Her Wail, Reclaiming Histories: An Uncontrollable Expression of Pain in Post-genocide Rural Rwanda

Abstract (English)

Since 1990, the Republic of Rwanda has experienced serious conflict, which culminated in the genocide of 1994. Following this, the current government implemented initiatives aimed at national unity and reconciliation, consequently producing a dichotomous narrative that categorizes the Tutsi as “victims” and the Hutu as “perpetrators.” In reality, many individuals fall outside of these binary classifications. In post-genocide Rwanda, the “genocide” as publicly discussed has been confined to the experiences of those officially recognized as “genocide survivors” by the state, and the right to publicly mourn has been limited to this group alone.
This presentation examines how individual experiences of the violence of the 1990s—those that do not fit neatly into the state’s unified narrative—have been situated and perceived among the people. Focusing on the public mourning of a woman during a 2017 genocide commemoration week gathering, how her outcry created a rupture in the provisional social order that had existed in the local community after the genocide is explored. This moment also served as an occasion for people to renegotiate an ethical order in response to the immediate situation. Rather than being a product of dialogue, these processes were shaped by silence and emotional expressions of the “unspeakable,” which have enabled the coexistence of individuals in the community.
Importantly, her cry of pain did not emerge as a display of the wounded, exclusive body of a “survivor” seeking public recognition; instead, as an uncontrollable bodily response, it possessed the power to evoke an imaginative empathy for shared suffering—an empathy that extended beyond those officially recognized as survivors.