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Paper short abstract

Drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2016 and 2017, this presentation would like to provide a glimpse into the policing and order-making practices in Bukavu’s urban public spaces by addressing the following questions: Who is policing in Bukavu? Who is being policed, where, when and how?

Paper long abstract

The population of South Kivu's capital, Bukavu, is said to have quadrupled over the last 25 years, today numbering an estimated 800,000, largely made up of conflict-displaced people many of whom fled from insecure rural areas with the hope to find urban security in the city (Nguya 2015; Mapendano, n.d.). Such unplanned exponential urban growth naturally leads to its own security concerns caused by a wide variety of sources: from overcrowding and anarchic constructions leading to fire hazards, soil erosion and unclean water to socio-economic deprivation resulting in unemployment, poverty, marginality and crime. Policing the city, then, becomes a major concern to urban authorities. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2016 and 2017, this presentation would like to provide a glimpse into the policing and order-making practices in Bukavu's urban public spaces by addressing the following questions: Who is policing in Bukavu? Who is being policed, where, when and how? And finally, what may that tell us about the production of urban public order and authority in a conflict-affected city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?