Bert Ingelaere
Biographic Data
| ID | 122996 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bert Ingelaere |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bert |
| FAMILY NAME | Ingelaere |
| SIGNATURE | INGELAERE B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Antwerp |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8891-9251 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 209 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Political Institutions and Perceived Political Representation Before, During, and After Identity-based Conflict
We study who perceives gains and losses in political representation in Rwanda and Burundi and why. We do so in the run-up to and during violence, but also in its aftermath characterized by radically different institutional approaches to manage a similar ethnic divide in both countries. We rely on quantitative and qualitative analyses of over 700 coded life histories covering the period 1985-2015. We find convergence in perceived political represe…
The waxing and waning of ethnic boundaries
Violence based on identity constructs reinforces the experience of ethnic boundaries as felt distance between in-groups and out-groups. But what makes such an experience of rigid ethnic boundaries fade or disappear, if anything? We examined this in Burundi, a country characterised by repeated episodes of violence between Hutu and Tutsi since independence. We analysed the waxing and waning of ethnic boundaries through the (life) stories of 202 ind…
What structures ex-combatants' political participation? Exploring the dynamics of identification and groupness in rebel-to-party transformations
Academic literature on post-conflict peace-building and democratisation has established the important relevance of rebel-to-party transformations on the one hand, and of the political engagement of individual former combatants on the other hand. Yet, little is known about the interrelation between these two dimensions. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap, by proposing a framework to scrutinise former rebel parties’ ways of mobilising th…
Rural Youth’s Capacity to Aspire
The capacity to aspire is understood as the capacity to identify and navigate pathways to realise personal ideas of the good life. The constrained capacity to aspire of poor people inhibits their ability to change their circumstances. The questions at the heart of this paper are whether local government plays a role in the development of this capacity and how. We examined these questions through interviews with over 50 young people in a rural mun…
Assembling Styles of Truth in Rwanda’s Gacaca Process
The gacaca process was introduced in Rwandan society to deal with the legacy of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. Empirically informed research points to the ambiguous and ambivalent attitudes of participants regarding testimonial activities, namely the search for the truth. Hence the questions: what does the gacaca experience reveal about this elusive and multidimensional notion called ‘the truth’? And, what does ‘the truth’ as experienced by Rwa…
Conflict resolution as cultural brokerage
Looking through the lens of disputes and their resolution, this article examines the efforts undertaken by refugees to guarantee peaceful coexistence within and around settlements in northern Uganda. Based on extensive fieldwork, we examine which disputes occur within and around the settlements and which actors intervene to mediate and solve them. We identify a hierarchy among the different formal and informal actors involved in the resolution of…
Trust in the aftermath of genocide
We study changes in inter- and intra-ethnic trust in Rwanda. We focus on the impact of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, which is a case of group-selective violence marked by a clear perpetrator-group and victim-group as well as within-group variation with respect to exposure to violence. In our empirical analysis, we rely on more than 400 individual life histories in which intra- and inter-ethnic trust were systematically ranked for all life hist…
From War To Genocide
Although much has been written about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, two recent volumes offer fresh perspectives and add considerable insights. Guichaoua’s From War to Genocide: Criminal Politics in R
Why secondary towns can be important for poverty reduction – A migrant perspective
When Ethnicity Beats Gender
This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post-war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly incre…
Why Secondary Towns Can Be Important for Poverty Reduction – A Migrant's Perspective
This paper develops the concept of "action space" as the range of possible destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set of possible livelihoods at destination. It shows how this space expands and contracts over time through "cumulative causation." Such a dynamic framework allows for appreciating the role of secondary towns in rural-urban migration and poverty reduction. Se…
The civilised Self and the barbaric Other
This article addresses discourses on gender and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on discussions with 101 ex-combatants, we examine how former FDLR members make sense of sexual violence by studying prevailing gendered images of Self and Other. This analysis of potential perpetrators' mindset is part of the puzzle to find preventive measures. The findings demonstrate that ex-combatants attribute overwhelming power to b…
Inside Rwanda's /Gacaca/ Courts
Learning “To Be” Kinyarwanda in Postgenocide Rwanda
The research activity generating data in times of transition is subject to politicization and needs to deal with widespread distrust due to the legacy of violence or atrocity. This article discusses the main principles of a research design that took into account these hindrances by making prudence its basic tenet. The objective was to generate understanding of the functioning of Rwanda’s gacaca court process through a heightened awareness in data…
What's on a peasant's mind? Experiencing RPF state reach and overreach in post-genocide Rwanda (2000-10)
This article attempts – for the Rwandan case – to answer a fundamental question of state-builders in Africa: to what extent and how is authority broadcast over people? There is much controversy concerning the nature of governance by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in contemporary Rwanda. This article moves beyond existing knowledge on local government structures and practice by analysing over 350 life histories of rural Rwandans collected in 20…
Genocide, Risk and Resilience
This interdisciplinary volume aims to understand the linkages between the origins and aftermaths of genocide. Exploring social dynamics and human behaviour, this collection considers the interplay of
Situating Social Imaginaries in Transitional Justice
status: Published
From model to practice
The publications on the modernized gacaca courts dealing with the legacy of the Rwandan genocide are abundant and they often seem to be rife with diverging analysis and conclusions. This article argues that the seeming lack of consensus does not signal the impossibility of adequately representing the gacaca courts. This article does not dwell on the crisis of representation. Instead, an effort is made to provide clarity in a disorder of represent…
Peasants, power and ethnicity
This article analyses over 400 life trajectories of ordinary peasants in order to complement top-down studies of the Rwandan political transition. Changes and differences according to the ethnicity of the respondents shed light on the Hutu-Tutsi bi-polarity which underlies the transition and reveal a reversal in perceived ethnic dominance accompanying the decisive moment in the political transition: the overthrow of the Hutu-dominated regime by t…
Do We Understand Life after Genocide? Center and Periphery in the Construction of Knowledge in Postgenocide Rwanda
Do we really understand life after genocide? A reflection on the construction of knowledge in and on Rwanda reveals that it is rife with contradictory assertions and images, and that there is a discrepancy between image and reality. This article attempts to map the center(s) of knowledge construction in postgenocide Rwanda, the place not only where policy is made, but also where knowledge is actively construed, managed, and controlled. It argues …
Does the truth pass across the fire without burning?' Locating the short circuit in Rwanda's Gacaca courts
The modernised tradition of the Gacaca courts has become the key mechanism for dealing with the past in Rwanda. The process needs to establish accountability for all acts of genocide and to foster reconciliation. Nevertheless, popular narratives and survey results reveal that a widespread 'crisis' accompanied the initial stages of the Gacaca process. We argue that a problematic quest for the truth is short-circuiting reconciliation in post-genoci…
Living the transition
Political1 1. Previous versions of this paper were presented at AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, July 11–14 2007, Leiden, the Netherlands and at the conference: "Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented Society," 19–21 September 2007, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa and during a master class with Michael Woolcock (The World Bank), Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, September 26, …
Do We Understand Life after Genocide? Center and Periphery in the Construction of Knowledge in Postgenocide Rwanda
Do we really understand life after genocide? A reflection on the construction of knowledge in and on Rwanda reveals that it is rife with contradictory assertions and images, and that there is a discrepancy between image and reality. This article attempts to map the center(s) of knowledge construction in postgenocide Rwanda, the place not only where policy is made, but also where knowledge is actively construed, managed, and controlled. It argues …
Does the truth pass across the fire without burning?' Locating the short circuit in Rwanda's Gacaca courts
The modernised tradition of the Gacaca courts has become the key mechanism for dealing with the past in Rwanda. The process needs to establish accountability for all acts of genocide and to foster reconciliation. Nevertheless, popular narratives and survey results reveal that a widespread 'crisis' accompanied the initial stages of the Gacaca process. We argue that a problematic quest for the truth is short-circuiting reconciliation in post-genoci…
What's on a peasant's mind? Experiencing RPF state reach and overreach in post-genocide Rwanda (2000-10)
This article attempts – for the Rwandan case – to answer a fundamental question of state-builders in Africa: to what extent and how is authority broadcast over people? There is much controversy concerning the nature of governance by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in contemporary Rwanda. This article moves beyond existing knowledge on local government structures and practice by analysing over 350 life histories of rural Rwandans collected in 20…
Peasants, power and ethnicity
This article analyses over 400 life trajectories of ordinary peasants in order to complement top-down studies of the Rwandan political transition. Changes and differences according to the ethnicity of the respondents shed light on the Hutu-Tutsi bi-polarity which underlies the transition and reveal a reversal in perceived ethnic dominance accompanying the decisive moment in the political transition: the overthrow of the Hutu-dominated regime by t…
Situating Social Imaginaries in Transitional Justice
status: Published
Why secondary towns can be important for poverty reduction – A migrant perspective
Living the transition
Political1 1. Previous versions of this paper were presented at AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, July 11–14 2007, Leiden, the Netherlands and at the conference: "Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented Society," 19–21 September 2007, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa and during a master class with Michael Woolcock (The World Bank), Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, September 26, …
From model to practice
The publications on the modernized gacaca courts dealing with the legacy of the Rwandan genocide are abundant and they often seem to be rife with diverging analysis and conclusions. This article argues that the seeming lack of consensus does not signal the impossibility of adequately representing the gacaca courts. This article does not dwell on the crisis of representation. Instead, an effort is made to provide clarity in a disorder of represent…
When Ethnicity Beats Gender
This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post-war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly incre…
Learning “To Be” Kinyarwanda in Postgenocide Rwanda
The research activity generating data in times of transition is subject to politicization and needs to deal with widespread distrust due to the legacy of violence or atrocity. This article discusses the main principles of a research design that took into account these hindrances by making prudence its basic tenet. The objective was to generate understanding of the functioning of Rwanda’s gacaca court process through a heightened awareness in data…
Conflict resolution as cultural brokerage
Looking through the lens of disputes and their resolution, this article examines the efforts undertaken by refugees to guarantee peaceful coexistence within and around settlements in northern Uganda. Based on extensive fieldwork, we examine which disputes occur within and around the settlements and which actors intervene to mediate and solve them. We identify a hierarchy among the different formal and informal actors involved in the resolution of…
Trust in the aftermath of genocide
We study changes in inter- and intra-ethnic trust in Rwanda. We focus on the impact of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, which is a case of group-selective violence marked by a clear perpetrator-group and victim-group as well as within-group variation with respect to exposure to violence. In our empirical analysis, we rely on more than 400 individual life histories in which intra- and inter-ethnic trust were systematically ranked for all life hist…
The civilised Self and the barbaric Other
This article addresses discourses on gender and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on discussions with 101 ex-combatants, we examine how former FDLR members make sense of sexual violence by studying prevailing gendered images of Self and Other. This analysis of potential perpetrators' mindset is part of the puzzle to find preventive measures. The findings demonstrate that ex-combatants attribute overwhelming power to b…
Political Institutions and Perceived Political Representation Before, During, and After Identity-based Conflict
We study who perceives gains and losses in political representation in Rwanda and Burundi and why. We do so in the run-up to and during violence, but also in its aftermath characterized by radically different institutional approaches to manage a similar ethnic divide in both countries. We rely on quantitative and qualitative analyses of over 700 coded life histories covering the period 1985-2015. We find convergence in perceived political represe…
The waxing and waning of ethnic boundaries
Violence based on identity constructs reinforces the experience of ethnic boundaries as felt distance between in-groups and out-groups. But what makes such an experience of rigid ethnic boundaries fade or disappear, if anything? We examined this in Burundi, a country characterised by repeated episodes of violence between Hutu and Tutsi since independence. We analysed the waxing and waning of ethnic boundaries through the (life) stories of 202 ind…
What structures ex-combatants' political participation? Exploring the dynamics of identification and groupness in rebel-to-party transformations
Academic literature on post-conflict peace-building and democratisation has established the important relevance of rebel-to-party transformations on the one hand, and of the political engagement of individual former combatants on the other hand. Yet, little is known about the interrelation between these two dimensions. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap, by proposing a framework to scrutinise former rebel parties’ ways of mobilising th…
Does the truth pass across the fire without burning?' Locating the short circuit in Rwanda's Gacaca courts
The modernised tradition of the Gacaca courts has become the key mechanism for dealing with the past in Rwanda. The process needs to establish accountability for all acts of genocide and to foster reconciliation. Nevertheless, popular narratives and survey results reveal that a widespread 'crisis' accompanied the initial stages of the Gacaca process. We argue that a problematic quest for the truth is short-circuiting reconciliation in post-genoci…
Living the transition
Political1 1. Previous versions of this paper were presented at AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, July 11–14 2007, Leiden, the Netherlands and at the conference: "Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented Society," 19–21 September 2007, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa and during a master class with Michael Woolcock (The World Bank), Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, September 26, …
Peasants, power and ethnicity
This article analyses over 400 life trajectories of ordinary peasants in order to complement top-down studies of the Rwandan political transition. Changes and differences according to the ethnicity of the respondents shed light on the Hutu-Tutsi bi-polarity which underlies the transition and reveal a reversal in perceived ethnic dominance accompanying the decisive moment in the political transition: the overthrow of the Hutu-dominated regime by t…
Do We Understand Life after Genocide? Center and Periphery in the Construction of Knowledge in Postgenocide Rwanda
Do we really understand life after genocide? A reflection on the construction of knowledge in and on Rwanda reveals that it is rife with contradictory assertions and images, and that there is a discrepancy between image and reality. This article attempts to map the center(s) of knowledge construction in postgenocide Rwanda, the place not only where policy is made, but also where knowledge is actively construed, managed, and controlled. It argues …
Situating Social Imaginaries in Transitional Justice
status: Published
From model to practice
The publications on the modernized gacaca courts dealing with the legacy of the Rwandan genocide are abundant and they often seem to be rife with diverging analysis and conclusions. This article argues that the seeming lack of consensus does not signal the impossibility of adequately representing the gacaca courts. This article does not dwell on the crisis of representation. Instead, an effort is made to provide clarity in a disorder of represent…
Genocide, Risk and Resilience
This interdisciplinary volume aims to understand the linkages between the origins and aftermaths of genocide. Exploring social dynamics and human behaviour, this collection considers the interplay of
What's on a peasant's mind? Experiencing RPF state reach and overreach in post-genocide Rwanda (2000-10)
This article attempts – for the Rwandan case – to answer a fundamental question of state-builders in Africa: to what extent and how is authority broadcast over people? There is much controversy concerning the nature of governance by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in contemporary Rwanda. This article moves beyond existing knowledge on local government structures and practice by analysing over 350 life histories of rural Rwandans collected in 20…
Learning “To Be” Kinyarwanda in Postgenocide Rwanda
The research activity generating data in times of transition is subject to politicization and needs to deal with widespread distrust due to the legacy of violence or atrocity. This article discusses the main principles of a research design that took into account these hindrances by making prudence its basic tenet. The objective was to generate understanding of the functioning of Rwanda’s gacaca court process through a heightened awareness in data…
Inside Rwanda's /Gacaca/ Courts
Why Secondary Towns Can Be Important for Poverty Reduction – A Migrant's Perspective
This paper develops the concept of "action space" as the range of possible destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set of possible livelihoods at destination. It shows how this space expands and contracts over time through "cumulative causation." Such a dynamic framework allows for appreciating the role of secondary towns in rural-urban migration and poverty reduction. Se…
The civilised Self and the barbaric Other
This article addresses discourses on gender and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on discussions with 101 ex-combatants, we examine how former FDLR members make sense of sexual violence by studying prevailing gendered images of Self and Other. This analysis of potential perpetrators' mindset is part of the puzzle to find preventive measures. The findings demonstrate that ex-combatants attribute overwhelming power to b…
Why secondary towns can be important for poverty reduction – A migrant perspective
When Ethnicity Beats Gender
This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post-war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly incre…
From War To Genocide
Although much has been written about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, two recent volumes offer fresh perspectives and add considerable insights. Guichaoua’s From War to Genocide: Criminal Politics in R
Assembling Styles of Truth in Rwanda’s Gacaca Process
The gacaca process was introduced in Rwandan society to deal with the legacy of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. Empirically informed research points to the ambiguous and ambivalent attitudes of participants regarding testimonial activities, namely the search for the truth. Hence the questions: what does the gacaca experience reveal about this elusive and multidimensional notion called ‘the truth’? And, what does ‘the truth’ as experienced by Rwa…
Conflict resolution as cultural brokerage
Looking through the lens of disputes and their resolution, this article examines the efforts undertaken by refugees to guarantee peaceful coexistence within and around settlements in northern Uganda. Based on extensive fieldwork, we examine which disputes occur within and around the settlements and which actors intervene to mediate and solve them. We identify a hierarchy among the different formal and informal actors involved in the resolution of…
Trust in the aftermath of genocide
We study changes in inter- and intra-ethnic trust in Rwanda. We focus on the impact of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, which is a case of group-selective violence marked by a clear perpetrator-group and victim-group as well as within-group variation with respect to exposure to violence. In our empirical analysis, we rely on more than 400 individual life histories in which intra- and inter-ethnic trust were systematically ranked for all life hist…
Rural Youth’s Capacity to Aspire
The capacity to aspire is understood as the capacity to identify and navigate pathways to realise personal ideas of the good life. The constrained capacity to aspire of poor people inhibits their ability to change their circumstances. The questions at the heart of this paper are whether local government plays a role in the development of this capacity and how. We examined these questions through interviews with over 50 young people in a rural mun…
What structures ex-combatants' political participation? Exploring the dynamics of identification and groupness in rebel-to-party transformations
Academic literature on post-conflict peace-building and democratisation has established the important relevance of rebel-to-party transformations on the one hand, and of the political engagement of individual former combatants on the other hand. Yet, little is known about the interrelation between these two dimensions. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap, by proposing a framework to scrutinise former rebel parties’ ways of mobilising th…
The waxing and waning of ethnic boundaries
Violence based on identity constructs reinforces the experience of ethnic boundaries as felt distance between in-groups and out-groups. But what makes such an experience of rigid ethnic boundaries fade or disappear, if anything? We examined this in Burundi, a country characterised by repeated episodes of violence between Hutu and Tutsi since independence. We analysed the waxing and waning of ethnic boundaries through the (life) stories of 202 ind…
Political Institutions and Perceived Political Representation Before, During, and After Identity-based Conflict
We study who perceives gains and losses in political representation in Rwanda and Burundi and why. We do so in the run-up to and during violence, but also in its aftermath characterized by radically different institutional approaches to manage a similar ethnic divide in both countries. We rely on quantitative and qualitative analyses of over 700 coded life histories covering the period 1985-2015. We find convergence in perceived political represe…
Political science (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (14 works) · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Cambodian History and Society (7 works) · Genocide (7 works) · Economics (6 works)