La debrouille: A Dominant Approach to Coping in the Kivus

This section considers in greater detail the first aspect of the resilience framework - individual coping. Coping is defined as the capacity to “deal effectively with something difficult” (Oxford Dictionaries nd).

As shown through the data collected among young people, they are left fending for themselves in a context where the state provides little or no services or protection and where traditional support structures have all but broken down. They have thus few survival alternatives beyond la debrouille. La debrouille is a ubiquitous concept throughout the DRC and indeed throughout much of Franco­phone sub-Saharan Africa (Olivier de Sardan 1996). The word is derived from the French verb se debrouiller, which can be translated as “to find a way,” “to make arrangements,” “to use one's own means” or “to be satisfied with” (Larousse Online Dictionary nd). La debrouille is a specific way of coping which has come to dominate discourses on survival in the DRC, a term which also serves as an epithet to justify the absence of government services and the prevalence of corrupt prac­tices. At the individual level, la debrouille serves as a key coping mechanism which is primarily associated with finding a way to meet one's material needs. Given the lack of employment alternatives and difficulties in finding a way to earn a living, the capacity for la debrouille allows young people to survive and to make the best of challenging circumstances.

Serving as a key coping strategy, la debrouille remains extremely relevant in the lives of young people today. As the research participants were keen to teach me, the response to the casual Kiswahili greeting when seeing a friend on the street, “Unaenda wapi?” [Where are you going?], is usually met with the response: “Ninaenda kujidebrouiller” [I'm going to find my way - me debrouiller] (group discussion, May 2010). The capacity of la debrouille was clearly demonstrated by the young research participants who would engage in multiple tactics as they tried to ensure their daily survival, from accepting daily wage labor tasks such as cultivating the fields of others or transporting rocks for a road construction project, to seeking handouts of food or money from others, to more risky tactics such as occasionally trading in sex for money. As they explained, one always has to be alert as the capacity for la debrouille depends both on one's individual ability to appraise and make use of potential opportunities and on the chance that such opportunities present themselves at any given time. To demonstrate the diversity of possible ways in which young people use their capacities for la debrouille, this section shares the narratives of three young people.

3.1 Living with "Intelligence"

The first example is offered by Richard [pseudonym], who was 19 years old when this research was conducted in 2010. Richard had been comparatively successful at taking advantage of the limited possibilities available to a young person living in rural South Kivu, yet his capacity for “finding his way” required significant personal struggle. During his biographical interview, Richard recounted how, following the death of his father in 2001, he had become responsible for the survival of his family:

My father died when I was 10 years old. From then I had to ensure our survival.

I came back home in 2009, then rented some land to cultivate. I’m growing cassava now, and even with the mosaic [plant virus] we manage to cultivate enough for eating. Last year I also participated in a carpentry skills training programme [offered by a local NGO] and now I get some jobs as a carpenter, making doors mostly and some furniture. This helps me to support my mother, my wife and our two children.

Richard’s capacity for coping with generalized rural poverty required his ability to search out new opportunities and a willingness to travel far and work under extremely difficult physical conditions. It also required the skill of discerning when to end a venture that was proving to be unprofitable. Richard was committed to ensuring the survival of his ailing mother and to supporting his wife and children.

During a return visit in September 2011, 1 year after the fieldwork period had ended, Richard continued to demonstrate his ability to effectively cope within the structures of violence. His carpentry workshop was doing relatively well, and his family’s needs were provided for; Richard was facing the constraints of poverty far better than any of his peers. For him, it was the personal sense of responsibility he felt toward his family which kept him constantly in search of the next possible opportunity.

the capacity to look for one’s livelihood [chercher la vie]. We don't cross our arms, we look to others for help... Intelligence requires the ability to change behaviours... to think about solutions and to know how to realise them. It’s knowing how to use what we’ve been given... Intelligence comes from experiencing difficulties. If one isn’t hungry, one won’t learn intelligence. (focus group discussion, Bukavu, April 2010)

3.2 Survival and Risk Taking

The second example of young people’s capacity for la debrouille discussed here offers insights into the risks which can be associated with young people’s efforts to ensure their best survival outcomes. It demonstrates how the structures of violence - in this case protracted displacement and a lack of alternative livelihood possibil­ities - can transform short-term coping mechanisms into longer-term risks. The context of this narrative is Masisi Territory, an area in North Kivu which has long been affected by militarized conflict. In Masisi, the local population has repeatedly experienced forced displacement, and consequently many families have lost access to their land, rendering them dependent on daily wage labor for their survival.

As the young research participants repeatedly explained, the constraints of poverty, lack of livelihood alternatives, and displacement from family land lead many girls to choose transactional sex as the most accessible and reliable income­earning tactic (Seymour 2011). In the cash-based urban economies of the Kivus, young people would note that “some girls are so poor that sex is the only way that they can get any money” (focus group discussion, girls 14-17 years old, Goma, July 2011).

For many people in Masisi Territory on the edge of survival, an armed attack on a village, looting of personal property, or a brief period of displacement can lead to a collapse into total poverty. One of the young people participating in the North Kivu research was Safia (pseudonym), an 18-year-old living in one of the displaced settlements not far from Kitchanga town in Masisi Territory. This area had witnessed repeated waves of population displacement due to regular clashes between the CNDP and the FARDC, and Safia had been displaced several times in recent years. The economic strain on her family was heavy, and eventually her father left the family. Soon after having met a new husband, Safia's mother also left home, making Safia the head of the household at 13 years of age:

About five years ago our father left us. Our mother eventually married another man- then she abandoned us too. We were three girls and three boys. It was up to me to take care of my younger brothers and sisters. My brothers joined the army so they could take care of themselves. But I was responsible for the survival of my sisters.

As seen through Safia's description, tactics for la debrouille are highly gendered in the Kivus. Boys and men are able to choose survival options such as working in the mines, serving as porters, or joining one of the several armed groups active in the area.

From the age of 14, I started going to boys and old men so that I could provide food for my little sisters. That's how I got pregnant the first time. I had my first child when I was 14 and my second one when I was 16 years old. I didn't want to have children then but life made it happen. The money that I was given by men helped me so much that I was able to provide food for my sisters and to pay for our school fees.

Initially sex in exchange for money and food was a temporary survival measure for Safia, but once she realized that she could support herself and her family in this way - even to the point of paying her sister's school fees as well as her own - it became a more permanent way of earning a livelihood. Safia was aware of the risks involved in prostitution and was articulate in expressing the difficulties that she experienced in this line of work:

Prostitution isn't easy work. I have to leave my children with my little sisters, and sometimes when I come home in the morning they're crying. But if I don't do it, we won't have enough to eat or to pay our rent. When I spend the night with a man, he might easily give me US$5, or sometimes he'll give me absolutely nothing. He might threaten me because he is a soldier and so I have to return home without anything.

Like so many young people in eastern DRC, Safia was left with a limited range of choices which forced her toward decisions that were highly rational, even if they came with significant risk to her own personal health and well-being. Her capacity for la debrouille demonstrates her ability to survive in the otherwise overwhelming constraints of the structural violence of North Kivu. Such short­term coping mechanisms lead to longer-term risks which are likely to weaken young people’s capacity to emerge effectively from the violence in which they are embedded.

3.3 Submission and Defeat

The structures of violence which define the spaces of each day in the Kivus are not merely associated with the militarized aspects of violent conflict. Indeed, the use and threat of violence are strategies employed by local government authorities to exert their power over those who are weaker, demonstrating how Kleinman’s (2000, p. 227) “cascade of violence” flows from the highest to the lowest levels of the political and social hierarchy. Although government authorities in the DRC are not themselves armed, they have the power accorded by their position to mobilize force as or when needed. In a place where power is determined by violence, and where the means for survival and advancement are extremely limited for the vast majority, Simone’s notion of “people as infrastructure” (Simone 2004, p. 409) shows how authorities tactically rely on the weakness of others to maximize their advantage, using the artifacts of a largely dysfunctional state to force weaker individuals to comply with their demands.

The way in which authorities use the structures of violence to their advantage at the expense of those in a position of relative weakness was demonstrated by Vainquer, whose name loosely translates from the French as “victor” or “he who defeats” (his real name is used on his request). Vainquer had been displaced from his home village as a child with his family and had lived along the roadside for most of his life. Overcrowded conditions at home and increasing tensions with his father’s second wife had led Vainquer and his brother to move into a two-room mud-brick house a few months before I first met him in 2010. To earn money to buy food and to pay his rent, Vainquer’s tactics of la debrouille were primarily restricted to daily wage labor such as carrying rocks and sand from the hills to the roadside or transporting materials between towns on market days.

Vainquer was skilled in art - a rare talent in the Kivus, where quality formal education is increasingly exceptional. As seen with the illustrations on the situation of women in rural South Kivu above, Vainquer would often supplement his responses to my research questions and complement group discussions by drawing sketches or illustrations. He had trained himself in drawing and painting and had gained renown as the local artist, painting signs for local businesses or NGO projects whenever such opportunities presented themselves. In an effort to make the most of his talents, Vainquer had recently tried to set up his own art shop. After having worked arduously at various daily wage labor jobs over many months, he had managed to save up just enough money to build a stall where he would be able to receive clients and perhaps generate small contracts. With pain-staking prepara­tion and great anticipation, he finally opened his shop.

Within the very first hours of opening his business, however, Vainquer described how “the authorities came to me and demanded that I pay them.” The authorities included the Direction Generale des Recettes Administratives, Judiciaires, Domaniales et de Participation (DGRAD), or the tax authorities; the Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR), or the state intelligence service; and the police. Exercising their separate powers, these state authorities demanded immedi­ate payment of various taxes and fees. Vainquer had no money to offer and knew that these authorities would be willing and capable of imprisoning him until he - or someone in his family - would pay the requisite amount to ensure his release. Vainquer was able to negotiate himself out of arrest, but was left with no other choice than to close down his shop.

Vainquer's description of the event was controlled and careful, yet the anger and the helplessness he felt on recalling this experience was palpable in his expression and body language. Powerless to repel the structures of violence, Vainquer was left in a position where he had no choice but to submit to them. The aspiration which Vainquer once had for creating a better future for himself had been leveled by the forces of violence in which he lived. Despite his previous efforts to make a better life, the structures around him would not offer the terrain of possibility that is often associated with violent contexts (see Vigh 2006). Rather, Vainquer had to yield to the violence in order to ensure his own survival. Vainquer's opportunities for la de brouille would thus be relegated to carrying out daily wage labor with little reason to hope for advancement.

Vainquer would regularly reflect on the frustration he felt in his inability to advance and would express his emotional and psychological sense of defeat. While he had once believed that his artistic talents would have opened up possibilities for a different kind of life, he had since lost this aspiration as he submitted to the forces of violence everywhere around him. His low morale permeated many of our conversations, and he still felt a sense of failure in not having been successful in realizing his dreams: “Now I'm 20 years old, I'm an adult... Today I should be somewhere else in my life” (interview, Bunyakiri, July 2010). Yethe had also learnt that the structures of violence proscribing his present and his future were too powerful for him to take on: “I don't have any means to change things.”

As demonstrated through Vainquer's narrative as well as through the description of the failed uprising of the students in Bunyakiri in 2007, submission to violence does not just happen. Rather, submission is often the coping mechanism adopted by young people following a considered evaluation of events. Capacities for rational appraisal were evident among my research participants; for young people in Bunyakiri, their way of dealing with the structures of violence was best articulated by a local proverb: “When the tree is too big to cut down, we learn to live with it” (interview, Bunyakiri, May 2010). Submission has in this way become for them the best way to cope with the structures of violence which they have learnt they are unable to change.

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