Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda

The Politics of History

Erin Jessee

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9783319451947
• eBook ISBN: 9783319451954
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

This book is an oral history-based study of the politics of history in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Using life history and thematic interviews, the author brings the narratives of officials, survivors, returnees, perpetrators, and others whose lives have been intimately affected by genocide into conversation with scholarly studies of the Rwandan genocide, and Rwandan history more generally. In doing so, she explores the following questions: How do Rwandans use history to make sense of their experiences of genocide and related mass atrocities? And to what end? In the aftermath of such violence, how do people's interpretations of the varied forms of suffering they endured then influence their ability to envision and support a peaceful future for their nation that includes multi-ethnic cooperation?

Table of contents

• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Chronology
• Rwandan Participants
• Map of Rwanda
• Kinyarwanda Terminology
• Abbreviations
• List of Figures
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: An Official History: Commemorating “the 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi”
• Chapter 3: Memorial Staff: Between Official Narrative and Lived Experience
• Chapter 4: Genocide Survivors: Complicating the Official Narrative
• Chapter 5: Convicted Génocidaires: Keepers of “Bad History”
• Chapter 6: Returnees: Looking Toward the “New Rwanda”
• Chapter 7: Considering Silences: Hutu Survivors? Tutsi Génocidaires? And What of the Twa?
• Chapter 8: Conclusion: The Danger of a Single Story
• Bibliography
• Index