Kwibuka 30: Making Memory and Legacy in Rwanda

11-12 April 2024 | Higgins Lounge | Dana Commons

Kwibuka 30: Making Memory and Legacy in Rwanda

Kwibuka means to remember in Kinyarwanda and is a dominant concept used to commemorate The 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda. On the 30th anniversary of the genocide, this workshop gathers an international group of scholars to examine the construction of memory and legacy. Drawing on diverse voices and perspectives, the presentations will highlight scholarly work grounded in rigorous fieldwork in the Rwandan and Great Lakes region in order to consider the Rwandan past and future trajectories.

11 April 2024 | 5:30 p.m. |Higgins Lounge
Dana Commons

Keynote

Speakers:

Prosecuting Justice in Rwanda: Recollections and Reflections
Hassan Jallow (former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Hague residual mechanism judge and Gambian chief justice)

75 years on: The Genocide Convention in International Courts
Melanie O’Brien (Visiting Professor at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS))

Watch Recording of Event
Please note that Dr. Melanie O’Brien requested that her keynote not be recorded.

12 April 2024 | 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. | Higgins Lounge
Dana Commons

Workshop

Research on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda has contributed to the development of the field of genocide studies but has also inspired controversy and adversarial claims. As with other cases of genocide, questions of denial have shaped the scholarly discourse and influenced what counts as legitimate narratives. The role of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, both within the country and across diaspora groups, as well as the impact of Rwandan foreign policy and practice in neighboring Great Lakes countries, have introduced political considerations that contribute to the debate. Workshop participants ask who is telling Rwanda’s story, and they pose crucial questions about representation in scholarship with interests in Rwanda’s long societal past prior to colonial interventions as well as its future. The panels will discuss the following themes: human and natural social worlds; society and policy after genocide; actors, violence, and survival; and showing and ordering memory.

Workshop Program

For more information and to register for the workshop please contact Robyn Conroy at rconroy@clarku.edu

Organized by the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies with support from the Division of Criminal Justice and the College of Health and Human Services at California State University Sacramento; and the departments of History; Sociology; and Sustainability and Social Justice at Clark University.