Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Past and Collective Belonging in Post-Genocide Rwanda

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

Graduate student Kristin C. Doughty, supervised by Dr. Sandra T. Barnes, will conduct twelve months of ethnographic research in Butare, Rwanda, where, thirteen years after the 1994 genocide, history is at the center of official reconciliation policies. In the wake of political violence, governments, NGOs, and UN agencies often devote sizable resources to promoting new historical narratives in venues such as museums or schools. Yet, it is unclear how the "consumers" of these new versions of history use them in daily life, and with what effects on their social relationships. This leads to the question at the center of this project: Following mass violence, how do people use the past to rebuild their social fabric? In Rwanda, the past is foregrounded today by ongoing gacaca tribunals, which are grassroots courts in which genocide suspects are tried among their neighbors. The researcher's primary informants will be 4-6 gacaca judges, ordinary people elected locally to preside over these trials, because judges' position as intermediaries between the Rwandan government and everyday people will highlight the relationship between official and local reconciliation processes. The researcher will use qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews, surveys, and document analysis to identify Rwandans' understandings of the past, where and with whom they create social connections and boundaries, how they use the past to express them, and what forms of collective belonging emerge. The research is important because it will elucidate mechanisms effective for community rebuilding following mass violence. By demonstrating how people define reconciliation on their own terms and engage with institutionalized reconciliation initiatives, this project will inform post-conflict peacebuilding policies and interventions. The research also will contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.