This book examines how Rwandans navigated their encounters with grassroots courts purportedly designed to rebuild the social fabric in the wake of the 1994 genocide.--From the publisher.

Kristin Conner Doughty examines how Rwandans navigated the combination of harmony and punishment in grassroots courts purportedly designed to rebuild the social fabric in the wake of the 1994 genocide. Postgenocide Rwandan officials developed new local courts ostensibly modeled on traditional practices of dispute resolution as part of a broader national policy of unity and reconciliation. The three legal forums at the heart of Remediation in Rwanda—genocide courts called inkiko gacaca, mediation committees called comite y'abunzi, and a legal aid clinic—all emphasized mediation based on principles of compromise and unity, brokered by third parties with the authority to administer punishment. Doughty demonstrates how exhortations to unity in legal forums served as a form of cultural control, even as people rebuilt moral community and conceived alternative futures through debates there. Investigating a broad range of disputes, she connects the grave disputes about genocide to the ordinary frictions people endured living in its aftermath. Remediation in Rwanda is therefore about not only national reconstruction but also a broader narrative of how the embrace of law, particularly in postconflict contexts, influences people's lives. Though law-based mediation is framed as benign—and is often justified as a purer form of culturally rooted dispute resolution, both by national governments such as Rwanda's, and in the transitional justice movement more broadly—its implementation, as Doughty reveals, involves coercion and accompanying resistance. Yet in grassroots legal forums that are deeply contextualized, law-based mediation can open up spaces in which people negotiate the micropolitics of reconciliation.

Since the Genocide against the Tutsi, when up to one million Rwandan people were brutally killed, Rwanda has undergone a remarkable period of reconstruction. Driven by a governmental programme of unity and reconciliation, the last 25 years have seen significant changes at national, community, and individual levels. This book gathers previously unpublished testimonies from individuals who lived through the genocide. These are the voices of those who experienced one of the most horrific events of the 20th Century. Yet, their stories do not simply paint a picture of lives left destroyed and damaged; they also demonstrate healing relationships, personal growth, forgiveness and reconciliation. Through the lens of positive psychology, the book presents a range of perspectives on what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and shows how people have been changed by their experience of genocide.

The Second Edition of An Introduction to Transitional Justice provides a comprehensive overview of transitional justice judicial and non-judicial measures implemented by societies to redress legacies of massive human rights abuse. Written by some of the leading experts in the field, it takes a broad, interdisciplinary approach to the subject, addressing the dominant transitional justice mechanisms as well as key themes and challenges faced by scholars and practitioners. Using a wide historic and geographic range of case studies to illustrate key concepts and debates, and featuring discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, this is an essential introduction to the subject for students.

Few societies have faced the difficulties of identity building experienced by Rwanda. This book’s introduction reviews literature on the concepts of myth and trauma, and then introduces basic information on Rwanda and how it has been viewed by the outside world. Chapter One describes early Rwanda’s political and cultural development, traditional narratives, group migrations, the effects of German and later Belgian colonialism, and the introduction of Christianity. It concludes with a look at how this early history has been interpreted and reinterpreted. The second chapter discusses the end of Tutsi dominance and the 1959 Hutu Revolution. It details Hutu Power ideology, Belgian domestic politics, early acts of genocide, refugee movements, and economic and political stagnation. The text documents the development of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, its 1990 invasion, and the Arusha peace process. An account of the 1994 genocide follows. However, as this has been covered in numerous other works, descriptions are limited to key events and general patterns. The chapter ends with a review of films, books, and other publications that brought Rwanda’s plight to a worldwide audience, but that also created new myths. Chapter Three examines the country’s post-genocide reconstruction and attempts to bring justice and reconciliation through the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania and gacaca courts domestically. Rwanda’s impressive record of economic progress over the last two decades is detailed. However, prospects for democracy have diminished, as its leaders have become increasingly sensitive to criticism and fearful of renewed divisions. Descriptions of the process of developing school curriculums to explain past atrocities, the new myths it created, and their possible consequences comprise most of Chapter Four. The final chapter offers conclusions on the effects of past mythologies and the trauma they have wrought. It draws comparisons with other divided societies and their approaches to dealing with the past. These include Burundi, Ethiopia, South Africa, the United States, Taiwan, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and Singapore. An extensive bibliography of books, theses, conference papers, official documents, articles, periodicals, journals, films, websites, other media, and interviews includes translations of titles in Kinyarwanda, French, Dutch, and German.

In recent years, the world has been shaken by numerous events that have caused and continue to cause massive human suffering, from the COVID-19 pandemic to intrastate and interstate armed conflicts. Moreover, climate change continues to plow ahead, contributing to growing tensions, population movements, and resource scarcity. Meanwhile, the methods by which groups and group life are threatened, and the means by which violence is incited and perpetrated, continue to evolve. Such divergent crises, even when they overlap or intersect, confound definition and label. This book seeks not to answer the question "What is genocide?" but rather "What is genocide studies?" When Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide" in 1944, he could not have foreseen what the world would look like today. Now is the time to think about current manifestations of genocide and those likely to emerge in the future.

Explores innovative ways to build peace after large-scale violence by combining resilience, adaptive peacebuilding and transitional justice.