agaciro, vernacular memory, and the politics of

African Affairs, 120/481, 611–628 doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adab031

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction

in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Advance Access Publication 20 October 2021

AGACIRO, VERNACULAR MEMORY, ANDTHE POLITICS OF MEMORY IN

POST-GENOCIDE RWANDA

DAVID MWAMBARI*

ABSTRACTRecent debates in post-genocide and post-war Rwanda have explored howofficial commemorations of the Genocide Against the Tutsi in many waysborrow and ‘mimic’ the Holocaust memory ‘paradigm’. The academiccanon on post-1994 Rwanda focuses the mostly on politics around thisofficial memory that has evolved into hegemonic memory and on how ithas been mobilized to promote a selective memory of the past. However,there is little analysis of vernacular, bottom-up memory practices that haveevolved alongside the official one. Using observation, semi-structuredinterviews, and secondary sources, this article examines vernacular mem-ory practices of mourning the wartime missing in Rwanda. Through theconcepts of ‘multidirectional’ and ‘traveling’ memory, this study examineshow survivors of these interconnected violent histories that unfolded intwo different countries claim multi-faceted Agaciro (dignity, self-respect,and self-worth) through two different memory approaches. The articleargues that while actors in official memory approach claimAgaciro throughborrowing from another global hegemonic memory, respondents in thisstudy created vernacular avenues to remember their missing loved ones.The article finds that while hegemonic memory might appear to only com-pete with vernacular memory, there are also ‘knots’ that connect these twomemory forms in Rwanda’s context and beyond. In its conclusion, thearticle proposes an Agaciro-centred approach to examine the relationshipsbetween official and unofficial memory practices that have been reener-gized through protests both offline and online in Rwanda and beyond. Thearticle contributes to scholarship on Rwanda’s post-genocide memorypolitics, transcultural memory, and decolonial perspectives on dignity.

*David Mwambari is a lecturer in African security and leadership studies, at the African Lead-ership Centre, King’s College London. Email: [email protected]. This researchwas supported by Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek—Vlaanderen. I appreciate therespondents, research associates, translators, and transcribers who facilitated this work buthave chosen to remain anonymous. I thank the reviewers for their feedback.

611

Dow

nloaded from https://academ

ic.oup.com/afraf/article/120/481/611/6406479 by guest on 08 August 2022

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

612 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

In the initial post-genocide and post-conflict period in Rwanda, processesof remembering the victims of violence in and around 1994 violence werefluid.1 They were primarily citizen-led and presided over by religious andhuman rights leaders. Their primary goal was to bury the dead regard-less of class, gender, or cause of death. Available scholarship shows thatpolitical actors drew inspiration from Jewish communities in the West onmemory representation.2 The Holocaust as a ‘model’ of representation ofthe genocide past was adopted in 1995 in Rwanda.3 There were a mix ofmotivations for this choice: both that survivors felt there may be some-thing healing about relating to another group that suffered mass traumaand that using their means of commemoration would have the added ben-efit of making the genocide legible in terms the world already understood.Over time what had been initially loosely referred to as massacres becomethe ‘Rwanda Genocide’ then later evolved into the current official usage‘the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi’.4 Yet the official memory script wasalso constructed with ‘free-floating, abstract cultural conception of what“genocide is,” and how it happens’.5 The script became the mainstreamrepresentation of the 1994 genocide through film, books, museum exhi-bitions, photography, art, and memorials to make connections with theHolocaust representation.6 In this process of borrowing and creating asso-ciations with a hegemonic global narrative, official genocide memory inRwanda morphed into a hegemonic narrative. It enhanced ‘the ability ofa dominant group or class to impose their interpretations of reality—orthe interpretations that support their interests—as the only thinkable wayto view the world’, while alienating alternatives.7 In most contexts officialmemory actors have successfully changed the world’s initial hesitation torecognize violence against the Tutsi in 1994 as ‘genocide’ globally.8 The

1. Catharine Newbury and David Newbury, ‘A Catholic mass in Kigali: Contested viewsof the genocide and ethnicity in Rwanda’, Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revuecanadienne des études Africaines 33, 2–3 (1999), pp. 292–328.2. Rémi Korman, Commémorer sur les ruines. L’État Rwandais face à la mort de masse dansl’après-coup du génocide (1994–2003) (EHESS, unpublished PhD dissertation, 2020), p. 96.3. Ibid.4. Erin Jessee, ‘The danger of a single story: Iconic stories in the aftermath of the 1994Rwandan genocide’, Memory Studies 10, 2 (2017), pp. 144–63. Baldwin, Gretchen, ‘Con-structing identity through commemoration: Kwibuka and the rise of survivor nationalism inpost-conflict Rwanda’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 57, 3 (2019), pp. 355–375.5. Rebecca Jinks, Representing genocide: The holocaust as paradigm? (Bloomsbury Publishing,London, 2016), p. 29.6. Ibid., 21.7. Berthold Molden, ‘Resistant pasts versus mnemonic hegemony: On the power relationsof collective memory’, Memory Studies 9, 2 (2016), pp. 125–42.8. David Mwambari, ‘Emergence of post-genocide collective memory in Rwanda’s interna-tional relations’, in Elijah Nyaga Munyi, David Mwambari, and Aleksi Ylonen (eds), Beyondhistory: African agency in development, diplomacy and conflict resolution (Rowman & LittlefieldInternational, Lanham, MD), 2020), pp. 119–34.

Dow



AGACIRO, VERNACULAR MEMORY, AND POLITICS OF MEMORY 613

government has silenced many memories for internal Rwandan politicalreasons discussed later in this paper.

There are debates on this ‘chosen amnesia’9 embedded within Rwan-dan post-genocide memory discourses. The memory of Hutus, Twa, orthose of mixed Hutu and Tutsi background killed in the 1994 genocide,or in other civil wars of 1990s in Rwanda and in the Democratic Repub-lic of the Congo (DRC) is not part of official history.10 Existing literaturefocuses mostly on memory politics unfolding within Rwanda in the pasttwo decades.11 The academic canon on post-1994 Rwanda memory poli-tics has also mostly overlooked how families of the missing victims of the1990s violence are remembered unofficially. There is little focus on ver-nacular memory practices that have evolved alongside official memory toremember victims of Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) including those whodisappeared in the Congo.12

Using observation, semi-structured interviews, and secondary sources,this article examines vernacular memory practices13 of mourning thewartime missing in Rwanda. It explores the concepts underlying themand how they emerged and evolved as sites of resilience against hegemonicmemory that seek to render them invisible in official history.14

The paper builds on the concepts of ‘multidirectional’15 and ‘trav-eling memory’,16 to examine how families of the missing claim theirAgaciro (meaning dignity, self-respect, and self-worth). Agaciro is a multi-faceted Rwandan home-grown concept. It can be described as part of abroader African perspective on dignity.17 Scholars from various disciplines

9. Susanne Buckley-Zistel, ‘Remembering to forget: Chosen amnesia as a strategy for localcoexistence in post-genocide Rwanda’ Africa 76, 2 (2006), pp. 131–50.10. Ibid.11. See; Erin Jessee, Negotiating genocide in Rwanda: The politics of history (Springer, ChamSwitzerland, 2017); Jennie E. Burnet, Genocide lives in us: Women, memory, and silence inRwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison Wisconsin, USA, 2012); Rachel Ibreck,‘The politics of mourning: Survivor contributions to memorials in post-genocide Rwanda’,Memory Studies 3, 4 (2010), pp. 330–43.12. Prunier Gérard, Africa’s world war: Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making of acontinental catastrophe (Oxford University Press, 2008).13. John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public memory, commemoration, and patriotism in thetwentieth century (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1994), pp. 13–4.14. On resilience against hegemonic power: James C. Scott, Domination and the arts of resis-tance (Yale University Press, Connecticut, 2008); James C. Scott, Weapons of the weak (YaleUniversity Press, Connecticut, 2008); and especially for resilience and individual agencyin Rwanda: Nicola Palmer, ‘Re-examining resistance in post-genocide Rwanda’, Journal ofEastern African Studies 8, 2 (2014), pp. 231–45.15. Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional memory: Remembering the holocaust in the age ofdecolonization (Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, 2009).16. Astrid Erll, ‘Traveling memory’, Parallax 17, 4 (2011), pp. 4–18; Olick, ‘Collectivememory’.17. Norman Ajari, La Dignité ou la mort: Éthique et politique de la race (Empécheurs de penserrond, 2019), p. 12.

Dow



614 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

acknowledge that dignity’s definition is dynamic and depends on social–cultural perspective and context.18 It relates to other perspectives likeUbuntu that connect the dignity of an individual to the collective.19 Agaciroemphasizes relationships. It is an endeavour and not owned but foughtfor.20 The African Charter for Human Rights states that dignity is born ofpolitical struggles.21 Those who are marginalized at different levels fightfor their Agaciro in different contexts and using a variety of approaches.22

This article argues that although both official and unofficial memory formsin Rwanda might appear to compete with one another, there are ‘knots’23

that connect them. Government actors have mobilized foreign ideas, part-ners and Rwandan perspective to fight for Agaciro for Tutsi victims butnot for other victims of civil wars. However, as this article shows, thosemarginalized in official history have created vernacular pathways to fightfor Agaciro for themselves and their missing loved ones. These marginalizedactors used vernacular platforms as sites of resilience against a hegemonicmemory that seeks to silence alternative versions of the 1990s civil warsand genocide.24 This article examines these overlooked unofficial practicesand explores the threads, the tensions, and the syntheses with hegemonicmemory. It contributes to debates on transcultural memory and on thepoliticization of home-grown ideas in post-genocide literature as well asdebates on understandings of dignity.

The article will first explore methodological and theoretical approachesfollowed by a brief historical discussion of interrelated conflicts in theGreat Lakes region, Rwanda. It will then locate scholarship on Agacirowithin debates on home-grown ideas in memory politics in Rwanda. Thelater sections will examine respondents’ lived experiences and explore theirimplications.

Methodological and theoretical approaches

Methodologically, the study relied on 23 one-on-one, semi-structuredinterviews to capture respondents’ stories.25 They included 8 women and

18. Catherine Dupré, The age of dignity: Human rights and constitutionalism in Europe(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016), p. 16; Eleni Coundouriotis, ‘The dignity of the’ unfittest:Victims’ stories in South Africa’, Human Rights Quarterly 28, 4 (2006), pp. 842–67.19. Mnyaka Mluleki and Mokgethi Motlhabi, ‘The African concept of Ubuntu/Botho andits socio-moral significance’, Black theology 3, 2 (2005), pp. 215–37, p. 221.20. Norman Ajari, La Dignité ou la mort: Éthique et politique de la race, p. 12.21. Tim Murithi, ‘A local response to the global human rights standard: The ubuntuperspective on human dignity’, Globalisation, Societies and Education 5, 3 (2007), pp. 277–86.22. Ibid., 20.23. Rothberg, Multidirectional memory, p. 5.24. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the past: Power and the production of history (BeaconPress, 1995).25. All the names are pseudonyms to respect the privacy and safety of participants.

Dow




15 men aged between 26 and 60 years. Narrative analysis was employedto examine the interviews conducted during the visits to Rwanda in 2015,2016, and 2018.26 Stories from below divulge the everyday lived expe-riences of societies recovering from war and allow others to make senseof their world and give it meaning at a particular time.27 The article alsorelies on ethnographic observation of commemoration events in official andunofficial memory spaces. As part of this research, I visited the KigaliGenocide Memorial and state-sponsored official memorials in southernRwanda. I also visited vernacular memorial sites where the stories of themissing examined in this article were highlighted. I initially identified inter-viewees through existing networks from previous studies and then usedsnowballing to find other respondents.28 Since I am fluent in Kinyarwanda,Swahili, French, and English, which respondents used (sometimes inter-changeably) I had unique and direct access to these sensitive stories in alltheir nuance. Respondents therefore recounted their stories to me withoutdifficulty, especially after trust was established over several visits.

In selecting the four life narratives discussed in this article, I focusedon stories that evolved organically without state support. These four werethe only ones to discuss the importance of giving Agaciro to their missingloved ones. They include stories of Rwandan families whose loved oneswent missing in the 1994 genocide and during the first and second warsin the DRC (formerly Zaïre).29 In addition, I used ‘naturally occurringconversations’ to gather further insights on vernacular memory practicesaround Rwanda.30 In retelling their stories, informants were taking part inthe construction of knowledge about their ongoing relationships with themissing, ‘the living, the non-living and the environment’.31

Recent debates in memory studies have focused on the transculturalturn that allows for analysis of vernacular memory forms and have openedan avenue to examine how these unofficial practices emerge and are used

26. Catherine Kohler Riessman, ‘Qualitative research methods, Vol. 30’, Narrative analysis.Sage Publications, Inc (1993).27. Margarete Sandelowski, ‘Telling stories: Narrative approaches in qualitative research’,Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship 23, 3 (1991), pp. 161–66.28. DavidMwambari, ‘Leadership emergence in post-genocide Rwanda: The role of womenin peacebuilding’, The Journal of Leadership and Developing Societies 2, 1 (2019), pp. 88–104.29. On genocide causes and consequences: Jean-Paul Kimonyo, Rwanda’s popular genocide:A perfect storm (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2016). See especially chapter 1. LeeAnn Fujii, Killing neighbours: Webs of violence in Rwanda (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY,2011). Scott Straus, The order of genocide: Race, power, and war in Rwanda (Cornell UniversityPress, Ithaca, NY, 2013). And more recently; Omar Shahabudin McDoom, The path to geno-cide in Rwanda: Security, opportunity, and authority in an ethnocratic state, Vol. 152 (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2020).30. Sabina Mihelj, ‘Between official and vernacular memory’, in Michael Pickering andEmily Keightley (eds), Research methods for memory studies (Edinburgh, Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2013a), pp. 60–75.31. Bagele Chilisa and Gaelebale N. Tsheko, ‘Mixed methods in indigenous research:Building relationships for sustainable intervention outcomes’, Journal of Mixed MethodsResearch 8, 3 (2014), pp. 222–33.

Dow



616 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

as sites of resilience against powerful forms. The concept of multidirec-tional memory in particular offers an alternative and convincing approachto study complex contexts in which varying memories of violent pasts inter-act in the public sphere.32 Thus instead of focusing on Pierre Nora’s sites ofmemory that tend to territorialize memory, a more appropriate approachis to explore the nœuds de mémoire (knots of memory) and ‘rhizomatic net-works’ of these memory forms in post-genocide Rwanda.33 This is becausememories ‘travel’, as Astrid Erll argues.34 They travel through variouschannels, including media, stories, and objects and also humans as their‘carriers’.35 For instance, memories explored in this article have travelledacross national borders from DRC to Rwanda and beyond with families ofthe missing as their carriers.

Literature in the humanities36 has informed emerging debates that exam-ine both official and unofficial memory forms unfolding in non-Westernsocieties as points of departure in memory reseach.37 This article con-tributes to these debates by conceptualizing Agaciro as part of Africanapproaches that understand dignity as an endeavour that informs collec-tive struggles against hegemonic power. The article shows that while officialmemory might appear to only compete with vernacular memory, there arealso ‘knots’ that connect these two memory forms in Rwanda’s contextand beyond. The article is also part of an emerging scholarship that exam-ines how Agaciro as a home-grown perspective is negotiated in Rwanda’spost-genocide memory politics.38 Prior to exploring such connections thenext section explores the meaning of Agaciro as a home-grown concept inpost-genocide Rwanda.39

Historical context of post-genocide memory politics

Rwanda’s civil war that started in 1990 was a continuation of violencerooted in pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial divisions of class,

32. Rothberg, Multidirectional memory, p. 5.33. Ibid.34. Erll, ‘Traveling memory’.35. Ibid.36. Franz Fanon, Black skin, white masks (Grove Publishing, New York, 1967/1952);Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge(Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1988).37. Jill Jarvis, Decolonizing memory: Algeria and the politics of testimony (Duke UniversityPress, Durham, NC, 2021), p. 2.38. Annalisa Bolin, ‘Dignity in death and life: Negotiating agaciro for the nation in preser-vation practice at Nyamata Genocide Memorial, Rwanda’, Anthropological Quarterly 92, 2(2019), p. 368: Roland Junod and Paul Rutayisire, Citoyenneté et réconciliation au Rwanda, p.80.39. David Mwambari, ‘Local positionality in the production of knowledge in NorthernUganda’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18 (2019); David Mwambari, AndreaPurdekova, and Aymar Nyenyezi Bisoka, ‘Covid-19 and research in conflict-affected con-texts: Distanced methods and the digitalisation of suffering’, Qualitative Research (2021), pp.1–10. 1 August 2019.

Dow




negative ethnicity, and gender discrimination.40 The Rwanda PatrioticFront (RPF) and military wing Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) were con-ceived in Uganda. The RPA drew its soldiers from families that had soughtrefuge in Uganda and neighbouring countries in 1959 and the early 1960s,when the country was transitioning from Belgian colonial rule to inde-pendence and the First Republic (1962–1973).41 In 1990 RPA attackedRwanda with what they considered as an ideology to liberate Rwan-dans, fighting the Rwandan government army of the time (Forces ArméesRwandaises [FAR]) of the Second Hutu-led Republic (1973–1994) inan effort to repatriate themselves and their families.42 They were alsointerested in securing political power to shape Rwanda’s future. In 1994the radical Hutu youth militia committed a genocide targeting the Tutsiand over one million died.43 The Hutu who did not support the geno-cide project, as well as foreigners—for example, Belgian blue helmetssoldiers—were killed.44

As the RPA gained control of the country, hundreds of thousands ofmajorityHutu fled to neighbouring Zaïre (todayDRC) andTanzania, whilethose with substantial financial means continued to other countries, fear-ing persecution and revenge killings.45 Although the number of victims ofthese violent 1990s events in Rwanda is disputed, an estimated 40,000 werevictims of revenge killings.46 Outside Rwanda’s borders, violence escalatedin 1997 as the Congolese opposition forces led by Laurent Kabila and sup-ported by the RPA attacked then-Zaïre and removed its long-term dictator,Mobutu Sese Seko. They also fought against the former genocidal forcesthat were quickly mobilizing near the border to further destabilize Rwanda.These wars left hundreds of thousands of mostly Congolese and Rwandansdead, and thousands of others who were separated from their families went

40. Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda crisis: History of a genocide (Columbia University Press,New York, 1997); When victims become killers: Colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda(Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2020). Andrea Purdekova and David Mwambari,‘Post-genocide identity politics and colonial durabilities in Rwanda’, Critical African Studies(2021), pp. 1–19. 21 June 2021.41. On RPF ideology: Benjamin Chemouni and Assumpta Mugiraneza, ‘Ideology and inter-ests in the Rwandan patriotic front: Singing the struggle in pre-genocide Rwanda’, AfricanAffairs 119, 474 (2020), pp. 115–40.42. Samantha Lakin, ‘Leadership mindsets: The social and political development of theRwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) of the past twenty years’, Journal of African Union Studies 3,2 (2014), pp. 47–67.43. Jean-Paul Kimonyo, Rwanda’s popular genocide: A perfect storm (Lynne Rienner Pub-lishers, London, 2016); Kimonyo mentions 800,000 Tutsi victims but the governmentinstitutions has since adopted the official number of over 1,000,000 Tutsi victims. Thesenumbers contradict the first report that estimated the number to be around 500,000 victims.Des Forges, ‘Leave None to Tell the Story’, p. 15.44. Alison Des Forges, ‘Leave none to tell the story’: Genocide in Rwanda (Human RightsWatch, New York, 1999).45. Ibid., p. 15.46. Ibid., p. 378.

Dow



618 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

missing, especially those who fled into Congo’s thick forests and swampsto seek refuge.47 Some primarily Hutu refugees, as well as Tutsi, Twa, orthose of mixed Hutu and Tutsi heritage, made it to DRC’s neighbouringcountries like Congo-Brazzaville.48

After the genocide ended, Tutsi victims who were killed during the 1994genocide as well as Hutus and Twa were either buried publicly or delib-erately hidden in Rwanda. The new government inherited ‘not so mucha state as a cemetery’.49 The removal of the corpses from the landscapeinitially followed unofficial and less structured Rwandan burial rites thatfocused on giving each victim dignity regardless of how they died. How-ever, as an interviewee involved in shaping memorialization (by servingon genocide commissions and advising on annual commemoration themesand the construction of memorials) in Rwanda disclosed, a government-ledcommittee had to take a practical approach to officiate memory centred onTutsi victims of the genocide.50 My interlocutor asserted that the new polit-ical elites had no choice due to the complexity of violence in and aroundthe genocide that risked blurring facts around the genocide. The new gov-ernment also lacked political legitimacy in and outside Rwanda to assertthat a genocide had taken place. Thus, as was explained to me, they had toprioritize selective remembering of only Tutsi victims as the killing of Tutsisin previous massacres had been forgotten in official pre-genocide history.51

By 2012, individuals and institutions I call ‘memory actors’, both for-eign and Rwandan, were involved in shaping the current official memory ofGenocide Against the Tutsi that is diffused globally through embassies anddiaspora communities. The post-genocide annual public commemorationceremonies I followed played multiple roles. They often become politicalplatforms to shame the so-called ‘international community’ that did notintervene to stop the genocide. They also allow survivors to remembertheir loved ones and to fight denialism of the genocide that has continuedto threaten their memory of the genocide.52 However, the post-genocidemourning practices have resulted in tensions about the difficulties amongst

47. Beth Elise Whitaker, ‘Refugees in western Tanzania: The distribution of burdens andbenefits among local hosts’, Journal of Refugee Studies 15, 4 (2002), pp. 339–58.48. Beth E. Whitaker, ‘Refugees and the spread of conflict: Contrasting cases in CentralAfrica’, Journal of Asian and African Studies 38, 2–3 (2003), pp. 211–31.49. Ph Clark, ‘Rwanda’s recovery: When remembrance is official policy’, Foreign Affairs 97(2018), pp. 35–41.50. Interview, genocide survivor activist, Kigali, April 2019.51. It is not just in Rwanda where the genocide memory was inspired from the Holocaustrepresentation. Similar practices exist in Armenia, Cambodia, and former Yugoslavia. See:Jinks, ‘Representing Genocide: The Holocaust as Paradigm?’ On tensions of associatingShoah to Rwandan context see: René Lemarchand, ‘Disconnecting the threads: Rwanda andthe Holocaust reconsidered’, Journal of Genocide Research 4, 4 (2002), pp. 499–518.52. Julia Viebach, ‘Mediating ‘absence-presence’ at Rwanda’s genocide memorials: Of care-taking, memory and proximity to the dead’, Critical African Studies 12, 2 (2020), pp. 237–69.

Dow




survivors, government representatives, and preservation experts of restor-ing Agaciro to the dead.53 The public commemorative events ushered ina new culture of public mourning and politicization of death that wasuncommon in Rwanda.54

One of the outcomes is ‘dark tourism’ that has also flourished chieflyin official memorials like the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre at Gisozi,and Nyamata and Murambi Genocide Memorials. In this way, its pur-pose aligns well with Holocaust memorials that I visited in Australia, theUSA, and the UK. From the feel, the design of the tour, and the use ofexpensive multimedia digital tools, entering any of the museums aroundthe world gives you a sense of déjà vu. In Rwanda, the Aegis Trust—a UK-based organization—holds the mandate of co-managing the mainmemorial site in Kigali and regional sites around the country.55 Aegis Trustwith Rwandan employees, who are mostly genocide survivors, plays a cen-tral role and supports the former custodian of the genocide memory, theNational Commission for the Fight Against the Genocide (CNLG). Theyhave established links with other genocides around the world.56 There is awhole section in the Kigali Genocide Memorial that is dedicated to drawingcomparisons with other atrocities around the world. However, little effortswere made to connect Rwanda’s violent history to that of its neighbour-ing countries both before and after the genocide. These associations withthe Holocaust and other genocides are among the reasons official memorybecame hegemonic. This has blurred its connections with the vernacular.

However, one of my interlocutors explained that internal debates withinmemory organizations evolved in an attempt to transform memory prac-tices and make them more relevant to Rwandan mourning practices.57 Hepointed to the change in the colour of commemoration from the Christian-influenced purple to grey for mourning the dead in Rwandan culture,which dates back to the pre-colonial era.58

53. Bolin, ‘Dignity in death and life’, p. 358. Darius Gishoma, Jean-Luc Brackelaire, Naas-son Munyandamutsa, Jane Mujawayezu, Achour Ait Mohand, and Yvonne Kayiteshonga,‘Supportive-expressive group therapy for people experiencing collective traumatic crisis dur-ing the genocide commemoration period in Rwanda: Impact and implications’, Journal ofSocial and Political Psychology 2, 1 (2014), pp. 469–88. Célestin Kanimba Misago, ‘Les instru-ments de la mémoire. Génocide et traumatisme au Rwanda’, Gradhiva Revue d’anthropologieet d’histoire des arts 5 (2007), pp. 1–16.54. On Rwandan mourning practices and how missionaries failed to change them: Gerardvan’t Spijker, Les usages funéraires et la mission de l’Église (Uitgeversmaatschappij J.H. Kok,Kampen, 1990), p. 106.55. Caroline Williamson Sinalo, Rwanda after genocide: Gender, identity and post-traumaticgrowth (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018).56. In 2021, CNLG and other institutions were phased out in a restructuring exercise by thecabinet. A new government ministry of Unity, see: Edwin Ashimwe, ‘Bizimana named min-ister of newly created unity ministry’, <https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/bizimana-named-minister-newly-created-unity-ministry> (25 September 2021).57. Interview, genocide survivor activist, Kigali, April 2019.58. Ibid.

Dow



https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/bizimana-named-minister-newly-created-unity-ministry

https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/bizimana-named-minister-newly-created-unity-ministry

620 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

While different aspects of memory politics are debated, the most polar-izing are those over victims who are ‘erased from national imagination’.59

Those forgotten include the wartime missing whose narratives are exploredbelow.

Post-genocide literature on Rwanda and Agaciro as a ‘homegrown’ idea

There is growing stream of literature that explores how post-genocide polit-ical actors dominated by the RPF have offered home-grown solutions aspart of the broader reconstruction agenda. Literature on Gacaca courtsfor instance stands out. Gacaca was a justice system that relied on pub-lic testimony of survivors and their suspected killers to establish the truthof a violent past.60 Gacaca courts were presented as a Rwandan solution.They drew inspiration from Rwandan pre-colonial practices of restora-tive relationships in communities after disputes.61 Gacaca was first usedin the context of solving genocide crimes on the margins. Like unofficialremembrances immediately after the genocide referenced in the introduc-tion, political elites adopted Gacaca and repurposed it to deal with a largenumber of cases and give justice to survivors of the genocide.62 While somescholars pointed to their positive contribution to Rwanda’s recovery,63 oth-ers disagreed on their purpose and their effectiveness in helping Rwandanscome to terms with their recent past.64 For instance one scholar foundthat the initial proceedings were not based on truth-telling but rather onconsolidation of power by the RPF political elites amongst rural popula-tion.65 Still others saw Gacaca courts as sites to study the complex waysrural Rwandans engaged with the state programmes.66 One of the criti-cisms in this literature that is relevant to this paper is how a home-grown

59. Jennie E. Burnet, ‘Whose genocide? Whose truth? Representations of victim and per-petrator in Rwanda’, in Alexander Laban Hinton and Kevin Lewis O’Neill (eds), Genocide,truth, memory, and representation (Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2009), pp. 80–110.60. Ingelaere Bert, Inside Rwanda’s/Gacaca/courts: Seeking justice after genocide (University ofWisconsin Press, 2016).61. Filip Reyntjens, ‘Le gacaca ou la justice du gazon au Rwanda’, Politique africaine 40(1990), pp. 31–4.62. Organic Law No. 40/2000, ‘Organic law creating “Gacaca Jurisdictions” and organizingprosecutions of offenses that constitute the crime of genocide or crimes against humanitycommitted between 1 October 1990 and 31 December 1994’, Official Journal of Republic ofRwanda, 12 October 2000.63. For instance this paper shows the repurposed Gacaca allowed women’s participation injustice-related issues than before., Tiemessen Alana Erin, ‘After Arusha: Gacaca justice inpost-genocide Rwanda’, African Studies Quarterly 8, 1 (2004), pp. 58–76, pp. 60–1, p. 63.64. Anuradha Chakravarty, Investing in authoritarian rule: Punishment and patronage inRwanda’s Gacaca courts for Genocide crimes (Cambridge University Press, 2016).65. Bert. Inside Rwanda’s/Gacaca/courts: Seeking justice after genocide.66. Phil Clark, ‘Bringing the peasants back in, again: State power and local agency inRwanda’s gacaca courts’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, 2 (2014), pp. 193–213. Anda different take; see Susan Thomson, Whispering truth to power: Everyday resistance to recon-ciliation in postgenocide Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, USA,2013).

Dow




idea to establish the truth about the past—such as Gacaca—was confinedby the terms set by a politicized official hegemonic memory narrative thatrecognized only Tutsi victimhood.67

In 2012, as Gacaca courts were closing, Agaciro emerged as anotherhome-grown idea but this time it was employed in a forward-lookingapproach to Rwanda’s development, which asserted its agency in inter-national politics.68 Like other preceding initiatives, it has been politicizedto serve the interests of powerful actors. For instance, Agaciro developmentfunds are mobilized from Rwandans and the diaspora to reduce reliance onforeign aid.

Yet respondents in this study suggested that Agaciro is complex and mul-tilayered and is used to address the past amongst Rwandans. In Rwandanculture, it can speak to one’s self-worth, asserting one’s agency and dignity,but it can also be used to explain the value given to humans: the living, themissing, and the dead.69 It is central to collective relationship-building andcontinuity of life among the living, the missing, and the dead.70 Agaciro isnot owned. Rather it is an endeavour; it is fought for and situated in partic-ular histories of struggle against hegemonic powers.71 Agaciro was foughtfor when political actors sought recognition of the Genocide Against theTutsi globally.72 Additionally, as my respondents claimed, they engagedin vernacular practices to fight for their Agaciro and that of their missingloved ones. By exploring the multiple significance of this home-grown ideaof Agaciro, I wish to go beyond its singular use in official discourses andliterature.73 I build on other studies that look at Agaciro and its use in mem-ory politics in Rwanda.74 This expands knowledge production onRwanda’s

67. Longman Timothy, Memory and justice in post-genocide Rwanda (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2017).68. Pritish Behuria, ‘Countering threats, stabilising politics and selling hope: Examiningthe Agaciro concept as a response to a critical juncture in Rwanda’, Journal of Eastern AfricanStudies 10, 3 (2016), pp. 434–51.69. See this volume that expands on the questions of examining the meaning of humans anddignity for African peoples in the global context: Melissa Steyn and William Mpofu (eds),Decolonising the human: Reflections from Africa on difference and oppression (Wits UniversityPress, Johannesburg, 2021).70. Célestin Kanimba Misago, ‘Les instruments de la mémoire: Génocide et traumatismeau Rwanda’, Gradhiva Revue d’anthropologie et d’histoire des arts 5 (2007), pp. 1–16.71. Norman Ajari, La Dignité ou la mort: Éthique et politique de la race.72. JunodRoland and Paul Rutayisire, Citoyenneté et réconciliation au Rwanda (Éditions ies,2015), p. 80.73. Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, ‘Studying Agaciro: Moving beyond Wilsonian interven-tionist knowledge production onRwanda’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 8, 4 (2014),pp. 291–302; Olivia Rutazibwa and Eric Ndushabandi, ‘Agaciro: Re-centering dignity indevelopment’, in Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Federico Demaria, andAlberto Acosta (eds), Pluriverse: A post-development dictionary (Columbia University Press,New York, 2019), pp. 79–82.74. Bolin, ‘Dignity in death and life: Negotiating agaciro for the nation in preservationpractice at Nyamata Genocide Memorial, Rwanda’, p. 368.

Dow



622 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

home-grown concepts and problematizes their politicization while examin-ing how ordinary Rwandans use these same ideas to fight for their Agaciro.It also expands current literature on dignity.75 One of the ways we canexamine how ordinary Rwandans employ Agaciro in mourning practices isto examine stories of the families of the missing.

In search of Agaciro through the vernacular memory of the wartime missing

Ndungutse’s (aged 52) initial conversations with me were not about mem-ory per se but rather his gratitude for life and family after living throughsuch violence. He identified himself as being from a mixed ethnic Hutuand Tutsi family background. In one of our conversations, he recountedthe story of how his first child was born before the genocide to his first wifeand how she went missing.

When we heard that the war was approaching our home, we were forcedby soldiers [meaning the FAR] to flee and join others in Zaïre [todayDRC]. We were together as a family of two parents and two children. Wesettled in DRC in a refugee camp with thousands of others.

Ndungutse and his family were among thousands of those who crossedover to DRC when the RPA approached the South of Rwanda in 1994to stop the genocide and take control of the country. The pre-genocidegovernment then forced many to flee Rwanda, with the majority of thesebeing Hutu who feared revenge killings but also Tutsi, those of mixed eth-nicity, and Twa, given the RPA had been demonized during the genocide.Ndungutse continued to recount his family story:

After a few months, we were forced to move to a bigger camp in TingiTingi, far from the town of Bukavu where we had first settled. We hadno idea where we were going. We found ‘a life’ in that refugee camp. Weearned a little money from doing odd jobs around the camp. Then thewar resumed, and we were told that the RPA was coming to kill all ofus in revenge for what had happened in Rwanda. Before we knew it, weheard loud guns, and we had to run away.76

Laurent Kabila, rebel groups of Congolese Tutsi, and former RPA sol-diers who were now part of the new Rwandan army were later accused ofcommitting these atrocities. News reports and a subsequent controversialUnited Nations (UN) Mapping Report made similar conclusions that theytargeted civilians. As a result, thousands died or disappeared in the forests

75. N. Marzouki, ‘The call for dignity, or a particular universalism’, Middle East Law andGovernance 3, 1–2 (2011), pp. 148–58.76. Interview, Ndugutse, former refugee respondent from Kigali, Rwanda, April 2019.

Dow




or went to neighbouring countries. These claims remain some of the mostcontroversial at the UN, in human rights organizations, and in Rwanda’sforeign affairs.77

It was under these circumstances that many families found themselvesseparated, Ndungutse’s family of four being among them. Ndungutserecounted how in a large crowd of moving people, he took the hand ofone of his children and his wife took the hand of the other. When gunshotswere fired, and bombs began falling, everyone fled into a forest and hidthere for many days. After that, Ndungutse and his child were capturedby rebels alongside hundreds of others. The soldiers spoke Kinyarwandato their captives and gave them a choice to either return to Rwanda withthem or continue staying in the forest. With his child, Ndungutse chose towalk with the rebels until they reached a town where a bus came to pickthem up and brought them back to Rwanda. He never saw his wife andsecond child again.

Ndungutse and his child settled into their former house in the southernpart of Rwanda. He was afraid of being murdered or accused of partic-ipating in the genocide. In this period, RPA soldiers committed manycrimes, especially towards returning refugees like Ndungutse. Writing onthat period of instability in his book, Transforming Rwanda: Challenges onthe Road to Reconstruction, Jean Paul Kimonyo explained that ‘abuses werecommitted, repatriated persons disappeared or were killed…’.78 After sev-eral years of living with this sad reality and being overwhelmed with trauma,Ndungutse locked up the house he had shared with his missing wife andmoved to the capital city Kigali. There, he met his second wife and contin-ued to live with his child from his first marriage. The second time I wentto visit him in 2018, I sought his permission to see the house that was keptshut at all times. He acquiesced, and I travelled there to find a small, cozyhome that he often visited to maintain in case his first wife returns.

He kept his house as a memorial and had a few photos from when theygotmarried, which he rarely looked at. He kept in touch with her family andfriends as a reminder of a past that he wished ‘had never happened’.79 Heprayed regularly for his missing first wife and their child, as he believed theywere not dead and would return one day. When I asked how he knew this,he said he felt it in his spirit. People who lived around the house know hisstory, but since the killings of Rwandans in DRC are not part of the officialcommemorations of the Genocide Against the Tutsi, he preferred to share

77. France 24, ‘Campaign for DR Congo’s war victims puts Rwanda’s Kagame on defensive’,20 May 2021, <https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210520-campaign-for-dr-congo-s-war-victims-puts-rwanda-s-kagame-on-defensive> (30 July 2021).78. Jean-Paul Kimonyo, Transforming Rwanda: Challenges on the road to reconstruction (LynneRienner Publishers, London, 2019), p. 140.79. Interview, Ndungutse, former refugee respondent, Kigali, Rwanda, April 2018.

Dow



https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210520-campaign-for-dr-congo-s-war-victims-puts-rwanda-s-kagame-on-defensive

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210520-campaign-for-dr-congo-s-war-victims-puts-rwanda-s-kagame-on-defensive

624 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

the process of commemoration with a few relatives and friends who knewhis first wife. This house was significant as a site where memories of livingtogether in Rwanda are relived, as well as where memories of a loved onewho went missing across Rwanda’s borders are brought back to the presentthrough prayers and conversations in small private groups. The memory ofseparation and what happened when they were shot at ‘travel’ back to thisneighbourhood and a trusted circle.80

The second story is from Nshimiyimana (45), who in 2014 was marriedwith two children. He told me he was from a Hutu family background. Heworked in Kigali, had good employment, and was financially comfortable.However, when I visited his home during the annual commemoration ofthe genocide always held each April, he told me about his lack of sleepduring this period and his nightmares that have increased in the past twodecades. The more he gained financial stability, the worse the dreams hehad about running in the forest and calling out for his mother and siblings.His entire family went missing when they fled to Zaïre (DRC) in similar cir-cumstances as Ndungutse. He was also captured in the forest when he wasa teenager, together with a group of boys he lived with. The RPA soldiersgave them a choice to either return to Rwanda or continue in the forest;they chose to return.

As committed Catholics, they now held prayers in Rwanda for the deadand the missing with a few friends who knew Nshimiyimana’s story andfamily. These prayers happened around April with trusted friends, as offi-cial commemorations were going on. They remembered Nshimiyimana’sfamily, consoled each other through stories and special prayer rituals, andthrough mentioning their names, but did not label their gatherings as com-memorations, a strategy to minimize the risk of being found out and beingaccused of genocide denial which was punishable by the law.81 This isbecause official memory regards such gatherings as illegitimate and fearsthey might encourage public debates on events that are best forgotten.82

Both Ndungutse and Nshimiyimana created unofficial communities ofsolidarity to commemorate what is not allowed in official memory inRwanda. They both mentioned how these practices allowed them to asserttheir Agaciro. They were exercising their agency and right to remember.They told me that they had to give Agaciro to their loved ones even if theydo not know what happened with them.83 According to Nshimiyimana,these practices have become a way of giving respect to their missing so

80. Erll, ‘Traveling memory’.81. Helen Hintjens, ‘Post-genocide identity politics in Rwanda’, Ethnicities 8, 1 (2008), pp.5–41.82. Valérie Rosoux, ‘Rwanda: The impossibility of a national memory?’, Ethnologie francaise37, 3 (2007), pp. 409–15.83. Interview, Nshimiyimana, former refugee respondent, South of Rwanda, 2018.

Dow




that they do not send bad spirits.84 These unofficial practices became anavenue for relationship-building amongst the missing and the living. Thesepractices also allow the memory of what happened across the borders ofRwanda to travel back into Rwanda and reach their young ones who askquestions about missing relatives.

Actors in vernacular memory kept their gatherings secretive, fearingthat their vernacular practices might be perceived as actions that deny thegenocide and are punishable by law.85 The complexity of who denies thegenocide and the parameters of determining denialism remain one of themost polarizing issue in post-genocide society and scholarship.86 Yet thesegatherings commemorating the missing were also not unique to commu-nities who fled to and returned from DRC. They are equally common tofamilies that have missing relatives from the genocide period.

I met the third participant in this study, Jean Luc (37), at a communitycommemoration ceremony in a town in the South of Rwanda. He told mehe was a Tutsi genocide survivor who had attended many commemorationceremonies over the last decade. He confirmed that in every ceremony,survivors always sought the whereabouts of their loved ones who disap-peared during the genocide. Some people believed that their loved oneswere still alive while others did not. They asked many questions duringGacaca courts proceedings of suspected perpetrators who were often for-mer neighbours or friends. While some suspected perpetrators revealedwhere they had buried those they killed or had seen being killed, in somecases, they refused to reveal where the victims’ bodies were buried. JeanLuc opined that silence was part of Gacaca: ‘Although Gacaca was abouttruth-telling and speaking up, it was also about ‘ceceka’, meaning ‘shut up,do not speak.’ He continued:

During Gacaca we heard that there were prisoners who went aroundprisons telling those who were witnesses to keep quiet and withhold infor-mation, including where the bodies of the missing had been buried since,with each storytelling or identification of a graveyard, another Hutuwould be arrested and imprisoned.87

As a result of this, stories have become increasingly common aboutyoung people who did not know their family history and turned to unofficial

84. Ibid.85. Hintjens, ‘Post-genocide identity politics in Rwanda’.86. Jean-Damascène Ashmwe, L’Église et le génocide au Rwanda: Les Pères blancs et le néga-tionnisme (L’Harmattan, Kigali, Rwanda, 2001). And more recently, Alice Musabende, BookReview of Linda Melvern, Intent to deceive: Denying the genocide of the Tutsi, Wasafiri, 2020;LindaMelvern, Intent to deceive: Denying the genocide of the Tutsi (Verso Books, Healesville VIC,2020); Susan Thomson, ‘How not to write about the Rwandan genocide’, 24 September2020, Africa as a country, <https://africasacountry.com/2020/09/how-not-to-write-about-the-rwandan-genocide> (17 November 2020).87. Interview, Jean Luc, genocide survivor, Southern Rwanda, December 2018.

Dow



https://africasacountry.com/2020/09/how-not-to-write-about-the-rwandan-genocide

https://africasacountry.com/2020/09/how-not-to-write-about-the-rwandan-genocide

626 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

practices to remember them, albeit individually or through small networksof friends. On 7 April 2019, as Rwandans were commemorating the 25thanniversary of the Genocide Against the Tutsi, a BBC reporter, FloraDrury, published an article focusing on the stories of orphans who didnot know their family history because their parents were still missing andthey had never found their relatives.88

Mukandori (58) was like Jean Luc. She was a genocide survivor whohad never attended any of the April official commemoration ceremonies.She refused to join in the collective mourning because she did not knowwhere any of her family members, who lived in different parts of Rwanda,were buried. She was able to confirm, through the Gacaca courts, that herrelatives died, but had no information whatsoever regarding where theirbodies were laid to rest. For her, April was a particularly difficult month,one which she spent in prayer at her local Catholic church alongside a groupof women who pray together and run an association to help the poor.89

These interviewees represent those Rwandans who turned to unofficialmeans of remembering to mourn their loved missing ones who disappearedduring the genocide. Like Ndungutse and Nshimiyimana, whose relativeswent missing in DRC, there are many genocide survivors who also continueto live with not knowing about their relatives who died or went missingduring the genocide. As massacre sites continue to be discovered, somefind their relatives’ bodies.90

While there were fears of public memorialization of those who went miss-ing in DRC, the ‘born digital’ generation91 use online means to argue forthe memorialization of Hutu refugees and other victims who died duringthe 1990s civil wars.92 Through these online avenues, their stories havegained mobility both in and outside Rwanda in ways that were previouslynot possible.93 Their recent proliferation has become a real threat to the

88. Flora Drury, “‘My father, the rapist”: Hidden victims of Rwanda’s genocide’, BBCNews, 18 June 2019, <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48673713> (1 November2019).89. Interview, Mukandori, respondent and genocide survivor, Huye, April 2018.90. Jenipher Camino Gonzalez, ‘Rwanda buries remains of nearly 85000 genocide vic-tims’, DW, 5 May 2019, <https://www.dw.com/en/rwanda-buries-remains-of-nearly-85000-genocide-victims/a-48604654> (2 December 2020).91. Yvonne Liebermann, ‘Born digital: The Black Lives Matter movement and memoryafter the digital turn’, Memory Studies (2020), p. 1. 29 September 2021.92. On memory narratives of Hutu Diaspora, Claudine Kuradusenge, ‘Denied victimhoodand contested narratives: The case of Hutu diaspora’, Genocide Studies and Prevention: AnInternational Journal 10, 2 (2016), p. 7. And Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod, ‘Belgian Hutudiaspora narratives of victimhood and trauma’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 12,3 (2018), pp. 427–43.93. On youth perspectives on memory politics in Rwanda; Tugce Ataci, ‘Narratives ofRwandan youth on post-genocide reconciliation: Contesting discourses and identities in themaking’, Journal of Youth Studies (2021), pp. 1–18; Andrea Mariko Grant, ‘Bringing TheDaily Mail to Africa: Entertainment websites and the creation of a digital youth public in

Dow



https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48673713

https://www.dw.com/en/rwanda-buries-remains-of-nearly-85000-genocide-victims/a-48604654

https://www.dw.com/en/rwanda-buries-remains-of-nearly-85000-genocide-victims/a-48604654


official narrative of the genocide. The interactions between the official andunofficial have recently turned into tensions over claims of the past, thepresent, and the future of Rwanda.

Agaciro-centric memory in Rwanda’s future

Examining vernacular memory practices in post-genocide Rwanda pro-vides opportunities to understand how victims of various 1990s histories ofviolence before or after the genocide create spaces where surviving familiesclaim Agaciro for themselves and their loved ones through remembrances.Indeed ‘through the living body, the absent bodies are not forgotten, theirfate perhaps unknown, but their names are commemorated and committedto funerary rituals, where possible, and the articulation of their biographiesprovides an opportunity for catharsis, or a temporary release, for those whoremain’.94

Through these families’ vernacular practices the missing narratives ‘liveon in other ways, sometimes over a long period of time’.95 ThroughNdungutse’s memorial house, for instance, memory travels to his childand community members who join in prayers. Like a Western-style offi-cial memorial located in the same town memorializing Tutsi victims killedthere, Ndungutse’s house maintains meaning for the community and actsas a space for building a relationship among the living, the missing, and thedead.

Beyond the need for memorialization, those who remember throughvernacular avenues become subjects of history and can be considered legit-imate actors or shapers of history, rather than standing outside of it. Theirproposal of alternative memories gives a different meaning to the past, thepresent, and the future. Memory ceases to remain in the field of the past(a relationship with the dead) or the future (never again) and becomes theexpression of a political struggle in the present for Agaciro.

Conclusion

This article has discussed the ways in which families of the wartime missingengage in vernacular memory that have evolved alongside official memory.It has shown that actors engaged in these practices used them as arenas ofresistance against a hegemonic memory that has emerged in post-genocideRwanda. Memories of the missing who disappeared in the violence that

post-genocide Rwanda’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 13, 1 (2019), pp. 106–23. 7 July2021.94. Olivette Otele, Luise Gandolfo, and Yoav Galai (eds), Post-conflict memorialization: Miss-ing memorials, absent bodies (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2021). In Latin America SandraM. Rios Oyola, ‘Dignification of victims through exhumations in Colombia’, Human RightsReview (2021), pp. 1–17. 26 August 202195. Marita Eastmond and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, ‘Silence as possibility in postwareveryday life’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 6, 3 (2012), pp. 502–24.

Dow



628 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

happened in DRC but are memorialized in Rwanda are rarely examinedin existing literature on memory politics in Rwanda and beyond. Analysison the memorialization of the missing is therefore important as it allows amore balanced view of Rwanda’s recent history.

This article has contributed to literature on post-genocide Rwanda’shome-grown ideas through examination of Agaciro as a concept that goesbeyond its current use in development discourses, foreign policy, andknowledge production. An Agaciro approach allows us to find connectionsbetween both memory forms of interrelated histories that have emerged inthe same context, though one is visible and more powerful. Both memoryforms are also fighting for Agaciro. For official memory this was achievedthrough strategic connections with the more visible Western ‘paradigm’that empowered it to emerge as hegemonic memory. Vernacular practicesbecome sites of resilience for the less powerful who developed creativepathways to fight for their collective Agaciro for themselves and their miss-ing loved ones. This relationship between these two memory forms goesbeyond a Western concept of dignity as something inherent. Dignity is notsomething found in the official measures of memorialization but it is foughtfor.

As an approach Agaciro is derived from “actors’ interpretations ratherthan from the artefacts of memory”.96 Like other African perspectivesthat relate to dignity, it provides an approach through which contestations,interlinkages, and negotiations between hegemonic and vernacular mem-ory forms can be examined. It is not only important to understand memorypolitics in post-conflict contexts but also in democratic contexts. Futureresearch can employAgaciro and other related perspectives to find intercon-nections and disconnects between established hegemonic narratives andvernacular forms. Agaciro allows us to ‘rethink… theoretical and method-ological pedagogies’97 that dominate memory studies and other disciplinesin general.98

96. Gregor Feindt, Félix Krawatzek, Daniela Mehler, Friedemann Pestel, and RiekeTrimçev, ‘Entangled memory: Toward a third wave in memory studies’, History and Theory53, 1 (2014), p. 27.97. Steyn and Mpofu (eds), Decolonising the human, p. 299.98. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolo-nization (Routledge, New York, 2018), p. 37.

Dow



agaciro, vernacular memory, and the politics of

Documents