ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to join the two ends of this swing in perspective by a reflection on contemporary political developments that links agency to structure. This raises questions such as: Is it not true that we always choose from a limited menu? And, in light o f the menu from which we choose, are we, too, not a product of history? Is not common sense the name we give to that part of our historical legacy we have ceased to question, the part that we carry around as part of our tradition? To confront that legacy is to unpack and question the common sense we take for granted. Instead of a return to focus on questions of political economy, the inert constraints on our action, I seek to understand agency as historically crafted and thus framed by structural constraints. Instead of highlighting the alternatives we lack, I will focus on the choices we do make, on our political agency. Three types of agencies interest me: the first is citizenship, the citizen as the bearer of rights; the second is civil society, and the third is political majorities and political minorities as outcomes of the democratic process. To explore how our notions of citizenship, civil society, and political majority/minority have been changing over the past decade, I will explore the dilemma of a particular cultural group in this region, the Banyarwanda.
