Living the transition: inside Rwanda's conflict cycle at the grassroots

Political transitions are predominantly analysed from the top down and focus on a narrow range of political institutions and processes. Critical rethinking of the ??transition paradigm?? now incorporates structural factors, such as historical legacies and ethnic composition(s) when analysing their trajectory(s). In this paper, we intend to complement top-down approaches by offering a bottom up perspective; revealing what it means for an ??ordinary?? person to live through a transition. We use the Rwandan transition as a case-study. An analysis of over 400 life histories of Rwandan peasants, and their subjective ranking exercises over time on a ??ladder of life??, portrays the path of the Rwandan transition as perceived from below. The ethnicity of the|respondents sheds light on the structural factor underlying the Rwandan transition: the Hutu/Tutsi ethnic bi-polarity.