S'intégrer pour exister, s'intégrer pour résister
Copyright (c) 2026 Humanities and Social Sciences
PERSISTENCE OF SOCIAL STIGMA AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG PEOPLE WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS IN BURUNDI: A STUDY CONDUCTED AT THE UWIRAGIYE FOUNDATION IN BUJUMBURA
In contemporary societies, visual impairment remains associated with prejudice, negative representations and stereotypes, fueling social stigma. It manifests itself in discriminatory attitudes of rejection and exclusion that limit the social integration of people concerned. Visual impairments continue to face several obstacles in their daily lives despite advances in human rights and inclusion. Our qualitative study conducted in the Uwiragiye Foundation of eighteen people with visual impairment, aims to identify the explanatory factors of stigma persistence towards people with visual impairment and analyze the different strategies for adaptation and social integration in order to cope with this stigma. By semi-directional interviews, the information collected is subject to thematic analysis. The results of our research show that the persistence of stigma is especially related to media invisibility, lack of awareness, prejudice, cultural beliefs, fear of unknown, inaccessible infrastructure and educational and support devices that remain insufficient. To address these barriers, visual impairments adopt resilience strategies such as strengthening self-confidence, education and public awareness, professional skills acquisitions, community engagement and the use of assistance technologies. However, these strategies allow their autonomy and social participation, contributing to the deconstruction of negative perceptions often associated with visual impairment.
FACTORS PREDICTING SCHOOL DROP OUT IN THE FORMER COMMUNE OF RUGAZI: ROLE OF FAMILY CONSTRAINTS, PEER DYNAMICS AND CHILDREN WORK
Background: The former commune of Rugazi has a high school dropout rate, contradicting national goals of universal enrollment and school completion. Objective: This study analyzes the factors associated with school dropout in this rural community. Methodology: The study adopts a quantitative approach based on binary logistic regression to estimate the effect of several predictive variables on the probability of dropping out of school. Results: Three factors are significantly associated with school dropout. First, advanced maternal age is a major risk factor; children whose mothers are 60 years of age or older are 3 times more likely to drop out of school than those whose mothers are under 40. Second, the social environment plays a decisive role: children who associate with peers who have dropped out and those who are not enrolled in school are, respectively, 2.3 and 2.8 times more likely to drop out than those who associate with peers who are enrolled in school. Third, the social utility of child labor is a major factor; children involved in economic activities to support their families are at a significantly higher risk of dropping out of school than those who do not have a specific work assignment (70% lower risk). Conclusion: These results underline that school dropout results from a combination of family, economic, and social factors. They reveal the need for integrated policies that combine support for disadvantaged households, the promotion of a social environment conducive to schooling, and the reduction of child labor in order to improve school retention in Rugazi as well as in all rural communes of Burundi.
THE RISE OF SANGO AND INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES IN THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLICE CENTRAFRICAINE
Sango and the heritage languages in contact enrich and complement each other, revitalizing the sociolinguistic environment in the Central African Republic. These languages have served as linguistic and cultural links in the Central African Republic and neighboring countries; however, the reasons for their emergence remain poorly understood, justifying the present research. Sango and the heritage languages owe their existence to endogenous factors, as expressed through linguistics and sociolinguistics, and to exogenous factors, such as the advent of colonization. These so-called ethnic languages coexist with Sango, French, and other foreign languages although multilingual, the Central African Republic exhibits a unique characteristic due to a monolingual national language. It is scientific research that has significantly contributed to the emergence of Sango. Heritage languages, for their part, emerged through inter-urban contact, encounters during weekly markets, and moments of both joy and sorrow.
THE PARADOX OF PRIVATE SECURITY INBURUNDI: SECURITY GUARDS WITHOUT PROTECTION
Background: Private security is a relatively new sector in the contemporary workplace. It challenges the distinction between the public and private spheres. Yet it has received less attention from researchers. Objective: The main objective of this study is to understand the daily experiences of private security agents. Methodology: The research adopts a qualitative approach and employs direct observation and semi-structured interviews as its methods. In total, it involves a sample of 24 agents recruited from three security and surveillance companies operating in the city of Bujumbura, the area with the highest concentration of such companies. The data are analyzed using content analysis, drawing on theories of alienation and precariousness. Results: The results reveal structural job insecurity. The conditions experienced by agents working in this sector lead to a sense of exploitation and resigned professional dissatisfaction, and are exacerbated by difficult hierarchical relationships and a lack of recognition. Conclusion: The research highlights an often-ignored reality characterized by a series of paradoxes at the heart of which lies the growing importance of private security sector and the lack of recognition and appreciation for the profession. It calls for more effective state regulation of the sector to ensure decent work for its professionals.
Relance de la revue et valorisation de la recherche en Sciences Humaines et Sociales au Burundi
Copyright (c) 2025 Humanities and Social Sciences
L'adaptation comme résilience: le destin d'une revue académique
AFRICAN ONTOLOGY AND RACISM IN MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’SPHILOSOPHY: PANACEA TO THE CHALLENGES OF CONTEMPORARYRACISM IN AFRICA
Since the Second World War, racism has been conceptualized as an irrational prejudice according to which other groups are considered inferior on the basis of biological-racial characteristics. However, racism is not a personality disorder but a political, social, and institutional phenomenon expressed in both public and private spheres for exclusive purposes. In African ontology, hierarchy and exclusion are not instrumental paradigms; rather, interconnectedness, community, and holistic understanding of being are emphasized. Yet, with historical ideological constructions and changing economic-political conditions, racism has arisen within African social institutions. This work examines how Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy, grounded in Afro-centric ontological principles, addresses contemporary racism in Africa. Using a qualitative, philosophical analysis of King’s texts, the study identifies his "Beloved Community," Six Principles of Nonviolence, and Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change as instruments for peaceful society. The findings indicate that King’s emphasis on Agape love, restorative justice, and community-centrism aligns with African ontology and offers a framework for decolonizing knowledge and promoting inclusivity. The study concludes that embracing King’s Afro-centric ontological instruments can work toward a more equitable society that values diversity and social justice.
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AND THE POETICS OF DIALOGUE IN LOLASHONEYIN’S THE SECRET LIVES OF BABA SEGI’S WIVES
This paper, titled “Religious Pluralism and the Poetics of Dialogue in Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives”, represents the interaction of multiple religious traditions within Nigerian society. The study investigates how the novel portrays religious pluralism and employs dialogic narrative techniques to depict the coexistence, tensions, and negotiations among Islam, Christianity, and indigenous spiritual beliefs. The research adopts a qualitative methodology based on close textual analysis and thematic interpretation of the primary text. The study is anchored on a postcolonial theoretical framework, drawing particularly on Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism. These theoretical perspectives enable an examination of how multiple narrative voices reveal the cultural and ideological dynamics of religious interaction within the novel. The findings indicate that the novel portrays Nigerian religiosity as a hybrid cultural system shaped by historical encounters between indigenous traditions and imported religions. Religion functions both as a source of spiritual meaning and as a mechanism of social authority within the patriarchal household. The multi-voiced narrative structure creates a dialogic space in which diverse religious perspectives coexist, elevating the relationship between religion, gender relations, and strategies of survival in a patriarchal society. The study also reveals that Shoneyin employs religious pluralism as a literary strategy to critique social hypocrisy and expose contradictions between religious ideals and everyday realities. The study concludes that contemporary Nigerian fiction provides an important platform for examining religious diversity and cultural negotiation in postcolonial societies Top of Form.
DICTION IN SELECTED FACEBOOK BIRTHDAY POSTS: INSIGHTSFROM LEECH AND SHORT’S LINGUISTIC STYLISTICS ANDHALLIDAY’S SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS
Facebook is a social media platform that enables users to interact, share messages, photographs, and videos regardless of distance. Previous studies have examined its role in knowledge sharing, communication, information acquisition, academic performance, and its effects on students. However, little attention has been paid to the diction of birthday messages on Facebook and the linguistic patterns they reveal. This study addresses this gap by analysing ten birthday posts selected from twenty-five collected posts based on their rich and recurring linguistic features. The analysis combines Leech and Short’s lexical category in linguistic stylistics with Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics. Findings show that endearment terms, code-switching, slang, colloquialisms, lexical borrowing, wishes, prayers, and figures of speech express intimacy, solidarity, and friendliness while enhancing the aesthetic quality of the messages. These linguistic features perform interpersonal, socialization, narrative, poetic, and aesthetic functions, reinforcing relationships and reflecting the distinctive sociolect of Facebook users.
ILLUMINATING CONTEMPORARY CHOREOGRAPHY: THE ROLE OF LIGHT DESIGN TECHNOLOGY IN DANCE CREATION AND PERFORMANCE IN BOLANLE AUSTEN PETERS’ MOREMI THE MUSICAL
Background. Lighting in dance once served one job: to make the stage visible to the audience. Programmable fixtures, digital control systems and projection infrastructure have changed this, and light now works as a means of composition rather than a service to vision. The change reflects a wider movement of digital technology into live performance. Objective. This study examines light design technology as a constitutive element of contemporary dance and argues for its part in choreographic composition, narrative construction and affective communication. Methodology. The research combines theoretical synthesis with textual analysis of one production, Bolanle Austen-Peters' Moremi the Musical, staged at Terra Kulture in Lagos. Frameworks from performance studies, colour psychology, symbolic interactionism and human-technology interaction inform a four-stage reading of the publicly available recording, organised around chromatic coding, perception of space and time, performer-technology relations and audience response. Each observation is anchored to a recording timestamp for independent verification. Results. LED systems, intelligent consoles, projection mapping and AI-assisted virtual environments widen the choreographic palette, order perception and carry emotion and story without words. The production holds to an internally coherent chromatic system rooted in Yoruba performance aesthetics, distinguishing it from comparable Western stagings. Conclusion. Light design technology serves as a principal compositional language in contemporary dance. The study calls for sustained interdisciplinary research on access, durability and algorithmic accountability within AI-assisted practice, so the form remains open to practitioners working beyond well-resourced production settings.
LAND DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN POST-CIVIL WAR COUNTRIES:WAYS OF HARNESSING SUSTAINABLE PEACE IN BURUNDI AND RWANDA
In most African countries, civil wars have been accompanied by land disputes that, if not resolved, have revived the conflict. Moreover, among treaties and accords signed between the two parties in conflicts, land dispute resolution has not been included. The failure to recognise land disputes has endangered the sustainable peace in the country. Therefore, this paper documents the typology of land disputes and mechanisms applied to resolve them for sustainable peace in post-civil war contexts, despite the differences among ethnic groups in Burundi and Rwanda. The paper used a qualitative research approach to collect data from different sources. The data were analysed by using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA). The findings show that both Burundi and Rwanda have the same category of land disputes, subdivided into different land dispute types. Also, both countries applied informal and formal land dispute resolution mechanisms crafted and hosted in different institutions. Both countries have established institutions at the grassroots and local level for land dispute resolution, which helped to harness sustainable peace. Furthermore, a five-step process was effective in Rwanda to resolve land disputes, whereas in Burundi, a two-way approach was effective in addressing them. From the locally created committees, residents were unified, and social cohesion was enhanced, and then, sustainable peace was achieved.
PERCEPTIONS OF THE INTEGRATION OF ARTICICIAL INTELLIGENCE INTO THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM AMONG HEALTH PROFESSIONALS IN NIGERIA
AI is transforming healthcare systems. However, its integration into the healthcare system in Nigeria remains limited. This study investigated perceptions of AI integration, assessing the awareness of AI among healthcare professionals, its influence on health information, and challenges affecting its adoption. Anchored on the Technology Acceptance Model, the study employed a descriptive survey design and engaged 400 healthcare professionals and hospital administrators across health institutions in Nigeria. Data were gathered through structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings showed that 83.2% of professionals were familiar with AI. Respondents agreed that AI enhances the accuracy of health information (86.0%), improves medical data interpretation (86.5%), and supports decision-making. Key challenges included insufficient infrastructure (78.9%), high implementation costs (78.9%) and shortage of trained personnel (79.7%). Qualitative findings confirmed that AI improves clinical decision-making and operational efficiency. The study concludes that healthcare professionals in Nigeria recognize the substantial benefits of AI, but its integration remains constrained by infrastructural, financial, and human-capacity challenges. The study recommends sustained investment in digital infrastructure and workforce capacity development for AI-driven healthcare systems in Nigeria.
ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING CONDITIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON TEACHER RETENTION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN SIERRA LEONE
Teacher retention and educational quality remain significant challenges in secondary schools in Sierra Leone, largely due to disparities in working conditions. This study investigated the influence of working conditions on teacher retention and educational quality in secondary schools across Sierra Leone. Using a mixed-methods approach, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 380 teachers in public and private secondary schools across several districts and analyzed to examine the relationship between working conditions, and teacher retention. The findings revealed considerable disparities in working conditions, particularly in rural schools, which negatively affected teaching and learning. While some schools had adequate facilities and instructional resources, shortages remained widespread. Administrative support emerged as the most important factor influencing teacher satisfaction, followed by leadership engagement, resource availability, and opportunities for professional development. The study also found that working conditions directly affected educational quality. Factors such as workload, classroom environment, and teacher student relationships played a critical role in teaching effectiveness and student achievement. Concerns about inadequate salaries and limited career progression opportunities were also common. The study concludes that poor working conditions and insufficient compensation negatively affect teacher satisfaction, and retention, in Sierra Leone. It recommends increased investment in school infrastructure, equitable distribution of resources, stronger instructional leadership, expanded professional development opportunities, and fair compensation policies to improve teacher retention.
FROM BALLOTS TO BULLETS: EFFECTS OF ELECTORAL CONFLICTS ON TOURISM GROWTH IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Despite extensive literature linking political instability to tourism performance, a clear research gap persists regarding the specific and differentiated effects of electoral conflicts, including pre-election tensions, disputed results, and post-election violence, on tourism growth in the Global South. This study addresses this gap by conducting a systematic meta-analysis and qualitative thematic synthesis of peer-reviewed studies and institutional reports published between 2010 and 2026. The study identified 112 records from Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science; 27 peer-reviewed studies and 6 institutional reports met the inclusion criteria for analysis. Quantitative findings on tourist arrivals, tourism revenues, destination image, and tourism recovery were comparatively synthesised. At the same time, qualitative evidence was thematically analysed to examine political risk perception, crisis communication, and tourism resilience. Findings reveal that electoral conflicts significantly reduce tourist arrivals, tourism revenues, hotel occupancy, and destination competitiveness, with post-election violence causing the most severe and prolonged tourism downturns. Media framing, travel advisories, and social media amplification emerged as major drivers of destination image deterioration and tourist risk perception. The study concludes that peaceful electoral governance and integrated tourism crisis management systems are essential for tourism resilience.
ORATURE, REPETITIONS AND TRANSCODE ALTERNATION IN FRANCOPHONE AFRICAN LITERATURE: the example of La Gousse vide byFidèle Kaby.
The wealth and perlocutionary strength of African writing lie in the aesthetic strategies implemented by novelists, particularly orature, code and/or transcode alternation, or even repetitions. These characteristics, which among other things define Fidèle Kaby's style, deserve special attention from literary critics. This article illustrates some aspects of this African genre in La Gousse vide, a novel from the last decade, published in line with the denunciation of awkwardness and the establishment of new perspectives on African practice. Initially, it focus on oral procedures and code switching before dwelling on the metabolites. There writing techniques from the quest for identity or the clean way to Kaby to free the French speaking African novel.
Copyright (c) 2025 Humanities and Social Sciences Series
INTEGRATION OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE INTO PRIMARY HEALTH CARE IN BURUNDI
Mental health care remains lagging behind primary health care in low-income countries such as Burundi. The Ministry of Public Health and AIDS Control has included the mainstreaming of mental health care into primary health care in its policy. One of the partners supporting the implementation of this policy is Louvain Cooperation. As part of its Izere Mental Health Project from 2017 to 2021, this organization has launched a pilot project to integrate mental health care into primary health care in two health districts, Buye and Kiremba, in Ngozi. The overall aim of the study is to analyze the effectiveness of intervention approaches used to incorporate mental health care into primary health care. The study provided an overview of the current state of mainstreaming regarding existing practices and research. Using the qualitative method, with tools such as semi-structured interviews and focus group enabled data collection, and the subsequent analysis of this data led to the study’s results. The population of the pilot area gained a good understanding of mental illness thanks to community awareness-raising. The provision of medication and goats to people suffering from mental illnesses gave them access to care. The challenges and issues experienced have led to an openness concerning proposals for interventions to improve mainstreaming.
Copyright (c) 2026 Humanities and Social Sciences Series
Polygamy through the lens of family and couple psychology: Adaptation strategies, emotional regulation, and preservation of self-esteem among Muslim co-wives
Context: In Burundi, Muslim polygamy exists within a normative duality: while legally prohibited, it continues to be practiced and religiously justified in the name of Sharia. Objective: This article analyzes, through the lens of conjugal and family psychology, the adaptation strategies, emotional regulation processes, and self-esteem preservation mechanisms deployed by Muslim co-wives in Burundi. Methodology: A qualitative investigation, based on in-depth semi-structured interviews, was conducted with eight Muslim co-wives residing in Bujumbura, particularly in the neighborhoods of Buyenzi and Kamenge. Data were processed using thematic analysis. Results: The study reveals complex psychological work. To maintain a privileged dyadic bond, the participants cultivate exclusive intimacy and measured conflict management. Inter-co-wife dynamics oscillate between selective solidarity and rivalry, regulated by patience, distancing, or recourse to the sacred. Emotional regulation involves cognitive reframing and the active suppression of negative effects. Finally, self-esteem is negotiated in a dialectical tension between pride derived from identification with the religious system and a narcissistic wound linked to feelings of injustice. Conclusion: This empirical research highlights the agency and sophisticated psychological skills developed by co-wives to adapt to polygamy, thereby moving beyond an analytical framework focused solely on victimization. The results underscore the necessity of considering these adaptation strategies in any psychosocial support.
PSYCHIC DEFENSES AND ADJUSTMENT PROCESSES IN TYPE 2 DIABETES: A CASE STUDY FOLLOWED AT THE DIABETES CONTROL CENTER IN BURUNDI
Background: Diabetes is a condition that profoundly affects an individual’s overall well-being. Although it is primarily a physical illness that threatens bodily integrity, the way patients perceive and interpret the disease, greatly influences their experience and coping mecanism. Some individuals develop resources that enable them to live with the illness, while others may find their coping strategies challenged, putting their health at further risk. Objective: It is from this perspective that the present study aims to explore the psychic defense implemented by patients to promote successful adaptation. Methodology: This study is qualitative and conducted through an inductive approach. It’s based on data collected in patients living with type 2 diabetes, through semi-structured interviews conducted by an interview guide covering themes related to the adjustment process to diabetes. Results: The results reveal that the strategies used may be internal or external and vary from one patient to another. Some are geared toward directly solving the problem namely, diabetes management, while others rely on building support networks, and still others involve religious practices such as prayer. Among the strategies identified, the use of certain defense mechanisms was noted, particularly acceptance and minimizing the seriousness of the illness. Conclusion: Patients facing diabetes employ various adaptive strategies. These findings highlight the need for an individualized and holistic approach to the management of this chronic Keywords: Diabetes, psychic defenses, adjustment process, chronic illness, mental health
Immediate self-corrections in spoken Kirundi: Frequency and repair mechanisms
Context. Kirundi is a tonal language. But unlike French, for example, where diacritical marks are indicated in the text, tones are produced but not written. Problematic. This situation makes reading a Kirundi text challenging, as the reader must rely on meaning and overall sentence context to know which tone to produce. This article addresses therefore of the phenomena specific to spoken language: immediate self-corrections. These phenomena – also conceived as Formulation work marks – disrupt the syntactic regularity of utterances and prevent the formation of discourse constituents traditionally known from written language. Objective. Since these phenomena are considered as to be part of the general cognitive mechanisms of language, the aim of this article is not only to study their attestation in Kirundi oral productions, but also to verify hypothesis that have been widely confirmed in other languages whose typology differs from that of Kirundi. Methodology. The analysis concerns a corpus of approximately 29 minutes of read speech and 34 minutes of spontaneous speech collected from 6 Kirundi speakers (4 men and 2 women). Results. Contrary to the observations made in French, the results show that immediate self corrections are rather frequent in read speech. Conclusion. This work therefore reveals that, despite their universal nature, the realisation of speech repair markers can vary from one language to another awork marks can vary from one language to another and from one speech style to another.
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENON OF MORTALITY AMONG CHILDREN UNDER FIVE YEARS OLD IN BURUNDI
This article is intended as a socio-anthropological reflection on a social fact: "infant and child mortality which remains very high in Burundi". We hypothesize that the mortality of children under five remains high as a result of: (1) a situation of analytical non-control of variables having a direct or indirect impact on the health of children under five; (2) a lack of participation of the active populations for the control and the mastery of these factors; and, (3) a lack of "transfer of scientific results to political action" (Wunsch 2015:10). Henry Gendreau's model of analysis served as a benchmark to verify these hypotheses
Linking contemplation to rising from the tomb surprises many. Why contemplate? How does contemplation looks like leaving the tomb? This article, which examines the foundation of contemplation, seeks to understand what is experienced by the man who questions art works. It is based on two assumptions: that contemplation revitalizes art works and, that contemplating leads to responsibility, for life and against death. The results of this research show that the artist communicates with the existential moment of his society and that he is the promoter of life as his works help those who follow him to come out of the sleep and the death. This contemplator values him and encourages him to make more effort in this fight against death.
THE RISE OF TRADITIONAL DANCE CLUBS AND THE GENESIS OF DANCECOMMODIFICATION IN BUJUMBURA CITY
This paper investigates traditional dance commodification amidst an ever-increasing ‘club proliferation’ in the City of Bujumbura. Bujumbura, Burundi’s former political capital, is characterised by a colourful ceremonial atmosphere, where private and public ceremonies are organised most frequently. In this context, songs and dances of various kinds are performed to enliven the ambience. The main objective of this study is to get insights into this club phenomenon to determine the origin of the traditional dance clubs and why they are gaining momentum in the city of Bujumbura. Participants in the study were members of six of the several traditional dance clubs performing in Bujumbura city. A qualitative research design was adopted, and an ethnographic method used to investigate the phenomenon. Eleven participants were recruited from six different traditional dance clubs, participant observation was conducted, semi-structured interviews were recorded, conversations were held and pictures taken. Findings show that, based on backgrounds of the founding members, different reasons motivated the creation of these dance clubs at various periods before evolving into entrepreneurial entities. This phenomenon timidly began to occur in the early 90s and lead to a remarkable proliferation of these clubs around the 2000s in Bujumbura city.
STRATEGIES FOR THE RAPID PROMOTION OF CHINESE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN BURUNDI
This paper sets out the current situation of the teaching-learning of the Chinese language in Burundi from the 2011 to 2020. It aims to evidence and explain the factors of the promotion of the teaching of the Chinese language in Burundi, and to identify those who can inspire others countries. This research is based on reflections, documentary analysis and observations in Burundian’s teaching of chinese language environmental. After analyzing the factors of the promotion of the teaching of the Chinese language in Burundi, the results of the research propose factors constituting the strategies of the rapid promotion of the teaching of the Chinese language in Burundi. It is the better sino-burundian cooperation, the diversity of activities related to the Chinese language, the strong will of High schools’ headmasters to create teaching centers of the Chinese language, the extension and the transformation of class-credit into class-club. Finally, this paper releases points which can inspire other countries to rapid promote the teaching of Chinese language.
MORPHOSYNTACTIC MARKING OF TOPIC IN KIRUNDI (JD62)
This article, using a linguistic analysis guided by the corpus, aims to systematically describe the different types of topics in use in Kirundi and the morphosyntaxic means that come into play for their marking. It also consists of identifying the parts of speech that can be elevated to the status of the topic in this Bantu language. The results of this analysis show that Kirundi syntactically employs two types of topics: the external topic (TE) obtained after the dislocation to the left of a syntactic constituent in the sentence and the internal topic (TI) naturally corresponding to the grammatical subject of the sentence. verb. The study also shows that only the arguments of the verb, in general, and the complement of the noun, can play the role of topic in the sentence of Kirundi.
THE SOCIO-POLITICAL CRISIS AND THE TEACHING OF FRENCH IN BURUNDI
Burundi has, for a long time, experienced political and economic crises that sometimes persist over time. These hard times had consequences for the social life of the country and especially in the field of education in general and French in particular. But, with the crisis (not to say recurrent crises) that Burundi has been experiencing, the teaching of French has encountered various difficulties relating to the teachers’quality, the return of refugees from English-speaking countries, to large classes, etc. This brings down the French level of many Burundians. This article, which starts from the observation of the roles that languages play in Burundi and which draws on a reflection based on a documentary research, has no other objectives than to show the consequences of a crisis on the sociolinguistic landscape of a given community.
THE STATE AND CONSTITUTIONALISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CARL SCHMITT’S CONCEPT OF THE STATE’S UNITY AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS TO CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SOCIETY BUILDING.
Carl Schmitt conceptualizes the State as a political unity of the people. This conceptual interpretation of the state is fundamental in his legal theory, particularly his ideas on constitutionalism. This paper provides a critical analysis of Schmitt’s conceptual understanding and interpretation of the state as political unity of people, and discusses potential implications Schmitt’s notion of the State as political unity would have to contemporary legal and political theorizing. In my analysis, I contextualize Schmitt’s conceptualization of the state and his proposed foundational state value of political unity and argue that Schmitt’s conceptualization and interpretation of the state as political unity involves some internal weaknesses and tensions to constitute a relevant normative guide for conceptualizing political strategies which would solve some among contemporary political issues related to society building and legal ordering.
THE PROBLEM OF PROTECTING CHILDREN AGAINST SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION ON THE INTERNET UNDER BURUNDIAN POSITIVE LAW: THE CASE OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.
Child pornography is one form of sexual abuse and exploitation of children. The objective of our reflection is to verify whether all forms of cyber child pornography are punished in Burundi. Indeed, the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography recommends that States criminalize the production, distribution, disseminate, import, export, offer, sell or hold for the purposes of sexual exploitation, pornographic material featuring children. However, the Burundian penal code only punishes those who have used, recruited or offered a child for the purposes of prostitution, production of pornographic material or performances (Burundian penal code, article 542). Even more, no reference to cybercrime is made by the legislator. Finally, the observation is that all forms of cyberpédopornograhie are not punished in Burundi, hence the need to incriminate them for the best interests of the child.
THE PROBLEM OF REPAIRING ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE RELATED TO MINING ACTIVITIES IN BURUNDI
Mining activities necessarily cause damage to the environment. These include the simple deformation of the landscape, various pollutions of water, air and soil, soil erosion, accidents and ecological disasters. These environmental damages cause damage to individuals who therefore need repair. Due to the complexity of this damage, a more efficient system of compensation for victims is essential. Hence the need for the establishment of a compensation fund an insurance system covering the risks associated with mining activities.
OIL PALM AND LAND CONFLICTS IN THE IMBOSUD PLAIN OF BURUNDI: THE CASE OF THE RUMONGE AND NYANZA-LAC COMMUNES
Oil palm cultivation was introduced in Burundi around the middle of the 19th century. The Imbo-sud was the first region to be suitable for hosting this oilseed plant, particularly in the current Rumonge and Nyanza-Lac communes. The oil palm sector has experienced two cropping systems. Initially, we had a traditional polyculture system dominated by a variety of palm called "Dura" which was mixed with food crops. This first variety was subsequently replaced by a new variety "Tenera" considered to be the most profitable. The variety "Tenera" completely changed the former system. This system caused the other crops to disappear. In the 1980s, the policy of consolidation and redistributing land (most of which belonging to the refugees of 1972), which aimed to modernize the oil palm sector, did not produce the expected results. Rather, land conflicts emerged and the region still bears the consequences.