Shaping claims to urban land : an ethnographic guide to governmentality in Bukavu’s hybrid space

Summary

This interdisciplinary study carries forward two equally weighted and certainly entwined projects. One is an empirical concern with hybridization in the shaping of claim-making practices in peri-urban Bukavu, in the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The other concerns operationalizing the construct of ‘hybridity’ through a particular reading of Foucault’s governmentality framework. The second, more theoretical, objective was made necessary by the discovery that most studies of ‘hybridity’, in precisely the spaces for which the construct was created, are troubled by both a problematic epistemological inheritance and ontological rigidity that appear to hobble their usefulness. An overarching element of these two concerns is, furthermore, the aspect of uncertainty: the uncertainty of those under study, claimants of land and authority, and the uncertainty of those studying, the claimants of knowledge.

This elaboration of governmentality for operationalization of hybridization in the shaping of claim-making practice is written as a thought-provoking, step-by-step guidance for other theoretically inclined academics seeking to apply (aspects of) a more ethnographically appropriate reading of governmentality to study complex forms of (resource) governance, not just in Bukavu, but anywhere around the world.

The theoretical concern motivating this study draws on the analytical potential of governmentality as a general framework for the study of the shaping of practice. Contrary to a particular large strand of Foucauldian inspired literature, this study does not see governmentality as a specific form of power or rationality of (neoliberal) rule. From several points of view, and with the use of the most relevant components of governmentality, artificially divided in an analytical triad of ‘discourse’, ‘power’, and ‘subjectivation’, this study demonstrates that an ethnographic reading of Foucault’s governmentality well fits hybridity’s declared, but inadequately operationalized assumption of simultaneity of a plurality of interpenetrating governance arrangements. Coherent use of this governmentality framework pushes us out of functionalist normative domains within which we interpret ‘the other’ and provides analytic tools to consistently trouble compartmentalized and binary thinking. It refuses the possibility of the external so it is not coherent to import analytic structures, such as Weberian ideals, from elsewhere. It enables researchers to study governance without biasing analysis towards often presupposed hierarchical dualities. And it provides a lens that shifts focus from actors, functions, and institutions to the co-constitutive relations emerging between claimants.

The empirical motivation for this study was the programmatically and ideologically convenient argument that hybridity provides a rich opportunity environment within which entrepreneurial subjects may forum shop. While the narrative of the enterprising, predictable, self-empowering subject who leverages hybridity to their advantage resonates elegantly within a particular strand of the hybridity literature, this study’s examination of this trope found little to celebrate in the context of Bukavu’s land administration, especially amongst the most vulnerable found in the city’s periphery.

Ever since the city’s official creation, at the very start of the previous century, Bukavu’s land administration has been characterized by competition, diversification, and fragmentation. Though this started under Belgian colonial rule, it became especially apparent and problematic under Mobutu’s kleptocratic reign. The regional conflicts of the mid-1990s and early 2000s, followed by never dissipating politics of war and explosive in-migration, have only put the city’s administration of scarce, highly sought-after land under further stress, exacerbating the population’s ethnic, social, and economic cleavages. Today, Bukavu’s fragmented and eroding landscape is fraught with competing groups and individuals laying claims on land and authority, continuously challenging each other’s contesting claims through violent and, occasionally, even deadly means.

The majority of residents in peri-urban Bukavu do not hold certificates that provide anything approximating secure land tenure. As such, they must rely on different, often competing, mechanisms of land administration in order to make and maintain claims to land. In addition to being of unstable worth, many land claimants in the city’s periphery believe that legal requirements for recognized, but temporary land ownership as set out in the country’s Land Code do not pertain to them, but only to those living in brick houses in the center of town. The fast pace of urbanization brings, however, a growing number of state representatives of provincial ministries as well as new, competing land claimants to areas of the city that were previously governed through diverse reinterpretations of customary land tenure rules, enabling new strategies and temporary alliances of and between claimants of land and authority in order to maintain recognition of their (officially uncertified) claims. The rapid urbanization of Bukavu does not equal modernization of its land administration. Land administration in post-conflict Bukavu does not follow overarching formal nor informal logics, does not consist of either statutory or customary certification, and is not made up of clear state and non-state institutions. Bukavu’s land administration is problematically hybridizing.

The shaping of claim-making practices in Bukavu is characterized by a constant and unpredictable intertwining of logics, instruments, symbols, and imaginaries, all of which pertaining to their own dynamically changing system of meaning and none of which are completely isolated or entirely specific to any particular practice. Neither land nor authority claimants can solely rely on statutory regulations, customary entitlements, ethnic belonging, fixed gender roles, military protection, political affiliation, associational membership, or interventions of international development organizations in order to secure their claims. Lasting recognition of claims requires constant renegotiation across a shifting diversity of competing subjects and their practices; all sustaining, challenging, redirecting, and contributing to hybridization of claim-making practices. This constant hybridization of the requirements of recognition compromises the security of any claim. Rather than securing definitive recognition, what is reciprocally maintained in this hybridization is permanent investment and perpetual uncertainty.

It is in this empirical and theoretical context that this research may be of interest to theoretically inclined academics interested in hybridity, conflict dynamics, and land governance, to practitioners familiar with working within complex governance arrangements as well as policymakers at donor headquarters looking for tools that better fit their operational position of immersion within hybridization than static descriptions of deviation from an impossible Weberian ideal.

This interdisciplinary study carries forward two equally weighted and certainly entwined projects. One is an empirical concern with hybridization in the shaping of claim-making practices in peri-urban Bukavu, in the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The other concerns operationalizing the construct of ‘hybridity’ through a particular reading of Foucault’s governmentality framework. The second, more theoretical, objective was made necessary by the discovery that most studies of ‘hybridity’, in precisely the spaces for which the construct was created, are troubled by both a problematic epistemological inheritance and ontological rigidity that appear to hobble their usefulness. An overarching element of these two concerns is, furthermore, the aspect of uncertainty: the uncertainty of those under study, claimants of land and authority, and the uncertainty of those studying, the claimants of knowledge.

This elaboration of governmentality for operationalization of hybridization in the shaping of claim-making practice is written as a thought-provoking, step-by-step guidance for other theoretically inclined academics seeking to apply (aspects of) a more ethnographically appropriate reading of governmentality to study complex forms of (resource) governance, not just in Bukavu, but anywhere around the world.

The theoretical concern motivating this study draws on the analytical potential of governmentality as a general framework for the study of the shaping of practice. Contrary to a particular large strand of Foucauldian inspired literature, this study does not see governmentality as a specific form of power or rationality of (neoliberal) rule. From several points of view, and with the use of the most relevant components of governmentality, artificially divided in an analytical triad of ‘discourse’, ‘power’, and ‘subjectivation’, this study demonstrates that an ethnographic reading of Foucault’s governmentality well fits hybridity’s declared, but inadequately operationalized assumption of simultaneity of a plurality of interpenetrating governance arrangements. Coherent use of this governmentality framework pushes us out of functionalist normative domains within which we interpret ‘the other’ and provides analytic tools to consistently trouble compartmentalized and binary thinking. It refuses the possibility of the external so it is not coherent to import analytic structures, such as Weberian ideals, from elsewhere. It enables researchers to study governance without biasing analysis towards often presupposed hierarchical dualities. And it provides a lens that shifts focus from actors, functions, and institutions to the co-constitutive relations emerging between claimants.

The empirical motivation for this study was the programmatically and ideologically convenient argument that hybridity provides a rich opportunity environment within which entrepreneurial subjects may forum shop. While the narrative of the enterprising, predictable, self-empowering subject who leverages hybridity to their advantage resonates elegantly within a particular strand of the hybridity literature, this study’s examination of this trope found little to celebrate in the context of Bukavu’s land administration, especially amongst the most vulnerable found in the city’s periphery.

Ever since the city’s official creation, at the very start of the previous century, Bukavu’s land administration has been characterized by competition, diversification, and fragmentation. Though this started under Belgian colonial rule, it became especially apparent and problematic under Mobutu’s kleptocratic reign. The regional conflicts of the mid-1990s and early 2000s, followed by never dissipating politics of war and explosive in-migration, have only put the city’s administration of scarce, highly sought-after land under further stress, exacerbating the population’s ethnic, social, and economic cleavages. Today, Bukavu’s fragmented and eroding landscape is fraught with competing groups and individuals laying claims on land and authority, continuously challenging each other’s contesting claims through violent and, occasionally, even deadly means.

The majority of residents in peri-urban Bukavu do not hold certificates that provide anything approximating secure land tenure. As such, they must rely on different, often competing, mechanisms of land administration in order to make and maintain claims to land. In addition to being of unstable worth, many land claimants in the city’s periphery believe that legal requirements for recognized, but temporary land ownership as set out in the country’s Land Code do not pertain to them, but only to those living in brick houses in the center of town. The fast pace of urbanization brings, however, a growing number of state representatives of provincial ministries as well as new, competing land claimants to areas of the city that were previously governed through diverse reinterpretations of customary land tenure rules, enabling new strategies and temporary alliances of and between claimants of land and authority in order to maintain recognition of their (officially uncertified) claims. The rapid urbanization of Bukavu does not equal modernization of its land administration. Land administration in post-conflict Bukavu does not follow overarching formal nor informal logics, does not consist of either statutory or customary certification, and is not made up of clear state and non-state institutions. Bukavu’s land administration is problematically hybridizing.

The shaping of claim-making practices in Bukavu is characterized by a constant and unpredictable intertwining of logics, instruments, symbols, and imaginaries, all of which pertaining to their own dynamically changing system of meaning and none of which are completely isolated or entirely specific to any particular practice. Neither land nor authority claimants can solely rely on statutory regulations, customary entitlements, ethnic belonging, fixed gender roles, military protection, political affiliation, associational membership, or interventions of international development organizations in order to secure their claims. Lasting recognition of claims requires constant renegotiation across a shifting diversity of competing subjects and their practices; all sustaining, challenging, redirecting, and contributing to hybridization of claim-making practices. This constant hybridization of the requirements of recognition compromises the security of any claim. Rather than securing definitive recognition, what is reciprocally maintained in this hybridization is permanent investment and perpetual uncertainty.

It is in this empirical and theoretical context that this research may be of interest to theoretically inclined academics interested in hybridity, conflict dynamics, and land governance, to practitioners familiar with working within complex governance arrangements as well as policymakers at donor headquarters looking for tools that better fit their operational position of immersion within hybridization than static descriptions of deviation from an impossible Weberian ideal.