Paper short abstract:

This paper mobilises recently unearthed colonial archives to study how an episode of revolt in 1931 Belgian Congo led to power reconfigurations in the field. The effective suspension of the rule of law transformed the nature and scope of repression, as well as African responses to colonial demands.

Paper long abstract:

This paper mobilises recently unearthed colonial judicial and administrative archives to study how an episode of revolt in interwar Belgian Congo led to profound power reconfigurations in the field. The effective suspension of the rule of law, in order to quell a rapidly spreading rebellion, had two intertwined consequences. On the one hand, it led to the deployment of new colonial strategies of repression, which shed light on the gap between legal principles and effective practices of order. On the other, it induced an intense reconfiguration of the flows of power, hierarchies and values, both for colonial actors and the local population. This research uses different practices of "punishment" - perpetrated by Congolese "rebels" and by Belgian public servants - in order to better understand what "revolt" effectively meant for the actors involved in a colonial power relation, and how it exposed, challenged and reconfigured existent structures of violence.

On a conceptual plane, this research builds on the concept of anomie - e.g. a situation of instability resulting in a suspension of values, norms and morals - and how it could constitute a moment of opportunity and open-ended futures for the parties involved, beyond the mere deployment of brute violence. We intend to use this case study to help make sense of "revolts" as crucial nodes in (post)colonial historical dynamics, in Central Africa and beyond.