This article shows how a social movement organization focused on microcredit loans is able to mobilize a community against its own cultural practice of witch-hunts. Successful mobilization against witch-hunts are possible when two conditions are met: first, when activists are able to tap into microcredit groups' social capacity for collective mobilization (defined by ties of mutual dependence, reciprocity, and friendship); and second, when activists are able to use strategic framing to present a coherent argument about the congruence of microcredit and anti-witch-hunt goals. In this context a master frame (women's development) emerged that effectively forged the seemingly disparate goals of microcredit loans and anti-witch-hunt campaigns into one synthetic movement. In contrast, successful mobilization against witch-hunts was difficult in areas where the activists did not have access to the microcredit networks or were not able to strategically frame the campaign.
This article formulates field relationships in terms of a ''partial trust'' dynamic. This is particularly relevant for conflict and postconflict settings in which respondents are secretive because they are embedded in uncertain and highly threatening social and political contexts. Reciprocal, delicate yet stable, partially trusting relationships open up opportunities for accessing hidden worlds of thought and behaviors. Based on field research on the grassroots genocide tribunals (gacaca courts) in Rwanda, this article posits three specific types of opportunities for insider access: the incremental, accidental, and the contrived. While the partial trust dynamic also constrains the extent to which the researcher can probe these openings,
This article focuses on the gendered dimensions of the genocide in Rwanda. It seeks to explain why Tutsi women married to Hutu men appeared to have better chances of survival than Tutsi women married to Tutsi men or even Hutu women married to Tutsi men. Based on data from a field site in southwest Rwanda, the findings and insights offered here draw on the gendered, racial, and operational dynamics of the genocide as it unfolded between April and July 1994.
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