Fragments, Webs and Weavings: Rwandan-Canadian Perspectives on the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi

Since 1994, many survivors of the Rwandan genocide against Tutsi have migrated to Canada to re-build their lives. The literature has established that a large proportion of the Rwandan population suffers from post-traumatic stress and depression. However, there is also a large body of ‘psycho-social’ and ‘anti-colonial’ literature that problematizes ‘Western’ mental health constructs such as post-traumatic stress and depression. Similarly, anti-oppressive social work theories argue that social workers need to recognize the politics of suffering and helping in order to practice effectively. Some have argued that ‘Western’ approaches (namely: bio-medical), that are harmful, continue to dominate work with survivors of mass violence, whose own views are rarely heard. To address the lack of Rwandan voices in the discourse about the genocide, I conducted 1-on-1 interviews with 9 members of Rwandan-Canadian survivor communities to find out what they have to tell us about their perspectives on genocide survival and healing in the Canadian context. My findings identified a total of eleven interrelated themes re: how Rwandan-Canadian survivors are affected by, deal with and make sense of the 1994 genocide. Ultimately my research supported the findings of psycho-social and anti-colonial frameworks that link individual mental health ‘healing’ to political resistance. My research, integrating literature reviews with the interviews and critical discourse analysis concluded that trauma among Rwandan-Canadian genocide survivors is an individual and collective process rooted in a history of anti-Tutsi systemic discrimination borne out of colonialism. Thus, I argue that supporting survivors requires collective politicized processes of recovery. For Rwandan-Canadians, these collective processes of recovery would include addressing ruptures within Rwandan communities and supporting survivor communities in processes of remembering and authoring Rwandan histories in resistance to ongoing structural and epistemic violence, including genocide denial.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.