Roof politics: the materiality of interpellation

Abstract

In 2010, the Rwandan government rolled out a mandatory roof modernisation programme to replace grass thatch on every house and outbuilding in Rwanda. The initiative was ostensibly one of shelter modernisation, but rather more embedded in post-genocide nation and peace building. The paper considers Louis Althusser’s concept of ‘interpellation’ as a useful framework for understanding how the Rwandan government established relationships between architectural aesthetics, sovereignty, and peace. Ethnographic research with state ministries and interviews with rural residents reveal the ideological basis for those connections — how aesthetics regulated values and the reception of the programme by ordinary Rwandans. Historical research substantiates the persistent use of architecture aesthetics as a medium of interpellation mobilised previously in the name of morality, health, and modernity, and most recently, peace.