Shaping Claims to Urban Land: An Ethnographic Guide to Governmentality in Bukavu's Hybrid Spaces

Fons van Overbeek

Open Access Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2022

Shaping Claims to Urban Land

An Ethnographic Guide to Governmentality in Bukavu's Hybrid Spaces

Fons van Overbeek

Volume 2 in the series Connectivity and Society in Africa

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110734539

Overview
Contents

About this book

The concept of 'hybridity' is often still poorly theorized and problematically applied by peace and development scholars and researchers of resource governance. This book turns to a particular ethnographic reading of Michel Foucault's Governmentality and investigates its usefulness to study precisely those mechanisms, processes and practices that hybridity once promised to clarify.

Claim-making to land and authority in a post-conflict environment is the empirical grist supporting this exploration of governmentality. Specifically in the periphery of Bukavu. This focus is relevant as urban land is increasingly becoming scarce in rapidly expanding cities of eastern Congo, primarily due to internal rural-to-urban migration as a result of regional insecurity. The governance of urban land is also important analytically as land governance and state authority in Africa are believed to be closely linked and co-evolve.

An ethnographic reading of governmentality enables researchers to study hybridization without biasing analysis towards hierarchical dualities. Additionally, a better understanding of hybridization in the claim-making practices may contribute to improved government intervention and development assistance in Bukavu and elsewhere.

Author / Editor information

Fons van Overbeek, Historian, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Figures and Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
Introduction: Shaping Claims to Land in Peri-Urban Bukavu
1 Introducing the study of claim-making practices in peri-urban Bukavu Open Access Download PDF	1
2 Bukavu’s Evolution: from La Ville Verte to La Ville Morte Open Access Download PDF	21
3 Operationalizing Hybridity through Governmentality Open Access Download PDF	64
PART I Regimes of Truth
4 Drawing (on) State Reasoning Open Access Download PDF	93
5 Constituting Claims to Authority on the Edge of Reason Open Access Download PDF	118
6 Navigating Uncertainty in the Maintenance of Claims to Authority Open Access Download PDF	161
7 Autochthony: Violent and Spatial Consequences of a Flexible Marker Open Access Download PDF	192
PART II Power and Technologies
8 Re-gendering Sexed Differentiations in Women’s Practices of Claiming Land Open Access Download PDF	213
9 The Politics of Life in La Ville Morte: Anarchic Buildings Open Access Download PDF	252
10 Contingent Technologies of Resistance at Sanctioned Construction Sites Open Access Download PDF	281
11 Contested Urban Space: Competing Claims to Sovereignty Open Access Download PDF	313
PART III Subjectivation and Space
12 Heterotopic Mapping of Mundane Threats to Land Claims in Bagira Open Access Download PDF	341
13 The Institution as an Imaginary: An Assessment of Urban Associations Open Access Download PDF	384
Conclusion: Hybridization in the Maintenance of Tenure Uncertainty Open Access Download PDF	411
Critique: Towards a Criticism of the Analytical and Methodological Rituals Open Access Download PDF	432
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	464
Index Open Access Download PDF	491

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Audience: Scholars of Anthropology, Sociology, History, African studies, Governmentality Studies, and Postcolonial studies
Pages
- Front matter: 15
- Main content: 494
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 15
- Line drawings: 2
- Maps: 2
- Tables: 5
Keywords: Governmentality; hybridity; urbanization; DRC

eBook

Published: October 3, 2022
ISBN: 9783110734539

Hardcover

Published: October 3, 2022
ISBN: 9783110738803