Reclaimed narratives: Nonofficial names as counter-memories in Kigali’s urban landscape

Abstract

Drawing on the fields of cultural geography, critical toponymy and memory studies, this study investigates the names used by ordinary urban residents to navigate the streets of Kigali. In our study, we analyse the localised memories and narratives inscribed in these nonofficial names in relation to the cultural, political and social context of the spaces in question. Our empirical study, based on walk-along interviews conducted in the city centre, reveals that the official street names and signs introduced in 2012, which employ a numbering system and English in line with political ambitions to build a new, modern, postgenocide Rwanda, remain invisible to our interviewees despite their physical presence in public spaces. Instead, modern landmarks – buildings and areas – are used for navigation, similar to traditional Rwandan oral cultures. Nonofficial landmark names, referring to both existing and no longer physically existing landmarks, serve as repositories of collective memory. They link the material environment to the past, reflecting collective values and meaning, and function as counternarratives that challenge the official master narrative.

Introduction

In 2012, the Rwandan regime renamed all streets in the urban landscape as a part of branding a postgenocide Rwanda without old ties to past politics and earlier ideologies. Naming and renaming represent an interpretation of history, as well as ambitions and ideologies. Thus, both earlier official names and new street names manifest power and hegemony and impose an official, hegemonic narrative.

Although such official hegemonic narratives created through naming and renaming are well documented throughout the world (among others by Azaryahu, 1996; Berg and Kearns, 1996; Rose-Redwood, 2008b; Williamson, 2023), the use of oral, nonofficial names is understudied, and narratives linked to nonofficial names are often silent. In our study, we focus on such silent narratives, voiced through memories linked to Rwandan popular toponymic practices and navigation in the streets and city centre of the Rwandan capital, Kigali, against the backdrop of official reinscriptions.

Rwanda’s colonial history has affected administrative structures and the naming of public space, and both colonial and postcolonial Rwandan administrations have introduced new languages and names that reflect a political history. Prior to the colonial era, Rwanda was united under the king, the umwami, and Kinyarwanda functioned as the oral, unifying language. The royal capital was in Nyanza, southwest of the present capital, Kigali (Mugesera, 2015; Rugamba, 1987). In 1907, during the period of German colonial rule (1899–1916), Kigali was designated the capital city by the colonial administrator, the resident Richard Kandt. Kigali’s status as capital was maintained during the Belgian rule (1916–1962) and has remained the centre of both political and economic power. While the national language Kinyarwanda continued to be used under the German administration, the Belgian colonisers imposed French as the administrative language and place names that corresponded to the Belgian model (Mugesera, 2015). The postindependence governments continued promoting French as the administrative language and combined French and Kinyarwanda on the Kigali street signs, which often promoted anti-Tutsi and Hutu Power ideology (Rutayisire, 2021). The second postindependence period – the postgenocide period that started after the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, when almost a million people were killed – has had an agenda of unification, reconciliation and modernisation. Among other things, as part of a political and economic reorientation towards the Anglophone world, the postgenocide regime added English as the national language. In 2008, the regime appointed English as the medium of instruction, despite the fact that 99.4% know the national and official language, while the knowledge of both the coofficial languages, English and French (only learnt through the educational system), is low – only 1.9% and 3.9%, respectively (Rwanda, 2005). The capital Kigali has also become the centrepiece of the ‘New Rwanda’, with its rapid urban transformation of infrastructure and focus on clean energy and technology, which positions Kigali among Africa’s fastest-growing and cleanest capitals (Manirakiza, 2014; Rutayisire, 2021).

As a part of the changing political orientation after the genocide, the street names were changed in 2012. The new street names have a street numbering system that reflects governmental rationalities and technologies (Rose-Redwood, 2006, 2008b). As argued by Rose-Redwood and Kadonaga (2016) and Rose-Redwood et al. (2017), street-naming practices have been instrumental in reshaping urban spatial imaginaries and cultural politics of place, producing governmental knowledge and power – that is, a ‘spatial regime of inscriptions’ (Rose-Redwood, 2006: 483) and hegemonic power (Rose-Redwood, 2008a).

Thus, urban toponymy is deeply rooted in European colonial legacies (Bigon and Njoh, 2015), due to both colonial and postcolonial governmentality, but also to inadequate urban planning and the sub-Saharan region’s historical context (Zuvalinyenga and Bigon, 2020). Often, old names have been used despite renaming by new regimes. The retention of colonial names by local populations in Limbé/Victoria in Cameroon, described by Bigon and Njoh (2015), for example, reflects complex relationships between colonial history and contemporary identity and demonstrates how residents in urban Africa have devised functional means to navigate their seemingly nondescript space, despite the challenges posed by nondescript built spaces.

Even in descript spaces, nonofficial place names have functioned as political instruments, in particular, during periods of societal transformation. Informal toponyms were, for instance, used in Minsk to serve as tools for symbolic resistance and as expressions of local identity and placemaking during the 2020 Belarusian political protests (Basik, 2022). Using a critical toponymic approach, Basik’s study analysed the placemaking function of a new vernacular urban microtoponym and the crucial role that informal place names may have in the creation of a sense of place for protesting communities and as powerful spatial memorials of identity.

In Rwanda, the seemingly ‘neutral’ numbering system of the streets constitutes an official narrative about a postgenocide reorientation – an abstract and orderly narrative that emphasises efficiency, uniformity and a sense of control over space (Rose-Redwood, 2008b) – in line with the Kigali City Master Plan 2050 (Kigali, 2020), which aligns with official national postgenocide visions and plans (Rwanda, 2020).

In the postgenocide period, Kigali, and the Nyarugenge district in particular, has undergone constant redevelopment. This redevelopment forms part of the top-down 2020 plan of urban transformation and reconstruction, referred to above. Today, the area is characterised by commercial buildings, banks and hotels, in line with the master plan. This strategic initiative is aimed at transforming Kigali into a well-managed, clean and orderly space (Bock, 2018; Hudani, 2024; Kimonyo, 2019; Shearer, 2017) and has forced people to relocate. The relocations have been contested in Kigali, in Kiyovu cy’abakene (Kiyovu for the poor), which refers to a residential area within Kiyovu, as well as in neighbouring areas (Hudani, 2024).

This new spatial regime of inscriptions that accompanies the physical urban transformation replaces place-based memory. As Hudani stresses, such a process overwrites the spontaneous, lived and embodied ways communities remember with official narratives (Hudani, 2024). The new street names not only narrate the official story of the new, modern Rwanda but also simultaneously neglect the past (Hudani, 2024). Nonofficial place names may, in such a political context, function as counternarratives, that is, stories people tell to resist dominant master narratives (Bamberg and Andrews, 2004). In fact, all local, everyday practices that sustain memory and community may be seen as ‘minor acts’ that claim belonging in the face of master planning’s erasures (Hudani, 2024).

In our empirical study, we focus on the oral popular place-naming and navigation in the streets of the Nyarugenge district in central Kigali that have been renamed since 2012 and the individual and collective memories that people voice. Although earlier studies in Rwanda have focused on memory politics, the focus has mainly been on official memory (see King, 2010), with some exceptions. Mwambari (2021, 2023), for example, examines vernacular memory practices that evolved alongside official commemorations, and the master narrative about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi that has been promoted through state commemorations, memorials, media and law. However, the study of vernacular, unofficial memories is understudied in relation to official remembrance.

We will examine the use of nonofficial names to navigate the streets of Kigali’s city centre as counternarratives, drawing on cultural geography (Massey, 2005), critical toponymy (Berg and Vuolteenaho, 2016 [2009]) and geographies of memory studies (Foote and Azaryahu, 2007; Maus, 2015). Since memories carried through nonofficial names used by local residents in Kigali have not been studied earlier, we, in our study, add empirical data on remembering and memory work by marginalised actors, materialised in the nonofficial, vernacular naming, and the way people navigate in the changing city centre. The localised memory practices highlight the cultural, political and social significance of certain sites and events that are now overwritten by new, official street signs. Our data, based on recorded walk-along interviews with urban residents in the Kiyovu and Nyamirambo sectors of the Nyarugenge district, aim at uncovering these overwritten counternarratives to expose broader societal values and conflicts related to memories.

The following section provides a more detailed contextualisation of the study, particularly in relation to studies in an African context. It also discusses our approach, frameworks and concepts. This is followed by an overview of the methods and data. The subsequent subsection presents and exemplifies our data, followed by a discussion focusing on landmark names as containers of localised memories and counter-memories. Finally, we present our concluding remarks.

Names, memories and navigation

The political history of Rwanda, and not only the period after the 1994 genocide, has impacted both official and unofficial memories. In fact, both the deep-rooted colonial legacy and nation-building efforts in postgenocide Rwanda still shape identity politics, according to Purdeková and Mwambari (2022), who highlight commemorations and collective remembrance as a crucial aspect of both continuity with colonial legacies and efforts at reconciliation and reconstruction after trauma. Thus, commemorative practices are deeply intertwined with political processes that uphold certain narratives of history and identity, as demonstrated by how names of places and buildings have been used in South Africa for remembrance of racial violence and the struggle for inclusive democracy (Pillay, 2019), as well as slavery, war and nostalgia of the past before colonisation (see among others Adebayo, 2021; Mazrui, 2000).

Physical sites such as official genocide memorials, museums and ritual spaces are mobilised as political places of memory. Jessee’s (2017) oral history work on memorials and commemorations in Rwanda shows how the recent violent history is inscribed onto the landscape. In Rwanda, postgenocide transitional justice initiatives have shaped the collective memory of the population, and official genocide memorials are used to shape national identity through their narrative authority. These memories of the genocide are constructed, controlled and politicised in the Rwandan society (Longman, 2017). As Jessee (2017) points out, memories are often contested in the official commemoration discourse, embodied in the annual Kwibuka (the annual 100 days of official commemoration) period, April to July, and its dominant ‘survivor nationalism’, where Tutsi and survivor are blurred (Baldwin, 2019), because individuals map their own lived experiences onto landscapes such as villages, prisons, memorials and homes. This everyday localised form of remembering, grounded in indigenous ideas, the vernacular memory, interacts with and sometimes resists dominant state narratives (Mwambari, 2023). As found by Mwambari (2021), the vernacular, bottom-up memory practices operate, among others, alongside official memory through the concept of agaciro (dignity and self-worth), used to remember missing loved ones. This underscores that both narratives and cultural practices may have the function of silent resistance and contestation.

Memories are constructed when people interact with places, and in the urban environment, the interaction creates narratives that contribute to the construction of memories (Maus, 2015: 216). Thus, names used when navigating in the urban landscape carry memories.

Not only official sites of commemoration carry memories. Places such as urban landmarks, streets, squares and buildings may in Rwanda be carriers of vernacular, nonofficial memories – that is, popular representations of history, identity and trauma. As discussed by Purdeková and Mwambari (2022), every day, community-based and often informal recollections play a significant role in shaping collective understanding beyond official narratives and state-sponsored commemorations. By engaging with such situated material semiotic artefacts in the landscape, individuals interpret and shape the meaning of local space.

The way people who navigate the urban environment name this environment carries such vernacular memories of events and people, often tied to visible landmarks in the streets.

In this way, vernacular names and their memories constitute ‘an important living archive’ (Arrous and Bigon, 2022: 225) that unveils not always visible or seen symbolic struggles over meaning in space (Arrous and Bigon, 2022: 221). In Africa, as pointed out by Arrous and Bigon (2022: 225), a study of ‘the reception and use of names’ can tell us more than an analysis of official renaming.

Inspired by cultural geography and geographies of memory research (Maus, 2015), our point of departure for the study presented here is that people perceive and, in practice, navigate in the physical environment, conceptualised as a landscape of memory. With its earlier contributions that have focused on aspects ranging from social practice to meaningful materiality, and collective and individual memory (Jones, 2011; Maus, 2015; Rose-Redwood et al., 2008), it allows us to focus on ways of geographical orientation that are different from the use of official public street names, street signs and addresses. In line with such a perspective, alternative, nonofficial naming of the local physical environment is not only a practical measure to navigate but also a means of shaping the significance and meaning of local space. As described by Maus, a landscape of memory highlights collective imaginations as constituents of localised memory (Maus, 2015: 215). Thus, a named landscape of memory is a social phenomenon, as it contextualises a place as meaningful in relation to the past (Maus, 2015).

In our study, we conceptualise names as discursive constructions of narratives that are compressed. These names, and even the way names are used for navigation and wayfinding in urban space, demonstrate how Rwandan urban residents inscribe historical and cultural meaning through naming and memories. This transforms spaces into places. Thus, nonofficial names and nicknames reflect common experiences, social memories and belonging, that is, a collective memory – a concept resonating with Halbwachs’ work and the notion of present collective memories as human memory reconstructions of the past (Halbwachs, 1992; Olick, 2007) – that may uncover the deeply embedded meaning of the past in the present. Thus, we conceptualise the collective memories, in line with Schuman and Scott (1989: 361–362), as ‘memories of a shared past that are retained by members of a group, large or small, that experienced it’. In this way, the concepts of memory work and memory practices provide a way of understanding the dynamic interplay between memory, history and society (Roediger and Wertsch, 2008; Wertsch and Roediger, 2008). Rose-Redwood et al. (2008) point to the fact that remembering is an active process with interpretations shared by some social actors and contested by others, among other, by using alternative ways of navigation or by using other historic memories. Therefore, both the way people navigate and the names they use when navigating articulate communities of memory. Often these memories, carried out through names and naming of the landscape, are counter-memories (Foucault, 1977; Molden, 2016) of silent majorities whose historical experience is rarely articulated in public.

In the postcolonial context, most often new, official street names have represented significant historical persons, important historical dates and ideologies that reflect the opposition and the fight for independence. In stark contrast, the new postgenocide Rwandan street names have no apparent references to the past struggles or political stances – quite the opposite. The new street name system, implemented in 2012, has an American-style ‘neutral’ abbreviations of a district, a street number and a street category (ST, AVE or RD), in line with the strategic rebuilding of Rwanda as a new, modern and effective state with new political orientations towards the Anglophone world (Hudani, 2024). These signs replaced signs in French–Kinyarwanda that frequently had references to pregenocide ideologies. Even this kind of, on the surface, practical urban design functions as a strategy to create, contest and transform places of memory, and all renaming of streets can reflect control, erasure or recognition – that is, places of memory can exclude or include, as discussed by Rose-Redwood (2008a) in his study of the renaming of the numbered avenues on Manhattan in New York in the latter 19th century.

As hegemonic narratives most often are constructed by powerful actors and institutions to reinforce specific ideologies, values and interests, counter-memories (Foucault, 1977) become important as they challenge these hegemonic master narratives by offering alternative perspectives and memories of historical events (Molden, 2016), but also of places. In addition, defiant counter-memories create a dynamic tension within memory cultures, defined as the structural frameworks within which politics of history operate (Molden, 2016: 129).

In a manner analogous to the function of official postgenocide memorials as landmarks, other kinds of named physical landmarks also serve as containers of social memory and, with that, carry narratives of commemoration in the landscape. These recognisable physical objects that in some way stand out from their near environment and often are visible from a long distance, transform the physical places into sites of both commemoration and forgetting, with layers of temporal and political memory. By employing narrated walking (Stroud and Jergels, 2014), we in our study analyse how discourses about the past and the present are enacted, performed, disputed and elaborated. This mobility in placemaking allows individuals to actively interpret the meanings of local places through their movements and interactions within the environment. In addition, this perspective encourages remembering places, people and the past. While examining officially named public places is important to uncover power relations, nonofficial naming by people moving in the city additionally contributes to uncovering the underlying histories, narratives and struggles that shape the symbolic landscape. A key research question of our study is, therefore, which street-navigating practices and nonofficial names are embedded in everyday life in the physical streets of Kigali and the role of language in this practice.

Methodology and data

To investigate names used by people in the city centre of Kigali, we, in our study, employed the ‘go-along’ (Kusenbach, 2003) interview technique in the Kigali Nyarugenge (KN) district of Kigali in February and June 2023. As pointed out by Stroud and Jergels (2014), the method of narrated walking provides a unique insight into the construction of place and its meanings. Ordinary people’s naming of the urban environment indicates how they perceive and interpret the spaces around them, that is, attitudes and practices related to names used in the streets of Kigali. This implies a power relations perspective on memory construction and the negotiation of memory by noninstitutional actors.

Since colonial times, Kigali has been the primary site of political power. It is evident that, in the context of postgenocide politics, Kigali has emerged as a pivotal nexus for the pursuit of postgenocide political ambitions. The city’s strategic focus on urban transformation is articulated within the framework of the 2020 Kigali City Master Plan (Kigali, 2020), a document that places significant emphasis on the development of the city centre. With a population of 1,745,555 inhabitants (Rwanda, 2022), the capital Kigali, situated in the geographical heart of Rwanda, is the largest city in the country. We conducted walking interviews in the Nyarugenge district, the smallest of the three districts of the City of Kigali, located in the south-west of the city centre. More specifically, we made our walking recordings in Kiyovu, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Kigali, situated within the Muhima sector at the heart of the city, with two main parts: a commercial area, that is, an extension of the Central Business District (CBD) and a predominantly residential area. In addition, we conducted our walking interviews in Nyamirambo, a predominantly Muslim sector with a mixture of residential and commercial properties (see interactive map: https://kigalistreets.dh.gu.se/). The district of Nyarugenge, with its 374,319 inhabitants (Rwanda, 2022), is a main area for business and urban economic development, in line with the political and strategic plans of urban transformation (Kigali, 2020; Rwanda, 2012, 2020). Officially, as part of the postgenocide national urban visions and plans to modernise Rwanda, all streets in Kigali, as well as in other cities in Rwanda, have been renamed with only numbers and English abbreviations. The abstract and for most people in Rwanda opaque and foreign-looking street name KN 2 ST is, for example, to be understood as Kigali Nyarugenge (KN) second (2) street (ST). These signs replaced postcolonial signs in French–Kinyarwanda that frequently had references to pregenocide ideologies.

A total of 30 participants who were familiar with this part of Kigali and who lived in the city took part: 16 were male, and 14 were female. Of these, 20 were categorised as young (10 men and 10 women under 30) and 10 as older participants (six men and four women over 50). Using a GoPro camera, the narrated walks in the streets of Nyarugenge were recorded. After giving written and oral informed consent, each participant chose a starting point for the recordings – a place the interviewee knew well – and while walking, the participants commented on streets and buildings and the memories they had, linked to these places. Each participant was recorded several times, in different areas within Nyarugenge. The go-along interviews were supplemented by two focus group discussions with the same participants, after the walking interviews. The 300 recordings in Kinyarwanda (totalling 15 hours) were transcribed and translated from Kinyarwanda to English. Names that have been borrowed from another language, mainly from French, and that are used orally by local people in their daily navigation in Kigali City, are in our examples, adapted to the phonetic pattern of Kinyarwanda spelling.

To identify and interpret patterns or themes in our qualitative data, we used thematic analysis (Veitch et al., 2022). We coded main themes from the go-along interviews to analyse memories related to the nonofficial names.

Naming and wayfinding in the streets of Kigali

The street names introduced in 2012, with a numbering system of streets, roads and avenues, have not gained any momentum among residents in Kigali. These street names in urban Kigali seem to be invisible to our interviewees despite their physical presence in public space, where they are placed on each street corner. Instead, people navigate and find their ways by using totally different names. The presentation will utilise illustrative examples to showcase and analyse the names that are employed by urban residents to navigate in and to describe places in Kigali. The overview focuses on typical names used by the interviewees, grouped into descriptive categories, such as names referring to societal institutions, historical and political events, and eponyms that refer to identifiable places or persons. As we will demonstrate, these name categories are not mutually exclusive and often serve dual purposes. They serve as navigational tools while simultaneously shedding light on events, history, socio-economic realities and political changes through the meanings and collective memories that these nonofficial names carry. Consequently, names belonging to one category may be discussed in more than one section of the presentation below. We will discuss these important memories after the introductory presentation of the place names.

Data in all the descriptive categories refer to named landmarks. These landmarks – that is, places that in some ways are attributed importance through the meaning and memories they carry for ordinary space users, and often also because they are even visible from a long distance – are used to navigate the streets. In the following overview, we present these landmarks and how they are named, starting with the names of institutions.

Names of institutions such as churches, mosques, hospitals and schools are frequently used as reference points. The Catholic Church Sainte Famille (holy family), built in 1913, for example, serves as both a visual landmark in the city centre and as the name of the area where the church is situated, as explained by the young informant: ‘This area is called Sainte Famille. It is a big area’. In a similar way, Saint Michel Catholic Church, located on the now KN 67 street, is an important reference point of street navigation. A young informant explains, ‘it is important to direct a person by specifying the road going to Saint Michel because there are many buildings around here such as Banke popilere (Banque Populaire)’. Even congregational churches, such as Adepere (belongs to The Pentecostal Church of Rwanda, ADEPR) and churches such as Inkuru Nziza (good news) and Kuba Kalikuta (at the Congregation of Calcutta/Diocese of Calcutta), along with mosques, fill this function. Certain mosques have, furthermore, several well-established nicknames that are used instead of the official name. Masdjiid Alfat’h (liberation mosque) is called both Kuri onatracom (at Onatracom mosque), named after the French acronym of an earlier nearby bus company (ONATRACOM), or Ku musigiti wo kwa Kadafi (at Khadafi mosque), and Majiji Ali Hidadi Majengo (Ali Hidadi neighbourhood mosque) is known as Umusigiti wo kuri mirongwine: ‘This is called Umusigiti wo kuri mirongwine (Mosque by 40). Nobody uses the name Majiji Ali Hidadi Majengo’ (young male informant).

Names of banks like Banque Commerciale du Rwanda (BCR) and Banque Populaire du Rwanda (BPR), called banke popilere, as well as famous schools, follow the same pattern. As a young female informant says:

Apakope (from the French acronym APACOPE, Association des Parents pour la Contribution à l’Education/Association of Parents for the Contribution and Promotion of Education) is a name of a private school [. . .] people name this street after the name of the school because it is known and has primary and secondary levels.

In a similar way, the school Utunyoni (small birds) has become the name of a street: ‘This street (KN 43 RD) is called Utunyoni because it leads to a famous nursery school managed by the nuns’ (old male informant). Even older and no longer existing buildings that earlier housed famous schools established during colonial days, like Ekole belije (Ecole Belge, the Belgian school), ‘the school for the rich!’ according to an old male interviewee, and Lycée Notre Dame de Cîteaux (Our Lady of Cîteaux High School), are referred to by using the old French names, but adapted to Kinyarwanda morphology: ‘This well-known school is managed by the sisters. It is called Lise notredamedosito [. . .] it is for excellent learners [. . .] it is not open to all children. It is only for girls’ (young male informant).

Even a sign at the roadside or in a street may function as a landmark and be a common, well-known name, used for directions. The sign for a centre called Kinyange (to the white bird) on KN 2 AVE (avenue), see Figure 2, has, for instance, such a function, and in the Muslim area of Nyamirambo, there was once a speed limit sign saying 40 km per hour in the street. This sign called Kuri mirongwine (at 40) is no longer there but is still used as a mental and meaning-making landmark to give directions, as shown by the nonofficial mosque name Umusigiti wo kuri mirongwine (Mosque by 40), mentioned above.

Other landmarks and names refer to places where people frequently meet, such as both old and new markets, places for local business, famous shops, hotels and bars. These names and places contain illustrative examples of collective memories. In the following, we will categorise these place names and what the names mean in terms of the memories that they index.

Some of the names refer to shared memories of places that no longer exist due to the reconstruction of the city centre or no longer serve their original purpose. A former prison is, for instance, still recalled by a young informant, as a well-known pregenocide detention building: ‘This building used to be called “kriminoloji” (detention centre) [. . .] where arrested criminals used to be detained. It was a temporal detention centre’ (young informant). The old bus station, named gare (from French gare routière, ‘bus station’) by everyone, is another place that is central in people’s memory, although the bus station was closed nearly two decades ago: ‘Before it was the bus park of Kigali, where passengers came to get buses to travel out of Kigali. It was the only bus station’ (old female informant).

Most landmark names refer to historical memories. A telling example is the road leading up to the Kiyovu part of the city centre, earlier named Boulevard de L’O.U.A (Boulevard de l’ Organisation de l’Unité Africaine, African Union Boulevard), after 2012 renamed KN 3 RD (road). This road has for decades been called Peyaje, borrowed from péage (toll) in French. During colonial administration, a tax or toll for passage into the city of Kigali was established by the Belgian colonial administration, and it continued even after independence. As an old male informant recalls: ‘This road going down is called Peyaje. In the old days, there was a roadblock to charge coins from drivers before they were allowed to continue’. Even young persons, born after the toll function ended, know this name, as explained by a young female informant: ‘Peyaje is a well-known name of this street! Everybody uses it, and if you are taking a motorbike you can say: take me to Peyaje’. Another example of a nonofficial name referring to the colonial period is given by an old woman living in the city of Kigali. She refers to the prison nicknamed Dizinefusatrante (from French Dix neuf cent trente, ‘nineteen hundred and thirty’), which is still written above the entrance to the former prison: ‘That is a prison established by Colonial Belgian administrators in 1930’.

Many of the place names in the data are eponyms referring to a person or carry memories of identifiable owners of buildings, for example, kwa Rubangura (at Rubangura’s place), named after its owner, the businessman Vedaste Rubangura, and refers to a building located in the Kigali city centre that serves as a landmark for the street KN 2 ST. Another famous building, Kwa Makuza (at Makuza’s place), replaced the old post office in 2015. The building is named after the owner, Bertin Makuza, a businessman owning a mattress industry. The formal official name is Makuza Peace Plaza. Another example is Kwa Mayaka (at Mayaka’s place). The name refers to a cinema in the Nyamirambo neighbourhood, founded in the 1970s by the businessman Emmanuel Mayaka.

The name Kwa vena, that is, ‘at Venant’s place’, has the same place-name construction. An old male informant recalls the now nonexistent restaurant Chez Venant, named after its owner, Venant: ‘This side, you can see shops! This was the restaurant of Venant and he was a representative of YAMAHA, which sells motorbikes. It was a famous place. We used to call this place Kwa vena’. Similar memories are expressed by the informants through names such as Kwa kanti (at Kanti’s place, a museum named after Richard Kandt – the first colonial governor of Rwanda, 1900–1916) and Karitiye matewusi (Cartier Matéus, ‘the Mateus neighbourhood’) – named after an earlier existing shop selling the Portuguese ‘Mateus’ wine. See Figure 1, which demonstrates that the name today is so widely used that it is added as a supplementary, nonofficial address on a shop sign in the area.

Figure 1.

Shop sign with official street address and nonofficial area name (Photo: Tove Rosendal).

Even if many of the personal names honour economic success, we also find references to persons respected for their altruistic work, such as Kwa nyiranuma (at the dove’s place), a health care centre founded by a Catholic ‘White Sister’, nicknamed nyiranuma (the dove) and located within the poor Muslim Biryogo neighbourhood of Nyamirambo.

Some of these building owners’ names explained above are extended to be the nicknames of streets, for example, Umuhanda wo kwa Rubangura (Rubangura street), which refers to KN 2 ST, and Umuhanda wo kwa Makuza (Makuza street), which refers to KN 48 ST. This is also the case for other coined names after famous people, such as Umuhanda wo kwa Ibingira (Ibingira street), which refers to a residential street (KN 22 ST) in the area now called Kiyovu cy’abakene (Kiyovu for the poor), where General Ibingira earlier lived.

In the same way as the names of owners of landmarks tell us about social conditions and values, other names of places, such as places where repairs are done, tell us about social life. The area that is called Joke, from the acronym JOC, Jeunesse Ouvrière Crétienne (Young Christian Workers), is a well-known school, dating back to colonial times: ‘If you want to be specific you must add joke for a service here. For example, there are many vehicle repairing centres but if you want to be specific, you say vehicle repairing of joke’ (young female informant). Likewise, manual repair centres such as Kazi ni kazi (in Swahili, meaning ‘job is job’) on KN 2 ST and Nyamirambo kazi ni kazi in the Muslim Nyamirambo area hold extra information for people:

That is a cooperative of people. They repair various tools. If you have a broken machine, you can bring it here for the repairmen. If you have an old machine, you can bring it here for exchange and they will give you a new one. They charge extra money . . . actually Kazi ni kazi means that all types of jobs are equally important. (young male informant)

Other examples of names that describe and reminisce about social conditions are Abadacogora (people who never give up), run by Caritas:

This is a building of CARITAS in Kigali, but people name it Abadacogora. They call it so because it is an orphanage for children found on the streets and vulnerable children from very poor families. They play basketball and volleyball. (young female informant)

Kinyange (to the white bird) referred to through a street sign on KN 2 AVE, see Figure 2, is another example. A young female informant says:

I know that the owner is not Rwandan; he is an Indian who decided to construct it in this area to help local people. The health centre is known for setting a lower price compared to other medical centres. Actually, he did it to help the poor people living here.

Figure 2.

Sign containing memories and narratives about socio-economic conditions (Photo: Tove Rosendal).

In the same vein, place names and references such as Ku bafurere (‘at the brothers’, referring to the Catholic school Frères Montfontains de Saint Gabriel) and Kuba kalikuta (at the Congregation of Calcutta/Diocese of Calcutta) meaningfully refer to social work and efforts to help the poor.

In addition, the data attest to many names that indicate socio-economic marginalisation. Names such as Kiyovu cy’abakene, Kuri mirongwine, Muhima and Gitega imply poverty. A striking example of this is the way the people of Kigali name the Kiyovu areas according to how rich the people who live there are. The part of Kiyovu inhabited by the poor is by locals called Kiyovu cy’abakene (Kiyovu for the poor), while the part of Kiyovu inhabited by the rich is called Kiyovu cy’abakire (Kiyovu for the rich). The two areas are divided by KN 3 RD. An old informant describes it this way:

Kiyovu for the poor is located opposite the traffic light. It is called Kiyovu for the poor because the buildings are different from those in Kiyovu for the rich. In addition, poor people live there in old houses and not modern ones.

In a similar way, the earlier mentioned and no longer existing traffic sign Kuri mirongwine (at 40) on KN 2 AVE (Nyamirambo Road) in the Muslim area, implies the following meaning, as explained by a young male informant: ‘It is an area named after a speed limit sign saying 40 km per hour. People used to stop at this sign to look for casual jobs. You know Nyamirambo is known for being a cheap place to live’. While most names and their meaning to locals are retained with the same meaning between generations, the data indicate that some stigmatising names change with changing conditions. For example, a young informant reflects over this: ‘Muhima is an area affiliated with gangs [. . .]. It is related to bandits. However, now it is changing with development as local people are also changing their bad behaviours. Muhima is now a sector’. Thus, the earlier negative association of the name is replaced with a neutral administrative interpretation.

The names of areas in Kigali clearly show the city’s socio-economic realities. This knowledge is passed down through memories and narratives. Such a socio-economic memory may be illustrated by a young male informant who explains why an area below KN 5 AVE (avenue) in Kigali is named after gangs: ‘This area is called Dobandi. It was very bad. It was home to gangs. You couldn’t pass by during evening time’. The name Dobandi is coined from the French ‘de bandits’, meaning ‘thieves’ area’. This aligns with an older male informant’s description of why a place in Kigali was called N’djamena. He says that the name refers to the ‘capital city of Chad that was known for intense fighting in the past’ and that the area ‘was inhabited by bad guys who always fought each other after getting drunk’. A similar case is an area called Gaza. A young male interviewee explains the origin of the name in the Kiyovu suburb: ‘This area was called Gaza because of insecurity and people fighting each other [. . .] you cannot put your clothes outside to dry and expect to find them there later. They will be stolen’. Thus, stigmatising names such as Dobandi, N’Djamena and Gaza denote insecurity in certain neighbourhoods in Kigali City, despite the general safety of the capital.

In the Rwandan context, it is crucial to acknowledge the political memories that the landmark names hold, particularly those associated with the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. An old female informant talks about the Catholic centre sera, which is derived from the acronym CERA, Centre d’Études des Religions Africaines (Centre for African religious studies), see Figure 3. The informant says the following about the centre, which is situated on KN 3 RD, nonofficially named Peyaje (described above): ‘This place used to be called sera, but currently it is Lavigerie Missionary Centre. I have a bad memory of it, because in 1994, many genocide refugees came to hide here and were killed’. The centre is named after Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, the founder of ‘the White Fathers’ that arrived in Rwanda in 1900. Like other organisations of the Catholic Church in Rwanda, the centre failed to protect genocide fugitives. Pope Francis has issued a formal apology on behalf of the Catholic Church, acknowledging its role in inciting hatred and participating in the killings (Sherwood, 2017). Such memories are not commonly voiced openly.

Figure 3.

The nonofficial name of Lavigerie Missionary Centre, sera, holds genocide memories (Photo: Tove Rosendal).

Political memories are also closely linked to names used for no longer existing institutions or buildings. For example, regarding the earlier Prefecture of Kigali City, an old male informant recalls:

I came here many times. It (referring to the building of the Prefecture of Kigali City) was led by Renzaho Tharcisse. He used to talk to us (ordinary people). One day, he told us that Habyarimana (the former President of Republic of Rwanda) did wrong to appoint him as a mayor because he is a soldier and had studied military science. As a mayor, he was not comfortable making decisions in conflict with civilians.

This is both a historical, pregenocide memory from the 1990s and a genocide memory. Tharcisse Renzaho was appointed when the president placed soldiers in civilian political administration to counter the forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). He was in 2002 sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in enabling the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, among other for supervising the killing of internal refugees at Sainte Famille Church and CERA (Centre d’Études des Religions Africaines), currently Lavigerie Missionary Centre, referred to above (ICTR, 2002).

Earlier hotels and bars hold many political memories, even if they have frequently changed names. Where Marriot hotel is now built, an old male interviewee remembers: ‘There was another hotel called Hotele disenkejwiye (Hotel du Cinq Juillet, “Hotel 5th of July”)’, and where we today find the Serena hotel, there used to be another hotel, Dipolomate hoteli (Hôtel des Diplomates abbreviated as Diplomate). An old male informant recalls:

This used to be called Diplomate hoteli. It was next to a bar named Kafe impala (Impala coffee shop). You can see it is next to Kakigali (Camp Kigali, the former Military Camp, now the university KIST). The soldiers used to booze here, and other people didn’t feel welcome to join.

Another interviewee remembers:

Diplomate was a diplomatic hotel, where the president’s visitors stayed. It was called Kuri kafe (at the coffee shop). It was also called Ku Impala (at Impala), because it was where the orchestra Impala used to come and play their music. Hotel Diplomate and Impala were close to each other. Between them there was a bar, in-between both a basketball and a volleyball field. Teams like Buhili, MINITRAPE and MIGECO played there. We used to come watching the match. They played on Sunday and Saturday before the genocide. (old male informant)

These memories are closely linked to pregenocide political events. Hotele disenkejwiye refers to what happened on 5 July 1973, known as the military coup d’état of 5 July (French: Coup d’état du 5 Juillet). The coup against President Grégoire Kayibanda, who was described by opposition within the army as a ‘weak’ leader, was led by Juvénal Habyarimana (Mugesera, 2015), who requested intensified persecution of ethnic Tutsi and ethnic quotas.

Similarly, the name of the school APACOPE carries memories of the genocide. This private school, referred to above, was founded on 18 April 1980 to receive Tutsi children who were affected by ethnic quota politics, which limited their access to education (Ruzindana, 2019). The school even received students from other ethnic groups, but as the majority was Tutsi, the school was informally called Ecole des Tutsi, which refers to its founders, teachers and pupils. Many of these were killed in the 1994 genocide (Ruzindana, 2019).

Even memories of cultural institutions such as Centre d’Echanges Culturels Franco-Rwandais are linked to the genocide, but in an indirect way. The building of the cultural centre, which was financed by the French state, was closed and destroyed by the Kigali City administration in 2014, during a diplomatic crisis that lasted until 2021, because Rwanda accused France of participation in the genocide. However, the officially voiced reason was that its structure was outdated and not in line with the new City Master Plan (Boisselet, 2014).

As we see, many places that are still remembered by our interviewees are no longer there but nevertheless carry meaningful information and serve both as physical and mental points of reference, for both old and young. The earlier square Place de l’Indépendance (Independence square), which refers to the postcolonial period and a French naming practice, has, for example, today no official name, as explained by the young male informant: ‘This place has no name. It is a roundabout without a name. People refer to it as “imbere y’umujyi wa Kigali” (in front of the Kigali city hall)’. However, even though the square has no name today, the name that people use – imbere y’umujyi wa Kigali, that is, in front of the Kigali City hall – recalls the city hall as the place where the president’s office was prior to 1994, with the Independence Square in front of it. The earlier office building has been replaced by a new, modern building and represents another example of the silenced past in the restructured Kigali city centre. In addition, it stresses how state-led commemorations and laws create space for some memories while suppressing others. In this way, localised memories are marginalised, suppressed, and excluded from the dominant and official narrative, as discussed by Mwambari (2023).

Landmarks as containers of localised memories

In the following part, we focus on memories contained in landmark names in relation to collective memories, especially historical and social memories.

Landmarks that describe places in the city centre of Kigali seem to function in the same way as physically remarkable or prominent formations of natural landmarks that have been and still are used for navigating in oral cultures. In the same way as natural landmarks were and still are environmental cues through local terrain characteristics, the frames of reference of the modern, named landmarks found in our data resonate a similar recognisable and systematised knowledge, culture and tradition. The new tall and remarkable buildings, such as kwa Makuza, and imposing and important churches and mosque buildings are typical examples of this kind of salient landmarks, which, when they were built, were new to Rwandan culture. Just as the old natural landmarks were embedded with myths and stories, the new and modern landmarks carry local embedded meaning.

There are also structural similarities between the landmark names used for navigation in our data and traditional wayfinding techniques in Rwandan as well as in most African contexts; they describe where the pathway is leading. In precolonial Rwanda, directions indicated pathways that led to the king’s palace, traditional goods exchange markets, water springs, farms and specific houses or venues. A typical precolonial name structure would be: inzira igana i Bwami (the pathway leading to the Palace), inzira ijya ku mugezi (the pathway leading to the water spring) and akayira kajya mu kigega (small pathway leading to the crop store) (Rugamba, 1987). These old ways of navigation used both built landmarks, such as ‘i Bwami’ (the palace), and natural landmarks such as mugezi (the water spring). The structures that are used today in the modern, urban city follow a similar pattern.

However, our study demonstrates that landmarks have other functions than merely being physical wayfinding indicators in urban Kigali. Thus, landmark names are not used solely based on ‘visibility and salience’ for practical ways of navigation. More importantly, they reflect localised memory.

In a similar way as the precolonial way of giving directions in Rwanda contained a collective history and social norms and hierarchies that were shared within a community, modern landmarks in urban space – often buildings that carry significance in some way – have a similar function. While they evoke significant life events for individuals, they, for a community, symbolise shared historical and cultural identities. The bottom-up names that are coined form a shared landscape of memory. This practical, shared understanding links landmarks – be they named buildings or physical areas – to past events. Landmarks are in this way repositories of collective memories, the memories of a shared past that are retained by people (Hutton, 2011; Schuman and Scott, 1989).

The memories reflected through the earlier no longer existing hotel names, such as Hotele disenkejwiye (Hotel du Cinq Juillet, ‘Hotel 5th of July’) and Hotel Diplomate, clearly expose narratives about a past that no longer officially is remembered in Rwanda and contrasts the highly formalised official commemorations, organised around official genocide memorial sites and monuments. These nonofficial memories have been suppressed, silenced and discarded in the new Kigali in the name of modernity, and are tied to postgenocide plans, visions and the postgenocide master narrative that has replaced earlier political periods’ official narratives (Jessee, 2017; Longman, 2017; Mwambari, 2023).

Therefore, both existing and no longer existing named landmarks link the material environment to history, through memories, and reflect societal values and meaning. In fact, both physically visible and only recalled landmarks demonstrate a layering of time where the collective present and the past coexist. This collective memory in urban space, as demonstrated by Rose-Redwood et al. (2008), is meaning-invested, and the collective memories tell us about conditions in urban Rwanda.

In fact, all names used by the interviewees demonstrate historical events, socio-economic realities and political changes. Names such as Kartiye matiwuse (Cartier Matéus, ‘the Mateus neighbourhood’), Kwa vena (‘at Venant’s place’) and amaduka y’abahinde (the Indian shops), for example, index collective memories of the ‘old’ Kigali, where products were scarce, before the era of today’s modern, international commerce, which is only two decades away. Named landmarks thus carry narratives of a near but today neglected past, but still remembered by people through the names they use in the physical urban landscape. As pointed out by Bigon and Arrous (2022), these landmark names function as important counternarratives, that is, living archives that challenge the official narratives that the official post-2012 street names represent in Rwanda. The 2012 street names have no associated connections to the past, with their seemingly neutral numbering system that avoids references to persons or political events and additionally uses a new exogenous language, English, with no political indexicality to colonial or postindependence (that is pregenocide) political events. In the postgenocide Rwandan context, we see a hegemonic master narrative that silences the past (Mwambari, 2023).

The memories of space users are suppressed, silenced and discarded in this new Kigali, a Kigali tied to modernisation and reconstruction – an orderly space tailored out in Vision 2020 and Vision 2050 (Rwanda, 2012, 2020). Hudani (2024) presents these master plans as a technocratic process resulting in relocations and a new built environment. This superficial marker of order erases localised claims to place, including neighbourhoods as repositories of distinct histories and social geographies. The top-down master planning additionally erases place-based memory and overwrites organic remembrance with official narratives (Hudani, 2024). Our data show that the new technocratic street-naming system in Kigali does not make sense to local people. Instead, we observe that the local population is demonstrating practical resistance to official narratives of erasure by remembering and naming the past. Their place-based memories function as what Hudani (2024) labels minor acts, that is, micropractices that anchor social memory in place and resist the erasure imposed by technocratic planning.

It is imperative that we emphasise the significance of language in this context. While the Rwandan state has chosen to replace the earlier French–Kinyarwanda street names, coined under the preindependence colonial Belgian administration and kept after independence in 1962, with new street names in English, the interviewees use Kinyarwanda – the national language spoken by practically everyone regardless of educational level. Even though Kinyarwanda is one of the official languages of Rwanda, it has been ignored – even in current language policy debates, which instead have focused on the rivalry between English and French (Rurangirwa, 2012; Samuelson and Freedman, 2010). The use of Kinyarwanda, even when the names that are used are morphologically integrated loanwords from French, underscores the politically overlooked importance of the national language Kinyarwanda, and that the language reflects the Rwandan identity and what Maus (2015) calls the social localised memory of ordinary Rwandans.

Both nonofficial names and language use highlight social dynamics, social discourses and social tensions and resistance. As highlighted by Molden (2016), the nonofficial names that people use and the memories they carry function as counter-memories, challenging the politics of history and hegemonic official narratives. Through the narratives carried by the names used by everyone in urban Kigali, the now-silenced history and traditional culture are reclaimed. In this way, the study contributes to our understanding of how marginalised people inscribe their own history and their identity.

Conclusion

The present study utilised walking interviews conducted in the Nyarugenge district of Kigali City to explore the names used by local residents. The findings show that the new official street names that were introduced in 2012 have not been adopted. Instead, people navigate using landmarks and alternative names that preserve memories of socio-economic conditions, historical events, and political realities. These alternative names function as counternarratives that contest the official master narrative of the Rwandan state. The Rwandan government’s decision to implement an English-language abbreviated numbering system for all streets, despite English being a language exclusively learnt by the elite, has resulted in a toponymic narrative that reflects governmentality and technocratic strategic master plans. The objective of these plans is to metamorphose Kigali into a modern, well-ordered city, thereby obliterating all traces of the pregenocide past. This constitutes a strategic erasure of memories for the purpose of rebuilding the new, postgenocide Rwanda. In the context of the evolving urban topography of Kigali, our research reveals that local residents predominantly employ place-based memories from the colonial, postcolonial and pregenocide eras to name streets and locations in Kigali. This practice stands in stark contrast to the state-orchestrated and highly formalised official commemorations that are organised around designated genocide memorial sites and monuments.

It is evident that the nonofficial landmark names that are widely used by all interviewees constitute an integral component of a collective identity that is profoundly influenced by historical developments. Furthermore, the use of Kinyarwanda, the national language, in naming and navigating highlights the relationship between language and identity, as well as its role in preserving the memories of ordinary Rwandans.

Despite the absence of overt opposition to the recent renaming, the utilisation of alternative names that carry narratives about the past can be regarded as an act of resistance, thereby asserting a collective past. To enhance our understanding of the dynamics of naming in African urban contexts, we need to adopt more extensive ethnographic and performative approaches. Walk-along interviews have been demonstrated to yield valuable insights into the way individuals interact with their urban environments. This approach has been demonstrated to engender a more inclusive understanding of urban naming systems and to add to our understanding of place and everyday practice.