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Becoming Rwandan: Paths to Integration for the Potters

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BECOMING RWANDAN: PATHS TO INTEGRATION FOR THE POTTERS ____________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Chico ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Anthropology ____________ by Anna Rushton Kamanzi Spring 2016 BECOMING RWANDAN: PATHS TO INTEGRATION FOR THE POTTERS A Thesis by Anna Rushton Kamanzi Spring 2016 APPROVED BY THE INTERIM DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES: _________________________________ Sharon Barrios, Ph.D. APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: ______________________________ _________________________________ Guy Q. King, Ph.D. David A. Eaton Jr., Ph.D., Chair Graduate Coordinator _________________________________ William Loker, Ph.D. DEDICATION To Bruce My sounding board, my translator, my husband My sample of one. I love you. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I would like to extend my deepest gratitude and sincerest appreciation to Dr. David A. Eaton, Jr. whose mentorship, kindness, support, phenomenal teaching, and countless hours of advice have meant more to me than I can ever say. Your introduction to this beautiful continent has provided a means for endless exploration and adventure. I am honored to count you among my friends and I look forward to continuing to work together in the future. I would also like to extend my sincerest thanks to my second committee member, Dr. Loker. Your patience and guidance throughout this process have been invaluable. To my mom and Janice, thank you for your patience, support, and help with my daughter while I completed classes, research, and writing. Your hard work and dedication has been nothing short of inspiring. Amaya, thank you for your amazing spirit and willingness to move across the world with me. We sacrificed a great deal so I could pursue this degree and research project and I am forever grateful that you were by my side through it all. To my husband, thank you for your tireless help with this project and your support at home so I could finish writing. Dr. Dizard, and Dr. Brazeal have guided and inspired me throughout my time as a graduate student at Chico State. Your poignant observations, insistence on betterment, and constant encouragement has made me a stronger, more capable, and better prepared anthropologist. Thank you to the entire Anthropology Department for iv always supporting my work and for providing a nurturing academic home for many years. Finally, to the Twa community and all of the Rwandans who have welcomed and encouraged my research, murakoze cyane. I have enjoyed the friendships, laughter, and honesty we shared and I look forward to meeting again. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Dedication................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... iv List of Figures............................................................................................................. viii Abstract....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I. Studying Rwanda’s Twa Community ...................................................... 1 Introduction .................................................................................. 1 Encountering the Everyday – Struggles for the Twa.................... 3 Reflections on Daily Life ............................................................. 8 Objectives..................................................................................... 12 Fieldwork in Rwanda’s “Land of a Thousand Hills” ................... 14 Thesis Outline............................................................................... 18 II. Challenges in Representation and the Retelling of History...................... 20 Pygmy Representation in Western Scholarship: Historical Overview............................................................................... 20 Mythologizing Pygmies................................................................ 24 The Pygmy Question .................................................................... 28 A Cultural Approach .................................................................... 30 A Path in the Forest: Twa History................................................ 31 From Forest to Village: the Colonial Period ................................ 33 From Independence to Genocide.................................................. 37 III. Understanding Ethnicity in Rwanda......................................................... 40 A History of Twa Ethnicity .......................................................... 40 A Re-Imagined Past and Re-Engineered Future .......................... 44 vi CHAPTER PAGE Eliminating Ethnicity from Public Life........................................ 45 Stigma and Marginalization ......................................................... 47 IV. Urban Rwanda, Development, and Civil Society..................................... 50 COPORWA .................................................................................. 50 Fieldwork...................................................................................... 51 Iterambere Cooperative ................................................................ 52 Nation Building ............................................................................ 56 V. Rural Life, Housing, and Marriage........................................................... 58 The Village of Kwicyondo ........................................................... 58 Housing Dilemmas in Rural Rwanda........................................... 62 The Village of Kibumba............................................................... 67 Marriage, Media, and the Representation of Rural Rwanda ........ 72 VI. Conclusion................................................................................................ 79 Urban and Rural Life.................................................................... 80 Ethnicity ....................................................................................... 82 Civic and Political Life................................................................. 83 Representation .............................................................................. 84 Going Forward.............................................................................. 84 References Cited......................................................................................................... 87 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. Twa Woman with Pottery in Her Home ................................................... 4 2. Cooking Pots............................................................................................. 8 3. Political Map of Central Africa ................................................................ 21 4. Pygmy Groups in Central Africa .............................................................. 22 5. Rwanda’s National Parks.......................................................................... 35 6. Distribution of Batwa Communities ......................................................... 36 7. Iterambere Pottery Cooperative in Kigali, Rwanda.................................. 53 8. Women Making Planter Pots at Iterambere Cooperative ......................... 55 9. Village of Kwicyondo............................................................................... 59 10. Twa Children in Kwicyondo..................................................................... 61 11. House in Kwicyondo................................................................................. 63 12. Government Built House in Rural Rwanda .............................................. 64 13. Elderly Twa Women................................................................................. 68 viii ABSTRACT BECOMING RWANDAN: PATHS TO INTEGRATION FOR THE POTTERS by Anna Rushton Kamanzi Master of Arts in Anthropology California State University, Chico Spring 2016 The interplay of economy, ethnicity, and stigma has contributed to a contemporary condition of material precarity and exclusion for Twa ‘Potters’ in Rwanda, inheritors of distinct long-term foraging lifeways shared with other Pygmy groups across equatorial Africa. Though now marginalized, Twa have been symbolically central in the development of Rwandan social systems and identities as a pole of aesthetic judgments, cultural differentiation, and ethnogenic processes. This thesis explores the Twa’s transition from a semi-nomadic, free-foraging lifestyle which allowed for opportunistic trade and relations with sedentary neighbors to one of forced relocation in village settings. Emphasis is placed on understanding the challenges the Twa face as they attempt to make the transition from forest-dwelling forager to Rwandan citizen in contemporary Rwanda. Post-genocide law and development policy aims to ameliorate stigma and suffering for the Twa and other groups after devastating war fueled by ethnic ix divisions. In particular, the elimination of ethnicity from public discourse attempts to reshape social bonds, collective identity, and individual opportunity in a newly integrated country. What are the impacts of these policies on ‘Potters’ who increasingly seek their livelihoods far from forest reserves and in towns and cities in Rwanda? How is the intimate experience of stigma reimagined, renegotiated, removed, or reinforced? Examining anthropological
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