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?