Field research ethical challenges in a post–conflict Rwandan society: mistrust experienced in data collection in Kigali City

Field research in a post-conflict society brings about the concern of ‘mistrust’. Due to bad experiences endured, people in such a society are plagued with fear and suspicion to talk about some topics. This happens while the researcher is also required to adhere to research ethics and collect much-needed baseline data. From his experience while he was conducting his PhD research on the informal urbanization and modernization of the City of Kigali, the author explains how he managed to deal with the informants who feared to criticize urban development policies and implementation strategies. The study recommends researchers in a mistrust context, to use different types of data collection methods and to take enough time to gain trust and confidence of informants to discuss on presumed sensitive topics.Keywords: Fieldwork, research ethics, mistrust, good data, Kigali Cit

La problématique de l'urbanisation spontanée face à la modernisation de la ville de Kigali (Rwanda)

The modernisation of cities is commonly seen as a key strategy for competing the global economic arena. However, in developing countries, modernisation can negatively impact on both sustainable urban planning and population’s living conditions. With regard to that, informal settlements represent one of the main challenges city planners must meet. Such is the case in Kigali: although the city is undergoing a drastic urban renewal, it is still confronted with uncoordinated urbanization. Through an analysis of different land use and housing processes, this study reveals that the informal settlements result from the urban planning schemes. In fact, such schemes are too demanding for the majority of urban dwellers who intent to secure their housing needs. The urban divide and different living environment observed through poor and rich neighborhoods also appear as a result of urbanisation strategies. By way of tackling the issue, this study proposes a viable inclusive framework for sustainable urbanisation and urban development.(POLS - Sciences politiques et sociales) -- UCL, 201

Les Eglises et leur rôle dans la reconstitution du tissu social au Rwanda

La prolifération des Eglises et mouvements religieux au Rwanda est un phénomène qui interroge tout le monde. Cette situation se fait surtout sentir dans la ville de Kigali mais aussi dans les campagnes à un certain degré. Les facteurs qui sont à la base du renouveau religieux sont tellement variables, mais la problématique est de savoir si réellement, de par leurs missions et structures, les Eglises et les mouvements religieux contribuent à reconstituer le tissu social dans un pays affecté par des guerres civiles, la haine, la division et même les massacres. A partir du cas du Rwanda, ce chapitre explore comment les Eglises (ou leur leadership) même si certaines sont souvent jugées avoir joué un rôle dans ce genre de déchirement social peuvent y porter des contributions fructueuses

‘Modernizing Kigali’: the struggle for space in the Rwandan urban context

The final chapter by Vincent Manirakiza and An Ansoms (‘Modernizing Kigali: The struggle for space in the Rwandan urban context’) also analyses land use planning, but in the urban context of Kigali. Again, the new Rwandan urban habitat regulations are based upon a clear and ambitious vision of what ‘modern’ urban planning should look like. Through a reorganization of urban habitat, the government aims at reconfiguring urban space in line with the needs of a true metropolis. However, in practice only better-off actors can meet the criteria and thus strengthen their land rights. Poorer population categories, on the other hand, who cannot meet the strict planning regulations, are pushed into de facto illegality in terms of urban planning and development, and live in informal urban areas without services or move to peri-urban areas that formally are still rural. Moreover, public-private partnerships allow real-estate investors to expropriate and evict more popular, poorer quarters for the ‘public interest’. As a result, the poor experience insecure land rights and risk to be displaced (again) in the near future

Understanding the concept of neighbourhood in Kigali City, Rwanda

Though the relevance of the concept of neighbourhood in both research and policy oriented circles is unquestionable, the concept remains contested and fluid, making its operationalisation a daunting task, particularly in practice. This study explores how the concept of neighbourhood has been operationalised in Kigali city and how the neighbourhood boundaries and typologies are defined. This paper dwells on the review of relevant literature, interviews with 25 practitioners and field observations. It is argued that neighbourhood conceptualisation in Kigali is both theory—it bears the common aspects of neighbourhood definitions—and practice driven, reflecting modernity and context. On the one hand, modernity suggests the desire of planning authorities to follow contemporary planning practices. Context, on the other hand, reflects the desire to tailor local policies to country specific challenges. While boundaries follow subjective, administrative and physical models, typologies tend to be overly physical, focusing mainly on housing structures. This study identified three conventional neighbourhood typologies—planned, informal and mixed types. Given the predominance of informal and mixed neighbourhoods, this study further argues that such areas form the ‘bedroom’ and ‘transit point’ for most lower- and middle-class workers, in addition to serving as a ‘laboratory’ for testing various social interventions. This study recommends a well-serviced mixed classification typology to foster a strong sense of belongingness

Web Mapping and Behavior Pattern Extraction Tools to Assess Lyme Disease Risk for Humans in Peri-Urban Forests

International audienceLyme disease is a zoonotic disease that poses a new public health problem in urbanized areas where increasingly large numbers of people attend urban forests and park settings. Understanding spatial patterns of human risk of exposure to Lyme disease is critical to target prevention, control, and surveillance actions. To this end, we adopt a geographic approach where the extent of the exposure is related to the type, frequency, and duration of a person's activities in a tick-infested environment. To extract visitors’ typical behavior patterns, we used questionnaires and web mapping tools to collect data about visitors’ activities in Forollect data about visitorsdopt a geographic approach where the extent of the, we propose a formal approach to model activity patterns and present a method to automatically extract them from collected data. Our pattern extraction tool can be used to assess at-risk behaviors of certain categories of visitors, which can help public health authorities implement preventive actions

Rwanda: National Urban Policies and City Profiles for Kigali and Huye

This research report reviews and analyses Rwanda’s planning and urban development policy documents for the last twenty years, identifying the key ideas and policies that have shaped the delivery of public services, paying particular attention to education and healthcare. This report also presents city profiles for two of Rwanda’s cities: Kigali and Huye

Rwanda: National Urban Policies and City Profiles for Kigali and Huye

This research report reviews and analyses Rwanda’s planning and urban development policy documents for the last twenty years, identifying the key ideas and policies that have shaped the delivery of public services, paying particular attention to education and healthcare. This report also presents city profiles for two of Rwanda’s cities: Kigali and Huye

GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods: Household Survey and Neighbourhood Focus Group Data from Seven Asian and African Countries, 2021-2022

In order to bring a thorough and comprehensive understanding of social, economic and environmental sustainability challenges faced by cities and local communities in the developing countries, the SHLC team conducted a major household survey followed by a neighbourhood focus group interview in seven Asian and African countries from late 2021 to early 2022. In each country the study includes two case study cities: one large city and one smaller regional cities. Within each case study cities, neighbourhoods were identified and categorised into five income and wealth bands: the rich, upper middle income, middle income, lower middle and low income neighbourhoods. A household survey was carried out face to face by trained interviewers with a random adult member of the household. The 20 page common questionnaire was designed and adopted by all teams, which cover topics of housing, residence, living conditions, migration, education, health, neighbourhood infrastructure, facilities, governance and relations, income and employments, gender equality and impacts from Covid-19. The sample was distributed in the city to representative the five neighbourhood types. The survey was completed in 13 of the 14 case study cities (fieldwork in Chongqing in China was delayed by the Covid-19 lockdowns and implemented in August 2023). The target sample for each city was 1000; the total sample in the database (SPSS and STATA) include 14245 households. The survey was followed by focus group interviews. A carefully designed and agreed common interview guide was used by all team. The target was to have one focus group for one neighbourhood in each income band in each city. A total of 74 focus group interviews were conducted (Fieldwork in Datong and Chongqing in China was delayed). The transcripts are the qualitative data shared here