Living together again : action research amongst peri-urban Hutu and Tutsi youths in Burundi

Abstract

Peri-urban Hutu and Tutsi youths in Burundi are victims of sustained ethnic negativity, bias, stereotypes and animosity that lead to mistrust and violent interactions. Despite the agreement to ending hostilities in Burundi which was signed in 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania and which brought with it hope and possibilities for peaceful coexistence, both the Hutu and Tutsi youths carry wounded memories of lived or witnessed experiences of inter-youth violence which have not been addressed. They have continued learning self-defensive and destructive tactics which, instead of bringing them closer to each other, has deepened hatred, stigma, forcing some to leave the country for exile, killings each other, in addition to socio-politico-economic stalemate. The youths are manipulated and used as puppets by politicians to keep their positions and socioeconomic privileges while the youths continue crumpleing in intense poverty. Only the youths who accept to collaborate with political tycoons are rewarded with employment opportunities and other monetary benefits which entice most of them into political bling militantism which jeopardise stability and peacefulness. Using participatory action research (PAR) design, this study explored the nature, the causes and the consequences of the interethnic negativity amongst the youth with the aim of rebuilding trust and ensuring there is peaceful coexistence amongst them. In total, 20 Hutu and Tutsi were equally included in the sample; they were split according to gender and ethic groups and participated in the study as co-researchers. Social constructivism, the social learning theory of aggression and Lederach’s conflict transformation frameworks were used throughout the stages of the investigation. Qualitative data was collected by means of sequential exploratory approaches via qualitative in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and PAR search conference tool. This engagement taped into intergenerational dialogue that was utlised as intervention along with peace circles to establish to which extent these paradigms can leverage trust and ignite reconciliation and healing between the Hutu and Tutsi youths in the peri-urban area of Gihosha neighbourhood. It adopted the social constructivism worldview, and the transformative epistemology deemed necessary to gain insights about the inter-ethnic stereotypes and animosity suffered by the Hutu and Tutsi youths in Burundi. The same epistemological worldviews were used towards unlearning the negative inter-ethnic constructs. The results were obtained through triangulation of sources and data and the results that yielded. The overall findings exemplified the wounds mutually inflicted on the Hutu and Tutsi youths as a result of structural violence, and social and environmental factors as well. The study reveals that ethnicity is a significant trigger of recurring violence between Hutu and Tutsi youths in Burundi. Inter-ethnic tensions are also just one of many consequences and symptoms of political power monopolisation, abuse, poor democratic governance and lack of accountability. The outcomes of the research are the following: (1) by participating in peacebuilding circles, the Hutu and Tutsi were empowered though the transformative un/learning and became peacebuilders and collaboratively designed; (2) planned and implemented intergenerational dialogue intervention forged the path of reconciliation between the two groups, namely the Hutus and Tutsis; (3) their interactions led to mutual forgiveness; (4) overall, empathy was rebuilt, forgiveness was enacted, trust was restored, and understanding was forged which proved that Participatory Action Research (PAR) and its search conference tool and intergenerational dialogue are key to peacebuilding and conflict transformation. The thesis concludes that peaceful coexistence is possible when parties to the conflict agree to discuss and collaborate on finding joint solutions to their contentious problems, especially ethnicity and other forms of structural violence that confront them and destroys the social fabric. Education institutions in Burundi should take the lead in the promotion of practice-oriented research in peace education and bottom-up peace peacebuilding best practices. Future researchers should explore tailored peacebuilding efforts for specific regions and incorporate the perspectives and roles of high-level governmental institutions, educational experts, and school managers.