Flows and forces: Once contained, now detained? On connections past and present in Rwanda

Abstract

Nobody would pretend that Castells has ever been an Africanist. This quote could apply to all societies and could even be heard as a Levi-Straussian echo of La pensée sauvage. In a more casual way, pointing to the creation of language subcultures as a way of channeling communication and diverting its flows, a Kenyan student of language creolization added: “If we did not construct Africa as very special, our object of study would vanish." The regulation of flows within and between societies seems universal. Constructing representations and giving legitimacy to their regulation, however equally universal as a process, happens in ways specific to societies and embodies their values. Perceiving flows in capital-driven societies goes far back in time. When it comes to African and other societies-such as the most publicized Trobriand Islanders (Malinowski 1922)-where money played a minor role but where the perception of a cosmology took pride of place, pointing to the circulation of flows is a more recent trend. In such instances, an analytical accent on metaphors to the detriment of the observation of metonymic manipulations has obscured the connections between ideology and the material circulation of goods, overshadowing the fact that economy and power are intrinsically connected with materiality. Dynamics of flows as life were probably first studied by de Mahieu (1985), who indicated the necessary, bodily enclosure of flows. Devisch (1987) insisted on the correlate enclosure, as he discerned a homologous construction of space in habitation and other humanized spaces. Taylor (1988: 1343-1348), who relied on the published text of the Rwandan kingly rituals (d’Hertefelt & Coupez 1964; de Lame 2005b) and on observation of local therapeutics, stressed the importance of flows but failed to analyze the correlate, identity-building circumscription of space by flows.