Researching under constraints: Recent books on post-genocide Rwanda

Abstract

Rwanda has been a focus of substantial scholarly attention, but recent regulations there have made conducting research increasingly challenging. Four books from diverse disciplines show that, despite the ways in which the authoritarian context places constraints on what research can be undertaken and how it can be done, solid scholarship on Rwanda can continue to be produced. They also show that the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi remains the focal point of nearly every book on the country, even those focused on society since 1994.

Notes

1 The most important colonial-era African scholar, Alexis Kagame, was a Rwandan who published extensively on Rwanda’s precolonial history.

2 Most notably, see Des Forges (1999), Prunier (1997), Straus (2007), Longman (2010), and Fujii (2009).

3 On the national unity program, see Thomson (2013) and Purdeková (2018). On women in postgenocide Rwanda, see Burnet (2012) and Berry (2018). On youth, see Sommers (2012). On RPF governance, see Reyntjens (2014).

4 In her recent book, Eramian (2017) took an approach that is somewhat similar, focusing her interviews on elites who were mostly Tutsi and mostly from the former refugee population that is the core of RPF support. As a result, Eramian’s take on post-genocide Rwanda is more sympathetic than many other works, although she did reveal the challenges that even her proregime subjects faced in modern Rwanda.

5 On international justice, see Palmer (2015), Peskin (2008), and Akhavan (2001). On domestic justice, including gacaca trials, see Chakravarty (2016), Clark (2011), Ingelaere (2016), and Longman (2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy Longman

Timothy Longman is professor of political science and international relations and associate dean of the Pardee School at Boston University. He is the author of Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda and Memory and Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda.