Youth and Therapeutic Insurgency in Eastern Congo: An Ethnographic History of Ruga-Ruga, Simba, and Mai-Mai Movements, 1870 - Present

Abstract

This is an ethnographic history of child soldiering in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It focuses on deployments of mai (Swahili: "water") medicines and charms during periods of intergenerational conflict from the late 19th century to the present. Why do recurring insurgencies invoke the discourses and practices of these particular medicines, wielded primarily by the young? At the heart of this question lie the antecedents, events, and afterlives of the 1964 Simba Rebellion: likely the most massive mobilization of child soldiers in post-colonial Africa. The Simba's roots are traced through ruga-ruga movements in the late 19th century, Anioto leopard-men violence in the Belgian Congo, and carceral sites like the National Penitentiary for Delinquent Youth at Niangara in the late colonial era. The dissertation concludes by examining the proliferation of mai-mai movements in contemporary eastern Congo and the international development industry that seeks to manage the violence of these young warriors. Working across time and scale, from a microhistory of an individual child combatant to deeper regional histories of generational dynamics, the focus remains on links between violent children, war charms and medicines, and forms and practices of adult authority. The study invigorates contemporary analyses of child soldiering by foregrounding temporally deep, emic interpretations of links between age, violence, medicine, and immaturity. It builds arguments from a broad array of evidence, including oral interviews, vernacular narratives such as the Mwindo Epic, mission archives, periodicals, and colonial security archives. The geographical focus is on the northern parts of what is now North Kivu province.