Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Since Burundi gained independence in 1962, this country has experienced periods of mass communal violence.Extensive scholarly research has focused on exploring the factors behind, and the nature of, the conflicts in Burundi from a socio-ethnic perspective.There has, however, been a persistent lack of attention paid to the inextricable relationship between environmental factors; particularly the scarcity of resources, coupled with rapid population growth; and Burundi's recent history of internal conflict.Noteworthy explanatory factors, which are often ignored in literature on the environment and conflict, have thus motivated this study.Burundi is an example of this reality because of a highly dependent agricultural economy and a constant growing population.This study used a descriptive analysis, as methodological tool; in order to gain an understanding of Burundi's land question -that is, how limited access to land and the constantly increasing population have led to environmental degradation, that served as motivational trigger factors for the violent political conflicts that occurred at various periods between 1965 and 1993 in this country.This study addresses this epistemological gap.In order to explore the nexus between environmental factors, land access, population growth and the political conflicts in Burundi, this study draws and builds upon Jared Diamond's (2005) five point framework of potential trigger factors to environmental collapse.Moreover, Diamond's (2005) ecocide theory argues that there are eight specific indicators to demonstrate how societies undermine themselves by damaging their own environment; thus resulting in an ecocide.This theory was applied to the two main environmental variables examined in this study.More specifically, this theoretical perspective provided a base for exploring how land issues, population growth, environmental degradation and political change can be understood as important precursors to the violent conflicts in Burundi.What may be surmised by this study; is that there is indeed a positive correlation between these forces, where the values of the independent variables (land access and population growth) are associated with the values of the dependent variable (violent conflict).This correlation, therefore, calls for an acknowledgement of the complexity of the Burundian conflicts and that ethnicity which has dominated contemporary conflict analysis is but one of several social rifts.
Author: Elisabeth Naito Jengo
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2145432168