Centre on International Cooperation (http://www.congoresearchgroup.org/essay-the-landscape-of-armed-groups-in-eastern-congo-2/).
- Trefon, T. 2004. Reinventing Order in the Congo. How People Respond to State Failure in Kinshasa. London, New York, Kampala: Zed Books; Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
- Udelsmann Rodrigues, C. 2017. Urban Modernity versus the Blood Diamond Legacy: Angola’s Urban Mining Settlements in the Aftermath of War. Journal of Southern African Studies 46 (6): 1215–1234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Van Overbeek, F., and P. Tamas. 2018. Autochthony and Insecure Land Tenure: The Spatiality of Ethnicized Hybridity in the Periphery of Post-conflict Bukavu, DRC Migrants? Journal of Eastern African Studies 12 (2): 290–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Verhoeve, A. 2004. Conflict and the Urban Space: The Socio-Economic Impact of Conflict on the City of Goma. In Conflict and Social Transformation in Eastern Congo, ed. Koen Vlassenroot and Tim Raeymaekers, 103–122. Ghent: Academia.Google Scholar
- Verweijen, J. 2016. A Microcosm of Militarisation: Conflict, Governance and Armed Mobilization in Uvira, South Kivu. Usalama Project Report. London: Rift Valley Institute.Google Scholar
- Vlassenroot, K. 2002. Citizenship, Identity Formation and Conflict in South Kivu: The Case of the Banyamulenge. Review of African Political Economy 29 (93/94): 499–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vlassenroot, K. 2006. War and Social Research. The Limits of Empirical Methodologies in War-Torn Environments. Civilisations 54: 191–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vlassenroot, K., and K. Büscher. 2013. Borderlands, Identity and Urban Development: The Case of Goma (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Urban Studies 50 (15): 3168–3184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Vlassenroot, K., and T. Raeymaekers. 2004. Conflict and Social Transformation in Eastern D.R. Congo. Ghent: Academia.Google Scholar
- Vlassenroot, K., E. Mudinga, and K. Hoffmann. 2016. Contesting Authority; Armed Rebellion and Military Fragmentation in Walikale and Kalehe, North and South Kivu. Usalama Project. http://www.google.be/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwj3biHgoTVAhWCUlAKHTYzCpIQFggjMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Friftvalley.net%2Fdownload%2Ffile%2Ffid%2F4219&usg=AFQjCNFGJ3OxNyCC_7VuyLHzxoCx0fLL0w.
- Werthmann, K. 2009. Working in a Boom-Town: Female Perspectives on Gold-Mining in Burkina Faso. Resources Policy 34: 18–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- World Bank. 2018. Democratic Republic of Congo; Urbanisation Review; Productive and Inclusive Cities for an Emerging Democratic Republic of Congo. Directions in Development. Washington: World Bank Group.Google Scholar