Borderlands, Identity and Urban Development: The Case of Goma (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Abstract

This paper challenges traditional studies that explore border sites from a central or capital city perspective. Focusing on expressions of identity in the border city of Goma, it illustrates how the struggle for political, social and economic control affects local urban life and has broader implications for regional relationships and realities. The paper suggests that Goma must be understood as a site of change and fluidity rather than (as borders are commonly depicted) a static and dependent environment, whose increasing sense of autonomy is directly linked to state decline and to the dynamics of regional conflict. Goma has become an area of military rebellion, political struggle and economic competition, as well as a city of flourishing transborder trade and economic opportunity. The paper highlights the need to follow closely the increasing national and regional role that Goma, and other emerging urban centres on the periphery, are playing. This analysis was concluded early 2012 and does not include recent developments related to the M23 rebellion.

Uncertain futures and everyday hedging in a humanitarian city

“…Notes 1 On the urban nature of humanitarian interventions generally and in relation to South Sudan, see Autessere (2014), Badiey (2013Badiey ( 2014, Duffield (2010), Grant and Thompson (2013), Pupavac (2010) and Vlassenroot and B€ uscher (2013). 2 Interview partners included migrants from Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Egypt, Jordan, the Philippines and Nigeria.…”

“… On the urban nature of humanitarian interventions generally and in relation to South Sudan, see Autessere (), Badiey ( ), Duffield (), Grant and Thompson (), Pupavac () and Vlassenroot and Büscher (). …”

Hostile visual encounters: fighting to control photographic meaning in the DRC's digital age

“…Contestation over national identity and debates about inclusion and exclusion still has a strong impact on Goma's urban society … Identifying oneself as ‘Congolese’ in Goma is often the same as simply identifying oneself as not being Rwandan. (Vlassenroot and Büscher 2013: 3179)…”

War, Displacement and Rural–Urban Transformation: Kivu’s Boomtowns, Eastern D.R. Congo

“…Each of these cities has witnessed autonomous expansion, mainly being the result of the development of lucrative transborder trade that, through informal economic activities, connected each of these cities with neighbouring markets in Uganda, Rwanda or Burundi. These cities are internally weakly connected and all occupy their particular functions within this eastern urban network (Vlassenroot and Büscher 2013). Since the second half of the 1990s, waves of violence displacing large parts of the population have further reinforced rural-urban migration and the rapid growth of these towns.…”