Post-genocide identity politics and colonial durabilities in Rwanda

Purdeková, Andrea; Mwambari, David

doi:10.1080/21681392.2021.1938404

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 62 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…It is now widely acknowledged, however, that these identities and attendant memories of confl ict are related to multifaceted political and social identities more broadly (e.g. Purdeková and Mwambari 2022). Our article does not aim to provide further factual clarifi cations about past events.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

Managing Mass Graves in Rwanda and Burundi

Jamar

Major

2022

Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale

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English Abstract: The governments of Rwanda and Burundi exhume mass graves with the promise of revealing truths about the contested histories of past conflict and genocide. In Rwanda, exhumations recover and conserve the bodies of victims of the genocide against the Tutsi. Since December 2019, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Burundi has also begun mass exhumations; these efforts are motivated by truth-seeking and reconciliation aspirations that articulate a specific narrative of victimhood and state legitimacy. The state employs vernacularised forms of forensic practices and ‘international’ rights-based discourses in both cases. Drawing on our respective ethnographic fieldwork, we describe and analyse exhumation practices in Rwanda and Burundi. The ‘forensic turn’ in post-conflict settings has been the subject of much discussion and debate among scholars since the proliferation of the practice over recent decades. We add to these debates in our consideration of two linked settings in which the exhumations had become powerful political tools, in this case serving as a source of power for specific regimes.French Abstract: Les gouvernements du Rwanda et du Burundi exhument des fosses communes en promettant d’éclaircir les vérités sur les histoires contestées des conflits et des génocides passés. Au Rwanda, les exhumations ont été organisée pour récupérer et conserver les corps des victimes du génocide contre les Tutsis. Depuis décembre 2019, la Commission Vérité et Réconciliation au Burundi a également entamé des exhumations de masse ; ces efforts sont motivés par des ambitions de recherche de la vérité et de réconciliation articulées autour d’un récit spécifique de victimisation et de légitimation de l’État. Dans les deux cas, l’État utilise des formes vernacularisées de pratiques médico-légales et des discours « internationaux » fondés sur les droits. En nous appuyant sur nos travaux ethnographiques de terrain respectifs, nous décrivons et analysons les pratiques d’exhumation au Rwanda et au Burundi. Le tournant médico-légal » dans les contextes post-conflits a fait l’objet de nombreuses discussions et débats parmi les chercheurs depuis la prolifération de ces pratiques au cours des dernières décennies. Nous contribuant à ces débats en examinant deux contextes liés dans lesquels les exhumations sont devenues de puissants outils politiques, servant dans ce cas de source de pouvoir pour des régimes spécifiques.

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mentioning

confidence: 88%

Managing Mass Graves in Rwanda and Burundi

Jamar

Major

2022

Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale

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“…The state-sanctioned ‘ceremonies’ are held at memorial sites around the country. Their physical reminders help carry the past to younger Rwandans, who participate in these events to learn about a time they did not witness but which nevertheless shapes their everyday lives (Ataci, 2022; Benda, 2017; Grant, 2019; Purdeková and Mwambari, 2022). Physical reminders have also ‘travelled’ (Erll, 2011: 11) beyond Rwanda – to diaspora communities and other visitors – through stories, exhibitions, and, especially during COVID-19 restrictions, online mediums (Sibomana, 2020).…”

Section: Memory Written On the Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bodily Scars as Lived Memory in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Mwambari,

Sibomana

2023

Body & Society

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Scholarship about politics and the body in conflicts has gained prominence in academic debates. This article advances these conversations by arguing that bodily scars are potent ‘carriers’ of memories of mass atrocities committed during the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Using both semi-structured interviews and a wide range of secondary sources, this study found that bodily scars – as physical manifestations of wartime torture and pain – evidence past atrocities and survivor resilience. Similarly, they are avenues through which the past is communicated and transformed (in ways that complement and surpass other mediums of memory). Bodily scars play powerful and complex roles in memory conversations; they communicate trauma and keep memories of the mass violence vivid in public and private realms. This article empirically contributes to discussions on the politics of memory in post-genocide Rwanda, and body studies and memory scholarship more broadly.

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“…In terms of broader debates on memory politics in the wake of and amidst war and conflict, the dominant preoccupation is still with ‘present pasts’ (Huyssen, 2003) or what Werbner (1998) calls ‘post-wars of the dead’ – the ways in which violence is brought into a post-conflict present. Available scholarship analyses how memories of violent past shape local and national politics, foreign policies, how they are incorporated into political production and how they might inform renewed violence or peace-building (see Purdekova and Mwambari, 2022; Purdekova, 2020, 2015). There is work looking at specific sites of violence and memorials and how they are used for these purposes (Subotić, 2019a; Volkan, 2001).…”

Section: Linking Memory and Security In The War On Terrormentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory as vulnerability: Reinhabiting sites of violence and the politics of triumphalist amnesia in Kenya’s war on terror

Purdeková

2022

Security Dialogue

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Rectification as the return of sites of violence to prior use is little studied even as governments often defiantly reconstruct such sites and urge citizens to visit them as a way to combat ‘terror’. Using the case study of the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack in Kenya and the subsequent return of the site to prior use, the article reflects on the broader practices of erasure of violence from public space as a unique form of a memory–security nexus. The article reads amnesia and its effects through material and social practices of rectification – renovation, fortification, closure and reopening, and the experiences of survivors and non-survivors in reinhabiting these spaces. The ways in which violence is vacated from space and speech, and the ways in which its absence is encountered by diverse people, produce a rich transcript on memory and its entanglements with security agendas. They also reveal the deleterious effects of politicized ‘triumphalist amnesia’ enlisted as a counter-terror tool, including the emotional tax and public distrust arising from non-recognition when memory is equated with vulnerability and forgetting with defiance. Triumphalist amnesia might produce the opposite effect – a failure to root out violence and insecurity among those asked to confront it.

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Post-genocide identity politics and colonial durabilities in Rwanda

Cited by 13 publications

References 62 publications

Managing Mass Graves in Rwanda and Burundi

Managing Mass Graves in Rwanda and Burundi

Bodily Scars as Lived Memory in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Memory as vulnerability: Reinhabiting sites of violence and the politics of triumphalist amnesia in Kenya’s war on terror

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