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Navigating the Urban “In-Between Space”: Local Livelihood and Identity Strategies in Exploiting the Goma/Gisenyi Border

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Violence on the Margins

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies ((PSABS))

Abstract

This chapter starts from an ethnographic study of the urban borderland of Goma (Democratic Republic of the Congo)-Gisenyi (Rwanda), and more specifically the border district Birere. This Congolese urban district is situated right upon the border with Rwanda, and it partly occupies the zone neutre or zone tampon, the natural buffer strip that runs along the border separating the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from Rwanda. In Birere, the geographic space connecting Goma to Gisenyi, two distinct political, economic and cultural worlds come together. Although they were created almost at the same moment, the evolution of these two cities (and two nations) has followed a different path.

Just like the bodies that are buried in the neutral zone, with their head in Congo and their feet in Rwanda. Somehow that is the reality of the inhabitants of Birere.1

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Authors
  1. Karen Büscher
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  2. Gillian Mathys
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Editor information

Benedikt Korf Timothy Raeymaekers

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© 2013 Benedikt Korf and Timothy Raeymaekers

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Büscher, K., Mathys, G. (2013). Navigating the Urban “In-Between Space”: Local Livelihood and Identity Strategies in Exploiting the Goma/Gisenyi Border. In: Korf, B., Raeymaekers, T. (eds) Violence on the Margins. Palgrave Series in African Borderlands Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137333995_5

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