Generation After: Kinship in the aftermath of genocidal sexual violence in Rwanda

Loning, Sara Marloes

Generation After: Kinship in the aftermath of genocidal sexual violence in Rwanda

Thesis / Dissertation

2024

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Social Anthropology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Thousands of women and girls experienced sexual violence during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, with many becoming pregnant as a result of genocidal rape. Based on two years of ethnographic research in Rwanda, this dissertation explores the dynamics of kinship in the aftermath of sexual violence by focusing on the lived experiences of young people conceived in genocidal rape. While working with organisations supporting genocide survivors, I traced how young people learned about the circumstances of their conception and how they interpreted their place within kinship relations given these circumstances. This dissertation examines the subtle work that goes into containing genocide memories in the everyday, revealing the affective efforts, ‘attunement', and vigilance of young people and their mothers as they grapple with the past intruding into their present. Reflecting on subtle moments observed during fieldwork created an understanding of the delicate work that goes into young people's day-to-day control and creativity in managing their social worlds. The dissertation then delves into the shadowed ways that knowledge of violence appears in young people's worlds and how mothers purposefully shield their children from what Veena Das (2000) calls “poisonous knowledge”. Exploring how young people live with fragmented knowledge about ‘who they are', I analyse how they learn about their conception both formally, through the work of civil society organisations, and informally, through modes of exclusion in communities. I examine what this knowledge does to their relationships and sense of self, as well as its practical implications, such as rights to land. The dissertation then zooms out to the post-genocide landscape, investigating how the national commemoration slogan “kwibuka twiyubaka” (remembering and rebuilding ourselves) takes shape in the lives of young people as they engage in kwiyubaka (building oneself). It explores the public and the private spheres of remembering and rebuilding, including the role of NGOs. I also show the dangers of knowledge that had previously been carefully shielded as it enters the public space. Through kwiyubaka as well as parenthood, young people's apparent fixed connections to the past and their conception can be transformed by becoming a ‘person of value' (umuntu w'ingirakamaro) or ‘the parent of someone' rather than ‘a child of rape'. Overall, I suggest that Veena Das' argument that violence is absorbed in everyday life rather than transcended helps us understand how the past sets the stage for kinship. My work shows how the ‘generation after' absorbs memories of collective violence, including the knowledge of being ‘of rape'. In the aftermath of genocidal sexual violence in Rwanda, violence is absorbed in everyday life and managed through affect and care, as well as possibly transcended by ‘the generation after'.

Keywords

Anthropology

Reference:

Collections

PhD / Doctoral

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