CommGenRwa · Genocide Commemoration in the Rwandan Diaspora

Genocide Commemoration in the Rwandan Diaspora

The project ‘Genocide Commemoration in the Rwandan Diaspora’ (CommGenRwa) explores commemorative responses to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, seeking to build an understanding of the forms of commemoration taking place among Rwandan genocide survivors living in the diaspora. The project focuses on three case study areas – Belgium, France and the UK – in order to investigate the impact of place and displacement on commemorative practices within diasporic communities. It is driven by three key research objectives: 1) to provide a nuanced understanding of commemorative practices in the Rwandan diaspora; 2) to analyse the impact of the specific location on the ways in which memory of the genocide is articulated; 3) to identify gaps in the existing theoretical paradigms and to present alternative models that take into account the influence of location in diasporic commemorative practices. The project makes a significant contribution to the fields of Cultural Memory Studies, Trauma Studies and Postcolonial Studies. It provides invaluable insight into the ways in which diasporic communities remember and commemorate traumatic events from a position of exile, affording new knowledge of memory practices among migrant communities and how memory narratives are articulated and interact transnationally. The COVID-19 situation has had a significant impact on the progression of the project overall, particularly in terms of conducting fieldwork. The primary outputs of the project were to include the organisation of an interdisciplinary symposium, the development of a research monograph and the curation of an exhibition at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels. The project symposium, ‘Remembering the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda 25 Years On’, was held at Ghent University on 16 May 2020 and included the participation of Rwandan community leaders and artists as well as academics from a range of disciplines. Due to the disruption to the planned research and dissemination activities in March-August 2020, the writing of the monograph has been delayed, and the exhibition has been postponed. One of the key objectives of the MSCA-IF is to enhance the potential and future career prospects of the researcher. This has been achieved through the securing of my next academic job at Newcastle University, UK: a Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellowship in the School of Modern Languages, which I took up on 1 September 2020.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз