(Re)producing Ambiguity and Contradictions in Enduring and Looming Crisis in Burundi

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores how (young) people devise action in the context of ambiguity and uncertainty in the aftermath of war in Burundi. The focus is on purposeful action in different periods of crisis. In Burundi, enduring crisis has given way to a range of practices that are geared at embracing rather than ridding ambiguity and uncertainty – such as preparing for alternative trajectories simultaneously or acting in a provisional way. In situations where the threat of potential violence is immediate, in looming crisis, however, these practices cannot be sustained. People have to make explicit, exclusive choices within a matrix of contradictions. Therewith, recurrent crises in Burundi have given rise to patterns of practices that are experienced as problematic; desired (ought to be) moral maps for acting no longer correspond to the expected (more frequent) maps. This further adds to the experience of incoherence and ambiguity in the already uncertain society.