ED Sociétés, Politique, Santé Publique
Through the lens of ethnicity. Everyday Categorizations and Political Struggle of the Batwa in Burundi
by Zoé QUETU (Les Afriques dans le Monde)
The defense will take place at 14h00 - Salle Erasme IEP de Bordeaux 11 Allée Ausone 33600 Pessac
in front of the jury composed of
- Vincent FOUCHER - Chargé de recherche - IEP de Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Vincent BONNECASE - Directeur de recherche - IMAf (Paris 1) - CoDirecteur de these
- Christine DESLAURIER - Chargée de recherche - IMAf (Paris 1) - Examinateur
- Eric NDAYISABA - Professeur - ENS Burundi - Examinateur
- Laurent FOURCHARD - Directeur de recherche - CERI (Sciences Po) - Rapporteur
- Emmanuel KLIMIS - Professeur - Université catholique de Louvain - Rapporteur
- Johanna SIMEANT GERMANOS - Professeure des universités - ENS (PSL) - Examinateur
How did ethnicity come to be imposed—and ultimately embraced—as the main framework through which a subordinate condition is articulated and understood? While numerous studies have analyzed the social and political construction of ethnic categories in various contexts, the ways in which these categories have been internalized by ordinary actors in their daily lives—and mobilized as a language of politics—remain underexplored. This dissertation addresses this question through the case of the Batwa in Burundi, a minority historically specialized in craftwork, who have faced deepening poverty since the neoliberal turn of the 1990s—an impoverishment layered over longer-standing patterns of social discrimination and political exclusion. At the intersection of the sociology of categorization and the sociology of mobilizations, the dissertation highlights how subordinated actors draw on ethnic belonging to express a sense of injustice, weave networks of solidarity, and contest power relations. To grasp these dynamics, I introduce the notion of the ethnic lens (prisme ethnique), which refers to the way ethnicity operates as a central grid through which the social world is interpreted and categorized. Initially imposed through systems of power, this lens has gradually been internalized by ordinary actors, to the point that it now structures their ways of living and making sense of their subordinate position. These findings are based on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Burundi between 2018 and 2021, including 113 interviews with rural residents (mainly in the provinces of Muyinga and Gitega), as well as with individuals engaged in political mobilizations around the "Batwa cause" at various levels. The dissertation first examines the historical conditions that contributed to the specific subordination of this group. Drawing on colonial archives and oral sources, I trace how the Batwa were gradually excluded from structures of power beginning in the colonial period, and how national and global transformations in the 1990s contributed to their impoverishment. I then explore how actors draw on ethnic belonging to make sense of these inequalities and to negotiate access to various resources—such as land, informal and precarious employment, or political rights at different levels.