The Exemplary Citizen on the Exemplary Hill: The Production of Political Subjects in Contemporary Rural Rwanda

An Ansoms and Giuseppe D. Cioffo

Development and Change, 2016, vol. 47, issue 6, 1247-1268

Abstract: Since the end of civil war and genocide in 1994, the Rwandan government has embarked on an ambitious plan to reshape the rural setting. Through a strategy of agrarian modernization, the Rwandan government is reorganizing rural space and production in order to foster economic growth. This article looks at how this spatial and productive reconfiguration contributes to the production of political subjects in post‐genocide Rwanda, and how this is constitutive of the political power of government. First, it points to the way in which the state authorities’ discursive practices utilize the concept of ‘exemplary citizenship’ to reinforce policy adherence. Second, it analyses how the reconfiguration of access to productive resources is intertwined with the reinforcement of the state's authority. Hidden behind the discourse of modernization and rationalization, the reorganization of space helps central authorities to gain a greater degree of control over rural settings. Finally, it analyses the way in which the reorganization of rural space contributes to the construction of political subjectivity. Political subjects are defined through adherence to or rejection of the government's rhetoric of economic development and good citizenship as redefining moments of public life.

Date: 2016
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