Summary of my work on Rwanda
I started working on Rwanda in 2002. I collected household survey data in 2002 and 2003 in the provinces of Gikongoro and Gitarama. In 2006 I defended my doctoral dissertation: "Conflict and Survival: an Analysis of Shocks, Coping Strategies and Economic Mobility in Rwanda, 1990-2002". The chapters were published as journal articles: “Cattle Sales in War and Peacetime: a Study of Household Coping in Rwanda, 1991-2001". "Economic Mobility in rural Rwanda : A Study of the Long Term Effects of War and Genocide at the Household Level" (with Lode Berlage), "The death toll of the Rwandan genocide: a detailed analysis for Gikongoro Province". My PhD scholarship (and three post-doc years) was financed by the Fund for Scientific Research (Flanders) - FWO.
After obtaining my PhD, I diversified my research, but still kept a focus on Rwanda. I started investigating the Rwandan conflict cycle relying on Rwandan population census data and the data from the 2005 Gacaca information round. I describe the latter data in "The intensity of the Rwandan genocide : Measures from the gacaca records". In "Leave None to Claim the Land : A Malthusian Catastrophe in Rwanda?", I study how the intensity of the 1994 genocide relates to land scarcity and access. In "Detecting Hidden Violence : The Spatial Distribution of Excess Mortality in Rwanda", I demonstrate the intensity of other forms of violence in Rwanda, besides genocide.
I also studied post-war Rwanda. For instance, in "The Rwandan Coffee Sector: out of the Ordinary" (with Andrea Guariso and Jean Ngabitsinze) I study the remarkable transformation of the Rwandan coffee sector, and in "Aid, trade and the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector" I study to what extent the recovery relates to war shocks and aid flows. Also with Andrea Guariso, I study the impact of armed conflict on schooling, in Armed conflict and schooling in Rwanda: Digging deeper. With Pieter Serneels, I study the nature of the post-war recovery process: "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Economic Performance: Evidence from Rwanda". In "Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Rwanda: a Broad Perspective" , I take a broad perspective and discuss the socio-economic achievements in post-war Rwanda. This analysis is also part of a book chapter, co-authored with Any McKay. You can watch me presenting this topic: in 2013 (here) and in a follow-up meeting in 2018 (here).
As one of the editors of the Annuaire Afrique des Grands Lacs, I collaborated on a special data feature that gives a 20-year overview of the gender and ethnic composition of major institutions in Burundi and Rwanda.
At the occasion of the 20th commemoration of the genocide, I wrote a piece joint with Bert Ingelaere: "Rwanda: could state-led mass killings ever happen again?". Following the controversy about the BBC documentary Rwanda’s Untold Story (broadcasted Oct, 1st, 2014), I wrote a piece on the death toll of the genocide against Tutsi.
With my colleague Bert Ingelaere I analyse life histories. So far this has resulted in a study on female political empowerment "Female political representation in the aftermath of ethnic violence: a comparative analysis of Burundi and Rwanda", and in a study on inter-ethnic (mis)trust "Inter-ethnic trust in the aftermatch of mass violence: insights from large-N life histories".
At the occasion of the 25th commemoration of the Rwandan genocide against Tutsi, I summarized my work on the death toll among Tutsi, and Hutu - for a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research. Supplementary information on the calculation of the death toll can be found here:
- 1987 population data of the local adminsitration
- spreadsheet for replication of the death toll among Tutsi and Hutu
Check out my publications for the latest bibliographic references for my work on Rwanda, and my work in progress for work that is in the pipeline. FOR UNGATED PREPRINTS, visit my Research Gate page.