Abstract
In this article, we explore the precarity of rural youth livelihoods in the aftermath of war in eastern Burundi. Combining ideas from agrarian studies and youth studies, we argue that a generational approach helps to expose structural problems of reproduction in rural communities. In the aftermath of civil war, young men and women experience their livelihoods and preparations for independent householding as ‘lacking’. They are aware of the unsustainability of current practices of land inheritance and farming, and their concerns orient them to other livelihood possibilities. Their responses to difficulties in social reproduction vary. Formal (secondary) education and gender in particular affect strategies of circular migration and marriage, and expose young people to hardship and violence in different ways. However, in contrast to what is often assumed in studies of rural African youth, most young people do aspire to a farming future, at some time and under better conditions.
Abstract
Nous explorons les ressources des jeunes ruraux dans l’est du Burundi après la guerre. En combinant des idées à partir des études agraires et des études sur la jeunesse nous défendons qu’une approche générationnelle assiste à exposer les problèmes structurels de la reproduction sociale des communes rurales. Les jeunes hommes et femmes éprouvent leurs moyens de subsistance et les préparations pour vivre en ménage indépendant comme ‘insuffisant’. Ils sont conscients que leur mode d’héritage des terres et la façon de les cultiver ne sont plus durables, cela les orientent vers des alternatives pour « trouver la vie ». Notamment, l’éducation formelle et du genre influencent les stratégies de la migration circulaire et du mariage, et expose les jeunes aux épreuves et aux violences en différentes manières. Contrairement aux suppositions souvent exprimées concernant les jeunes ruraux africains, la majorité des jeunes aspire à un avenir dans l’agriculture, dans des conditions meilleures.
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Notes
Interviews with community leaders were conducted in Kirundi, with the help of a Burundian female and male interpreter.
The analysis presented in this article is based primarily on oral testimonies, gathered via different methods.
The majority of survey respondents had fled their homes during the war: 44 per cent had spent time in Tanzanian refugee camps; 17.5 per cent had fled but remained within Burundi; only 30 per cent had stayed in their home area.
This estimate is based on a national survey conducted in 1998, which calculated the poverty line using ‘the costs of basic needs method’. This method takes the sum of two indicators: the food and the non-food poverty line (IMF, 2007, p. 13).
As part of the decentralisation plans, each commune in Bujumbura (administrative unit in the capital, 13 in total) conducted population consultations in order to develop a ‘Plan Communal de Développement Communautaire’. The reports (most from 2010) indicated great concern with youth unemployment.
Burundi has a turbulent history with (postcolonial) outbursts of violence in 1965, 1969, 1972, 1988 and 1991, and the civil war starting in 1993. The Arusha peace agreements were signed in 2000, but the last rebel group turned into a political party in April 2009. Since the elections of 2010, formations of new rebel groups have been signalled.
The emphasis on training may in part have been a result of the research being carried out in collaboration with an NGO. Nonetheless, various other studies on young people in Burundi have also noticed a remarkably high interest in education (Uvin, 2009; Sommers and Uvin, 2011).
Discriminatory governance practices in the past – including genocidal violence – privileged youth from particular regions (South) and ethnic backgrounds (Ganwa and Tutsi) in access to education (Ndikumana, 1998). In 2005, when the former Hutu rebel group CNDD-FDD was voted into power, they announced that primary education was henceforth ‘free’ for all, and selection criteria for post-primary education no longer included background characteristics.
Compare with Sommers (2012) observation that in Rwanda rural youth get ‘stuck’ in the city because they fear to return home a failure.
A third mentioned ‘strategy’ concerns political participation, especially in the light of the elections scheduled in the period of May to September 2010. However, most youth in these rural outskirts appeared not to be actively engaged in politics. One young man even lamented that youth in marginalised rural communities were ‘neglected’ in mobilisation campaigns by political leaders from the urban centres. It should be noted that political participation, given its association with war-time mobilisation and violence, was a sensitive topic and may therefore have been underreported by the youths.
Conversations and e-mail exchanges with NGO representative and Programme Coordinator, 2012.
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Berckmoes, L., White, B. Youth, Farming and Precarity in Rural Burundi. Eur J Dev Res 26, 190–203 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2013.53
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2013.53