Resisting reconciliation: State power and everyday life in post-genocide Rwanda.

摘要

This dissertation is a political ethnography of state-society relations in post-genocide Rwanda. It challenges much of the conventional post-genocide literature which focuses on the behaviour and practices of urban elites, provides a top-down perspective on the socio-political climate in contemporary Rwanda and treats the regime of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) as a unitary actor in its efforts to promote "one Rwanda for all Rwandans" in the name of national unity and reconciliation. The dissertation employs the concept of everyday resistance to identify and analyse the power relations between ordinary people and the Rwandan state, to show how individuals are positioned in relation to state power, and how this positioning affects their life chances in the post-genocide order.;The dissertation also argues that Rwanda's rigid socio-political hierarchy limits the ability of ordinary Rwandans to reconcile with one another. It also argues that the programme of national unity further limits their willingness to reconcile with neighbours and friends. It opens up avenues of future research both in Rwanda and other African societies, where layered domination is commonplace and is legitimated through practices of coercive compliance.;The dissertation argues that the programme of national unity and reconciliation constitutes a mechanism of state power that presents a self-serving version of history and manipulates the language of ethnicity to justify and maintain policies of exclusion in much the same way as previous regimes in Rwanda have done. In the name of national unity and reconciliation, the RPF maintains tight control over the socio-political landscape with myriad negative consequences for ordinary peasant Rwandans at the lowest rungs of society. Specifically, the dissertation finds that the programme of national unity and reconciliation is at odds with their interests as peasants since its aims do not accord with the exigencies of everyday rural life. Indeed, many ordinary Rwandans trace the illegitimacy of the programme of national unity and reconciliation to the mediating role that local officials play in its implementation, a finding which challenges the RPF's assertions to western donors and journalists that its post-genocide policies enjoy broad-based grassroots support.