Re-education camp as a spatial governance form: Separation, structure, and staging in Rwanda’s ingando camps

Abstract

Compared to other forms of encampment, contemporary re-education camps do not draw much comparative work in sociology and politics. Even less is known about the governance of such camps, and the ways in which unique spatial aspects of encampment are meant to facilitate the intended social and ideological transformation which is their hallmark. Taking post-genocide Rwanda’s uniquely widespread system of ingando “solidarity” camps as its case study, this article argues that three aspects of spatial governance in particular—separation, (hyper)structure, and staging—are central to the modus operandi of re-education camp as a technology of transformative power. The ingando system was born amid a crisis of citizenship in the wake of mass atrocity and shaped by a rebel-turned-ruler elite aiming to reconstruct citizenship sifted through the lens of glorified militarism. The ingando camps are not only about learning together, but their remoteness is meant to unsettle, their structure is meant to foster discipline, and their staging and experiential aspects are meant to simulate values of unity as cohesion and submission to a broader goal.