Legacies of colonial agency in Africa: Reflections of an ‘ethnicized’ space in Kenya and Rwanda

Abstract

This study investigates the enduring legacies of colonial rule through the frameworks of related practices, strategies, and mechanisms of ‘political control’ in Kenya and Rwanda post-independence. These legacies are evaluated in light of their agency in ‘ethnicizing’ the political space and their attendant implications. The study examines the British and Belgian colonial models of control and how some of these models were adapted by African elites’ post-independence and which corresponds to facets of internal colonialism. These are engaged through the lens of neo-patrimonialism. The study examines the imprints of the British and the Belgian colonial legacies in reinforcing ethnic differences and the attendant violence in the two polities. The study situates the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the Kenyan 2007/08 electoral violence within these debates.