Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T17:29:18.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Data Problems to Data Points: Challenges and Opportunities of Research in Postgenocide Rwanda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Elisabeth King
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

While interest in conducting fieldwork in conflict and postconflict societies continues to grow, literature addressing the specific challenges and dilemmas of this kind of research remains scarce. Based on four months of fieldwork and approximately seventy interviews, this article explores the complexities of conducting research in postgenocide Rwanda. I argue that what at first may appear to be data problems can also be important data points; problems such as historical memory, selective telling, and skewed participant demographics illuminate political structures, group relations, and societal cleavages. This article then illustrates this argument by examining how these challenges/opportunities help explain the difficulties involved in teaching history in postgenocide schools. These reflections on research in Rwanda suggest valuable lessons for fieldwork and data analysis in a number of settings by providing examples of pitfalls, dilemmas, and often unseen opportunities that are likely to present themselves in other divided societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , December 2009 , pp. 127 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al-Haj, Majid. 2005. “National Ethos, Multicultural Education, and the New History Textbooks in Israel.” Curriculum Inquiry 35 (1): 47–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avery, Patricia G., et al. 1999. “Teaching an Understanding of War and Peace through Structured Academic Controversies.” In How Children Understand War and Peace: A Call for International Peace Education, edited by Raviv, Amiram, Oppenheimer, Louis, and Bar-Tal, Daniel, 261–77. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.Google Scholar
Avery, Patricia G., Sullivan, John L., and Wood, Sandra L.. 1997. “Teaching for Tolerance of Diverse Beliefs.” Theory into Practice 36 (1): 32–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bickmore, Kathy. 1999. “Teaching Conflict and Conflict Resolution in School: (Extra-) Curricular Considerations.” In How Children Understand War and Peace: A Call for International Peace Education, edited by Raviv, Amiram, Oppenheimer, Louis, and Bar-Tal, Daniel, 233–59. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.Google Scholar
Braeckman, Colette. 2003. Les nouveaux prédateurs. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Buckley-Zistel, Susanne. 2006a. “Dividing and Uniting: The Use of Citizenship Discourses in Conflict and Reconciliation in Rwanda.” Global Society 20 (1): 101–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckley-Zistel, Susanne. 2006b. “Remembering to Forget: Chosen Amnesia as a Strategy for Local Coexistence in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” Africa 76 (2): 131–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnet, Jennie. 2005. Genocide Lives in Us: Amplified Silence and the Politics of Memory in Rwanda. Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina.Google Scholar
Burnet, Jennie. 2009. “Whose Genocide? Whose Truth? Representations of Victim and Perpetrator in Rwanda.” In Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation, edited by Hinton, Alex Laban and O'Neill, Kevin Lewis, 80–110. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrétien, Jean-Pierre. 2003. The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History. Translated by Straus, Scott. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Cole, Elizabeth A., and Barsalou, Judy. 2006. “Unite or Divide? The Challenges of Teaching History in Societies Emerging from Violent Conflict.” Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace.Google ScholarPubMed
Davies, Lynn. 2004. Education and Conflict: Complexity and Chaos. London: RoutledgeFalmer.Google Scholar
De Lame, Danielle. 2005. A Hill among a Thousand: Transformations and Ruptures in Rural Rwanda. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Des Forges, Alison. 1999. Leave None to Tell the Story. New York: Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Eltringham, Nigel. 2004. Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Freedman, Sarah Warshauer, et al. 2008. “Teaching History after Identity-Based Conflicts: The Rwanda Experience.” Comparative Education Review 52 (4): 663–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujii, Lee Ann. 2007. “The Truth in Lies: Evaluating Testimonies of War and Genocide in Rwanda.” Paper presented at the Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, August 29–September 2.Google Scholar
Gourevitch, Philip. 1998. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. New York: Picador USA.Google Scholar
Hintjens, Helen M. 2001. “When Identity Becomes a Knife: Reflecting on the Genocide in Rwanda.” Ethnicities 1(1): 25–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Crisis Group. 2002. “Rwanda at the End of the Transition: A Necessary Political Liberalisation.” Nairobi: International Crisis Group.Google Scholar
Institute for Research and Dialogue on Peace. 2005. “Histoire et conflits au Rwanda.” Kigali: Institute for Research and Dialogue for Peace.Google Scholar
Jefremovas, Villia. 1997. “Contested Identities: Power and the Fictions of Ethnicity, Ethnography and History in Rwanda.” Anthropologica 39 (1–2): 91–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, David W., and Johnson, Roger T.. 1994. “Constructive Conflict in Schools.” Journal of Social Issues 50 (1): 117–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Elisabeth. 2008. The Role of Education in Violent Conflict and Peacebuilding in Rwanda. Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Lemarchand, René. 1994. Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Lemarchand, René. 1994. Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Lemarchand, René. 1970. Rwanda and Burundi. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Linden, Ian. 1977. Church and Revolution in Rwanda. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Longman, Timothy, and Rutagengwa, Théonèste. 2004. “Memory, Identity and Community in Rwanda.” In My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity, edited by Stover, Eric and Weinstein, Harvey M., 162–82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longman, Timothy. 2006. “Memory, Justice and Power in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” Paper presented at the meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, August 31.Google Scholar
Malkki, Liisa. 1995. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
Maquet, Jean Jacques. 1961. The Premise of Inequality in Ruanda. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
National Census Service. 2002. “Results in Brief: The Rwanda 2002 Census of Population and Housing.” Kigali: Government of Rwanda.Google Scholar
Newbury, Catharine. 1988. The Cohesion of Oppression. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Newbury, Catharine. 1998. “Ethnicity and the Politics of History in Rwanda.” Africa Today 45 (1): 7–24.Google Scholar
Obura, Anna. 2004. Peace, Reconciliation and Conflict Resolution: Framework Proposal–Rwanda. Kigali: Department for International Development.Google Scholar
Pottier, Johan. 2002. Reimagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prunier, Gerard. 1997. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide 1959–1994. London: C. Hurst and Company.Google Scholar
Republic of Rwanda. 2004. A Guide to Civic Education: Life Skills for Rwanda Primary Schools, Upper Primary Level-P4-P5-P6. Kigali: National Curriculum Development Centre.Google Scholar
Republic of Rwanda. 2006. The Teaching: of History of Rwanda: A Participatory Approach. Kigali: National Curriculum Development Centre.Google Scholar
Reyntjens, Filip. 2004. “Rwanda, Ten Years On: From Genocide to Dictatorship.” African Affairs 103: 177–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Marc Howard. 2002. “The Political Psychology of Competing Narratives: September 11 and Beyond.” In Understanding September 11, edited by Calhoun, Craig, Price, Paul, and Timmer, Ashley, 303–20. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Marc Howard. 2007. Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, Wendy D., and Mehta, Jal D.. 2002. “The Rashomon Effect: Combining Positivist and Interpretevist Approaches in the Analysis of Contested Events.” Sociological Methods and Research 31: 131–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Beth. 2004. Some Trouble with Cows: Making Sense of Social Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, Herbert J., and Rubin, Irene S.. 2005. Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanford, Victoria. 2009. “What Is an Anthropology of Genocide? Reflections of Field Research with Maya Survivors in Guatemala.” In Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation, edited by Hinton, Alex Laban and O'Neill, Kevin Lewis, 29–53. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Senate of Rwanda. 2006. Rwanda Genocide Ideology and Strategies for Its Eradication. Kigali: Senate of Rwanda.Google Scholar
Uvin, Peter. 1998. Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda. Bloomfield, Conn.: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
Vansina, Jan. 1996. “Epilogue: Fieldwork in History.” In In Pursuit of History: Fieldwork in Africa, edited by Adenaike, Carolyn Keyes and Vansina, Jan, 127–40. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Vidal, Claudine. 2001. “Les commemorations du genocide au Rwanda.” Les Temps Modernes 613: 1–46.Google Scholar
Wahrman, Hillel. 2003. “Is Silencing Conflicts a Peace Education Strategy? The Case of the ‘Jewish State’ Topic in Israeli Civics Textbooks.” In Education of Minorities and Peace Education in Pluralistic Societies, edited by Iram, Yaacov, 219–54. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Harvey M., Freedman, Sarah Warshauer, and Hughson, Holly. 2007. “School Voices: Challenges Facing Education Systems after Identity-Based Conflicts.” Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 2 (1): 41–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2006. “The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in Conflict Zones.” Qualitative Sociology 29: 373–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar