Description
The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda saw more than a million Tutsi as well as Hutu and Twa who opposed the genocide killed by Hutu extremists. A quarter century since the event, testimonial literature and much of recent scholarship highlight successful emotional and physical healing and reconciliation. However, the transcripts of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and some fiction narratives draw attention to individuals’ enduring experiences of pain. In this paper, qualitative discourse analysis of selected legal and creative narratives will be used to unpack these experiences and question approaches to and assumptions about healing of trauma. Material scarcity, unhealed physical injuries and the absence of a community emerge to shape the aftermath of genocide. Some individuals rely on momentary relief to bear living with pain. This paper examines the extent to which the current conceptual understandings of trauma and healing help understand the absence of healing and living with pain, arguing for the potential of legal and creative narratives to facilitate identification of conceptual challenges.
