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Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize 2017
"This anthropological study of the legal phenomenon of the grassroots gacaca courts in post-genocide Rwanda is beautifully written, and conceptually and methodologically exemplary. ... [the] chapters on the strategic nature of testimony—in which those who testified interwove truth, silence, and lies to secure their survival or increased wellbeing in the short or long run—and on the enormous variations in the experiences and outcomes of the gacaca courts in different parts of Rwanda are the most groundbreaking." ASA Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize Jury Report "[A] nuanced social anthropology of gacaca [...] leads us to a nuanced understanding of Rwandan politics and society since the genocide." Journal of Modern African Studies "The gacaca materials are overwhelmingly prosecutorial, a fact made reasonably clear in Bert Ingelaere’s Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide, one of the most illuminating inquests into the gacaca process [...] Unlike most other works on the subject the Gacaca courts are here placed in their social and political contexts." Mass Violence and Resistance Research Network (forthcoming) "This is that rare book that systematically examines how ordinary people respond to the transitional justice enacted in their name. Bert Ingelaere s multisited and multimethod ethnography is a model for how to get at local understandings of grassroots mechanisms. His findings suggest cautionary lessons for anyone interested in making postconflict justice and reconciliation more community-based." Lars Waldorf, University of York |
"Among numerous publications on the subject, this is the most rigorous and reliable. It has much to say about the difficulties of reconciliation politics ... Essential." Choice Magazine "[...] prudently lifts the lid from the Inkiko Gacaca’s “black box.” [The] book is empirically grounded, apolitical, and free from the orientalism that too often informs scholars’ views on noncosmopolitan transitional justice. [...] methodical and presented in a thoughtful narrative." H-Net "It is satisfying [...] to read this highly informed and nuanced account of the Gacaca experience from Belgian anthropologist Bert Ingelaere, far better than previous studies. ... Through detailed observation of trials on multiple sites, hundreds of interviews including life story accounts, Ingelaere and his team uncover several aspects of the trails that are either counter-intuitive or don’t fit with the official aims or narrative. ... Outsider he might be, [...] Ingelaere has, in this excellent study, given us some tools to understand both Gacaca and modern Rwanda." Africa at LSE "Bert Ingelaere’s Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice after Genocide stands out from existing analyses for the methodological rigor on which it is based, and his resulting lucid insights into people’s quotidian experiences with the gacaca process. ... Those familiar with the region and scholarly debates will recognize that Ingelaere’s work emerges from a deep knowledge of the history, culture, and political dynamics of Rwanda, and will appreciate the fine-grained detail ... If you are to read only one book about Rwanda’s gacaca courts, you would do well to select this one." Canadian Journal of African Studies "The study is at its liveliest and most insightful in its richly detailed accounts of these [gacaca] court cases. Long excerpts of trial transcripts provide a window into the complex, performative, and increasingly adversarial atmosphere produced in the space of these makeshift courts. Ingelaere vividly relays the emotive impact of these trials, from the importance of trust to the at times overwhelming presence of fear." African Studies Review "Based on extraordinary field research and close observation of the gacaca proceedings, Bert Ingelaere's study distinguishes itself not only for the rich empirical work but also for its nuanced analysis. He attends both to the top-down force of the state and to the practical, decentralized ways in which Rwandans manage their everyday lives. The book is an excellent example of in-depth place-based research that focuses on human rights issues of transnational concern." Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin "This masterful study provides a balanced, nuanced assessment of Rwanda's local courts, showing how diverse social dynamics influenced both the operations of gacaca and its outcomes in different local communities. Essential reading for anyone interested in transitional justice and conflict resolution, in Rwanda and beyond." Catharine Newbury, Smith College |
Listen to a podcast on the book - New Books Network
After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, victims, perpetrators, and the country as a whole struggled to deal with the legacy of the mass violence. Neighbor had attacked neighbor, and once the killing was over, genocide survivors often lived near those who had murdered their family members or friends. Rwanda’s government attempted to deal with this situation by creating a new version of a traditional grassroots justice system called gacaca.
But the new gacaca courts were nothing like the popular image of a calm discussion under the oldest tree in the village followed by a just solution, and people living happily ever. Inside Rwanda's Gacaca Courts examines what the gacaca courts set out to do, how they worked, what they achieved, what they did not achieve, and how they affected Rwandan society.
Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Rwandan countryside, the book contains vivid firsthand recollections, interviews, and trial testimony from victims and perpetrators, witnesses and lay judges alike. It weaves together this personal witness and reflection with systematic analysis of 2,000 trials to demonstrate how this grassroots process got rerouted under the weight of the Rwandan state and through the pragmatism of the Rwandan peasantry.
Once set in motion, gacaca shifted from confession to accusation, and focused less on restoration and more on retribution. Over time, fewer and fewer people took part, and the system developed a tendency to judge genocide crimes harshly while ignoring war crimes and revenge killings.
By providing rich evidence from the Rwandan grassroots, the book articulates precisely why popular conceptions of what is true and just matter and how localized transitional justice processes change over time and vary in space. It also shows what - at the grassroots and beyond - is at stake and what can make a difference when societies worldwide attempt to deal with the legacies of mass violence and human rights abuses.
Published in the University of Wisconsin Press Critical Human Rights Series
But the new gacaca courts were nothing like the popular image of a calm discussion under the oldest tree in the village followed by a just solution, and people living happily ever. Inside Rwanda's Gacaca Courts examines what the gacaca courts set out to do, how they worked, what they achieved, what they did not achieve, and how they affected Rwandan society.
Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Rwandan countryside, the book contains vivid firsthand recollections, interviews, and trial testimony from victims and perpetrators, witnesses and lay judges alike. It weaves together this personal witness and reflection with systematic analysis of 2,000 trials to demonstrate how this grassroots process got rerouted under the weight of the Rwandan state and through the pragmatism of the Rwandan peasantry.
Once set in motion, gacaca shifted from confession to accusation, and focused less on restoration and more on retribution. Over time, fewer and fewer people took part, and the system developed a tendency to judge genocide crimes harshly while ignoring war crimes and revenge killings.
By providing rich evidence from the Rwandan grassroots, the book articulates precisely why popular conceptions of what is true and just matter and how localized transitional justice processes change over time and vary in space. It also shows what - at the grassroots and beyond - is at stake and what can make a difference when societies worldwide attempt to deal with the legacies of mass violence and human rights abuses.
Published in the University of Wisconsin Press Critical Human Rights Series
"Prevention of genocide is a most inexact science. It is also a frustrating exercise because the best efforts at early warning are negated frequently due to lack of political will to confront the difficult choices that are always involved in saving innocent lives. Precisely because of those difficulties it is especially important to continue to explore root causes of mass atrocity, as well as how to redress past wrongs before the tensions they create escalate into genocide. It is equally important to study what measures have worked in the past even if the causal link to the prevention of genocide is always hard to prove. In particular, social practices and public policies in the last quarter century that aimed to address legacies of mass atrocities can offer clues towards appropriate remedies for victims and perhaps even a path toward genuine reconciliation [...] This volume is bound to become an indispensable tool in the urgent task to prevent the 'crime of crimes'.'
- Juan Mendez, Washington College of Law
''This edited volume [...] provides a series of relatively short, pithy chapters by scholars in political science, history, law, philosophy, anthropology, and theology, and thereby stretches the bounds of scholarship on genocide. The volume as a whole seeks to blur the distinctions between risk and resilience, prevention and coping, and origins and aftermaths, and focuses not only on the destructive vision of genocide, but also on the multiple and often localized forms of resistance and recovery that are typically overlooked. It is this emphasis on resistance and mitigating factors that really breaks new ground.''
- African Affairs - Lucy Hovil, International Refugee Rights Initiative
"Overall, the collection represents a corpus of sophisticated, innovative and critical engagements with the important topics of genocide prevention and redress. Structurally, through the inclusion of both general analytical chapters in the first section and case-study chapters in the second section, the edited collection spans both the conceptual and the empirical in its journey through the difficult terrain of the event and experience of the genocide."
- British Journal of Criminology - Nesam McMillan, University of Melbourne
"Each chapter in this co-edited volume is excellent; as a collection, the book is an important resource for academics and policy-makers alike. Indeed, the volume is so cohesive it could easily form the backbone of a graduate seminar on genocide risk and resilience. This is a book that deserves to be widely read."
- Testimony, Auschwitz Foundation International Quarterly, Susan Thomson, Colgate University
This collection adopts an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand the various factors at work in genocidal processes and their aftermath. The strong emphasis on legal norms, legal concepts and legal measures in other studies fails to consider further significant issues in relation to genocide. This book aims to redress this balance exploring social dynamics and human behaviour as well as the interplay of various psychological, political, sociological, anthropological and historical factors at work in genocidal processes.
With contributions from top international scholars, this volume provides an integrated perspective on risk and resilience, acknowledging the importance of mitigating factors in understanding and preventing genocide. It explores a range of issues including the conceptual definition of genocide, the notion of intent, preventive measures, transitional justice, the importance of property, the role of memory, self or national interest and principles of social existence.
Genocide, Risk and Resilience aims to cross conceptual, disciplinary and temporal boundaries and in doing so, provides rich insights for scholars from across political science, history, law, philosophy, anthropology and theology. More information here.
Introduction: Between Risk and Resilience – An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Genocide
