Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Past and Collective Belonging in Post-Genocide Rwanda

研究生克里斯汀·c·道蒂（Kristin C. Doughty）将在桑德拉·t·巴恩斯（Sandra T. Barnes）博士的指导下，在卢旺达的布塔雷（Butare）进行为期12个月的人种学研究。1994年的种族灭绝发生13年后，历史成为卢旺达官方和解政策的中心。在政治暴力之后，各国政府、非政府组织和联合国机构往往投入大量资源，在博物馆或学校等场所推广新的历史叙事。然而，目前尚不清楚这些新版历史的“消费者”在日常生活中如何使用它们，以及它们对他们的社会关系产生了什么影响。这就引出了这个项目的核心问题：在大规模暴力事件之后，人们如何利用过去来重建他们的社会结构？在卢旺达，过去的历史今天被正在进行的“加卡卡法庭”（gacaca tribunal）所突显，这些法庭是基层法庭，种族灭绝的嫌疑人在他们的邻居中受审。研究人员的主要线人将是4-6名gacaca法官，他们是当地选举出来主持这些审判的普通人，因为法官作为卢旺达政府和普通民众之间的中间人的地位将突出官方和地方和解进程之间的关系。研究人员将使用定性方法，包括参与观察、访谈、调查和文件分析，以确定卢旺达人对过去的理解，他们在哪里以及与谁建立社会联系和界限，他们如何使用过去来表达他们，以及出现了什么形式的集体归属感。该研究具有重要意义，因为它将阐明大规模暴力事件后社区重建的有效机制。通过展示人们如何根据自己的条件定义和解并参与制度化的和解倡议，该项目将为冲突后建设和平政策和干预措施提供信息。这项研究也将对社会科学家的教育作出重大贡献。

Graduate student Kristin C. Doughty, supervised by Dr. Sandra T. Barnes, will conduct twelve months of ethnographic research in Butare, Rwanda, where, thirteen years after the 1994 genocide, history is at the center of official reconciliation policies. In the wake of political violence, governments, NGOs, and UN agencies often devote sizable resources to promoting new historical narratives in venues such as museums or schools. Yet, it is unclear how the "consumers" of these new versions of history use them in daily life, and with what effects on their social relationships. This leads to the question at the center of this project: Following mass violence, how do people use the past to rebuild their social fabric? In Rwanda, the past is foregrounded today by ongoing gacaca tribunals, which are grassroots courts in which genocide suspects are tried among their neighbors. The researcher's primary informants will be 4-6 gacaca judges, ordinary people elected locally to preside over these trials, because judges' position as intermediaries between the Rwandan government and everyday people will highlight the relationship between official and local reconciliation processes. The researcher will use qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews, surveys, and document analysis to identify Rwandans' understandings of the past, where and with whom they create social connections and boundaries, how they use the past to express them, and what forms of collective belonging emerge. The research is important because it will elucidate mechanisms effective for community rebuilding following mass violence. By demonstrating how people define reconciliation on their own terms and engage with institutionalized reconciliation initiatives, this project will inform post-conflict peacebuilding policies and interventions. The research also will contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.