Stuck: Rwandan youth and the struggle for adulthood

Abstract

Sommers has chosen a catchy title to analyse the impact that structural features of Rwandan society, in interaction with government policies, have on young people's lives and aspirations. The book is based on interviews conducted in 2006–7 with almost 400 youth and adults. Although this methodology can be criticized (for example, did Sommers include all relevant categories of youth?) the sample is sufficiently large to allow credible claims to be made about young people's lives in rural and urban settings. The most pressing problem for rural youth is the housing crisis. For men, building a house is a prerequisite for marriage and an indispensable step in their transition to manhood. However, government regulations have imposed severe restrictions on housing. First, a villagization policy requires all new houses to be built in community housing areas, known as imidugudu. The policy aims to contribute to land consolidation, with uncertain gains – according to Sommers – in terms of agricultural efficiency. Furthermore, the policy breaks with a tradition of building on inherited land and leads to cultural alienation. A second problematic policy is the regulation restricting roof-tile production, which has led to an exponential increase in the price of roof tiles. In fact, many youth drop out of school to work as farm labourers on other people's land, in order to save money to buy roof tiles. Many of them know that they will never acquire enough tiles for a house.