Peaceful Selves : : Personhood, Nationhood, and the Post-Conflict Moment in Rwanda / / Laura Eramian.

This ethnography of personhood in post-genocide Rwanda investigates how residents of a small town grapple with what kinds of persons they ought to become in the wake of violence. Based on fieldwork carried out over the course of a decade, it uncovers how conflicting moral demands emerge from the 199...

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Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2017
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Place / Publishing House:New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2017]
©2017
Year of Publication:2017
Language:English
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Physical Description:1 online resource (202 p.)
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Other title:Frontmatter --
Contents --
Illustrations --
Acknowledgments --
Abbreviations --
Introduction: Person, Nation, and Violence in Rwanda --
1. The Post-Conflict Moment in Butare and Its Antecedents --
2. Ethnicity’s Specter in Post-Ethnic Times --
3. Living with Absence --
4. Creativity, Positive Thinking, and Their Perils --
5. Making Peace by Remaking Persons --
Conclusion: The Post-Conflict, the Postcolonial, and Peaceful Selves --
Glossary of Kinyarwanda terms --
Bibliography --
Index
Summary:This ethnography of personhood in post-genocide Rwanda investigates how residents of a small town grapple with what kinds of persons they ought to become in the wake of violence. Based on fieldwork carried out over the course of a decade, it uncovers how conflicting moral demands emerge from the 1994 genocide, from cultural contradictions around “good” personhood, and from both state and popular visions for the future. What emerges is a profound dissonance in town residents’ selfhood. While they strive to be agents of change who can catalyze a new era of modern Rwandan nationhood, they are also devastated by the genocide and struggle to recover a sense of selfhood and belonging in the absence of kin, friends, and neighbors. In drawing out the contradictions at the heart of self-making and social life in contemporary Rwanda, this book asserts a novel argument about the ordinary lives caught in global post-conflict imperatives to remember and to forget, to mourn and to prosper.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9781785337123
9783110998214
DOI:10.1515/9781785337123?locatt=mode:legacy
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Laura Eramian.