In this study of Hutu refugees from Burundi, driven into exile in
Tanzania after their 1972 insurrection against the dominant Tutsi was
brutally quashed, Liisa Malkki shows how experiences of dispossession
and violence are remembered and turned into narratives, and how this
process helps to construct identities such as "Hutu" and "Tutsi."
Through extensive fieldwork in two refugee communities, Malkki finds
that the refugees' current circumstances significantly influence these
constructions. Those living in organized camps created an elaborate
"mythico-history" of the Hutu people, which gave significance to
exile, and envisioned a collective return to the homeland of Burundi.
Other refugees, who had assimilated in a more urban setting, crafted
identities in response to the practical circumstances of their day to
day lives. Malkki reveals how such things as national identity,
historical consciousness, and the social imagination of "enemies" get
constructed in the process of everyday life. The book closes with an
epilogue looking at the recent violence between Hutu and Tutsi in
Rwanda and Burundi, and showing how the movement of large refugee
populations across national borders has shaped patterns of violence in
the region.
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Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226190969
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter