Transitional Justice

In the wake of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the international community and transitional justice scholars have long grappled with how a society can move forward from such unfathomable atrocities. Nicole Fox’s timely and ambitious book, After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda, enters this critical discourse by shifting the focus from macro-level political transitions to the lived experiences of survivors. The work includes an impressive arc that begins with the theoretical foundations of collective memory, moves through the lived realities of survivors interacting with various memorial sites, and culminates in a powerful critique of how state-mandated narratives often fail to represent all genders, ethnicities, and classes. By centering the voices of those often marginalized in dominant reconciliation narratives, the book offers a profound reexamination of how collective memory is constructed, contested, and experienced decades after the violence has ended. One of the book’s most significant contributions is its introduction of the concept of “stratified collective memory,” which powerfully illustrates how certain memories become privileged while others are systematically silenced. Fox structures her analysis around extensive, in-depth fieldwork and interviews with Rwandans, revealing the complex relationships survivors have with these spaces. She meticulously unpacks how official, state-sponsored memorials often amplify a unified, politically motivated narrative of the genocide that inadvertently retraumatizes or erases the experiences of vulnerable populations, particularly poor women and survivors of sexual violence. By weaving together depictions of community memorial sites, scenes of public courage, and the hidden shame that shrouds women’s reconciliation journeys, […]