Compartmentalizing Identity: Managing Ethnic identity in Post-Genocide Rwanda

• In Event: Conflict and Belonging Across Borders

Abstract

Compartmentalizing Identity: Managing Ethnic identity in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Abstract:

This study enhances our understanding of ethnic identity management in post-genocide Rwanda by exploring the interplay between policy, collective memory and individual agency. I study how people navigate expressions of ethnic categories of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa that have been officially removed by the government following the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. Through qualitative 25 interviews, my research reveals how Rwandans engage with the National unity and reconciliation policy (that I will hereon refer to as, the NURP) that officially erases ethnicity, not as passive recipients of a state mandate but as active agents navigating its imperfections while creating alternative means of identity expression. Participants publicly embrace a shared national identity that emphasizes oneness while simultaneously acknowledging and maintaining ethnic boundaries. This produces a form of identity compartmentalization: In public, Rwandans perform “Oneness” and set aside ethnic differences in pursuit of social cohesion and collective advancement; In private, they preserve caution against this notion of “oneness” as ethnic differences continue to influence personal decisions, including marriage and trust. My findings challenge binary frameworks that see the erasure of ethnicity as either emancipatory or oppressive and suggest a complex middle ground in which public unity and private differences can coexist, mutually reinforcing each other as strategies of post-conflict identity management.

Author

• Rita Ange Kagaju, Louisiana State University