Who Speaks Behind the Archive? Witnessing and Documenting Personal and National Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda

FAIN: FT-57934-10

Alexandre Erik Dauge-Roth
President and Trustees of Bates College (Lewiston, ME 04240-6028)

Departing from other works that have attempted to assess the process of reconciliation in terms of success or failure, my analysis privileges the plurality of meanings and social practices that make up "reconciliation" in Rwanda today. Furthermore, my research aims to fill a void within Genocidal Studies and Francophone Studies since no major scholarly work has been published on the documentaries and testimonies recounting the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. Most scholars in Francophone studies have worked on the literary representations of this genocide while testimonies and documentaries have been neglected genres. "Who Speaks Behind the Archive?" examines testimonial and filmic strategies used by survivors to create narratives and visual archives that offer counter-archives inviting us to reflect on the limits of the current archiving process, the relation between memory and forgiveness, and the challenges of reconciling the many dissenting voices coexisting within Rwanda.

Associated Products

L’autodocumentaire et ses tiers : Gilbert Ndahayo entre réconciliation personnelle et nationale au Rwanda.” Témoigner entre Histoire et Mémoire. Revue Internationale de la Fondation Auschwitz (Article)
Title: L’autodocumentaire et ses tiers : Gilbert Ndahayo entre réconciliation personnelle et nationale au Rwanda.” Témoigner entre Histoire et Mémoire. Revue Internationale de la Fondation Auschwitz
Author: Alexandre Dauge-Roth
Abstract: Article explores how Gilbert Ndahayo, a survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi, crafts an unprecedented doc journey to find out what happened to his parents & relatives & how he should culturally & visually honor their memory as their orphaned heir. In Beyond the Deadly Pit, Ndahayo places viewers in front of a provocative collage thr which he puts into dialogue several mediums, voices, & archiving practices that all produce diff if not conflicting representations of the genocide of 1994. What is remarkable in this first autodocumentary by a Tutsi survivor, is that it offers a unique insight about the dilemmas that survivors must negotiate in their desire to bear witness & influence how this divisive past ought to be remembered today. Ndahayo archives & juxtaposes in a nonchronological manner personal footage like the unearthing of parents’ remains, the ritual of washing their bones, the memorial sites where they are finally buried w/ dignity, the judicial hearing where the filmmaker confronts the killers of his parents w/ public media archives featuring discourses of politicians like Bill Clinton or Ban Ki-Moon asking for forgiveness for their inactions in 1994. By doing so, Ndahayo achieves several goals...
Year: 2015
Publisher: Testimony Between History and Memory. Auschwitz Foundation International Quarterly 120

Auto-Documenting the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda: The testimonial Encounter Within the Cinema of Me. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Auto-Documenting the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda: The testimonial Encounter Within the Cinema of Me.
Abstract: The testimonial Encounter Within the Cinema of Me
Author: Alexandre Dauge-Roth
Date: 11/11/2013
Location: The University of Iowa, Iowa City

The Autodocumentary Gesture within the National Reconciliation Process in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Autodocumentary Gesture within the National Reconciliation Process in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Abstract: Adresses au tiers et postures des tiers dans l’activité mémorielle
Author: Alexandre Dauge-Roth
Date: 04/26/12
Location: Université de Montréal, Montreal

Witnessing and Documenting Personal and National Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Witnessing and Documenting Personal and National Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Author: Alexandre Dauge-Roth
Abstract: Third International Conference on Genocide: Negationism, Revisionism, Survivors’ Testimonies, Eyewitness Accounts, Justice and Memory
Date: 11/01/11
Conference Name: Third International Conference on Genocide: Negationism, Revisionism, Survivors’ Testimonies, Eyewitness Accounts, Justice and Memory. California State University, Sacramento

---