Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewDavid Mwambari offers a powerful revisionary account of the memory of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. His book works simultaneously on two levels: it illuminates and challenges what he calls the hegemonic master narrative of the genocide memory while offering an account of the plurality of memories of multiple violence in Rwanda's history; and it models how the study of collective remembrance can take inspiration from decolonial methodologies and move beyond its Eurocentric origins. This is an important contribution to a variety of fields, including genocide studies, African studies, and memory studies. Highly recommended!"-Michael Rothberg, author of The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators.
David Mwambari's nuanced study explores the lived experiences of the 1994 genocide and its commemoration, over twenty years, recentring a wide range of Rwandan voices, and examining the powerful dominant narrative of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi. Mwambari has a unique positionality as one of the few Rwandan international scholars to carry out such complex scholarly work. This is a scholarly journey which is both restorative and productive, and one in which the humanity of the author is fully engaged."-Molly Andrews, Honorary Professor of Political Psychology, University College London
This innovative study explores how Rwanda's master narrative about the 1994 genocide became hegemonic through a process spanning several years and involving multiple actors. Particularly noteworthy are profiles of how three Rwandan artists contributed to commemoration events-yet the celebrated musician Kizito Mihigo was punished when he dared diverge from the dominant narrative; several years later he died in police custody. Despite its extensive research, the cautious tone of Mwambari's book will likely stimulate spirited debates on a central political issue today-that of creating a hegemonic ideology in the wake of massive social violence."-Catharine Newbury, Professor of Government, Smith College
This book has evolved both as a biographical excavation and intellectual inquiry into what memory and memorialization can do for societies disrupted by genocide. In focusing on memory and how remembering is the subject of ever-changing dynamics, this study advances our understanding of knowledge, of how we know and what we know. This is the reason the intellectual contribution of this book is urgent and valuable. The book reminds us that lived experiences, coded in memory, give intellectual work authenticity. In daring to write this book, and in doing it so well, David Mwambari has taken memory studies a notch higher and invited us to accept the fluidity of memory without denying its very value in society. The book is an indispensable contribution to a growing interdisciplinary field of memory studies."-Godwin R. Murunga, CODESRIA Executive Secretary
Table of ContentsForeword Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Commemorating the Past and the Evolution of Concepts in Memory Studies Chapter 2: Rwandan Narratives and Rwandan Pasts Chapter 3: Shaping the Emergence and Evolution of the Genocide Master Narrative Chapter 4: Imprinting the Land with the Materials of Memory Chapter 5: Localizing Commemoration and Individual Responses to the Master Narrative Chapter 6: Expressing Memory after Genocide: The Art of Commemoration Chapter 7: The Media, Commemoration, and the Enforcement of the Master Narrative Conclusion: The Malleability of Memory and Reflections on the Future of Knowledge Production on Rwanda and in Memory Studies References
