Abstract
The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and its aftermath led to large-scale individual traumatization, disruption of family structures, shifts in gender roles, and tensions in communities, which are all ongoing. Previous research around the world has demonstrated the transgenerational effects of mass violence on individuals, families and communities. In Rwanda, in light of recurrent episodes of violence in the past, attention to the potential ‘cycle of violence’ is warranted. The assumption that violence is passed from generation to generation was first formulated in research on domestic violence and child abuse, but is receiving increasing attention in conflict-affected societies. However, the mechanisms behind intergenerational transmission are still poorly understood. Based on qualitative research with 41 mothers and their adolescent children, we investigated how legacies of the 1994 genocide and its aftermath are transmitted to the next generation through processes in the family environment in Rwanda. Our findings reveal direct and indirect pathways of transmission. We also argue that intergenerational effects might best be described as heterotypic: genocide and its aftermath lead to multiple challenges in the children’s lives, but do not necessarily translate into new physical violence. Further research is needed on how children actively engage with conflict legacies of the past.
Highlights
When a child asks you: What happened to your family? Who killed them? Isn’t it [sibyo]?!In the future they will say, ‘It is these ones who killed our grandfathers, our aunts, our cousins.’ They will say, ‘Long ago Hutus killed Tutsis, they were in power of such and such . . . ; let us kill them.’Mother and genocide survivor, aged 40, Rwanda.This study is inspired by the concern about the potential of recurring mass violence in conflict-affected societies [1]
Our findings confirm the profound effects of the genocide and its aftermath on individuals, families and communities in Rwanda [22,34,37,38,39]
They articulated clearly and strongly how the past continued to to what shape theirin present lives.hours. Their of children learned and section lived effects of the genocide and its aftermath as had happened the dark the past. In this we describe the different mechanisms in well, and in varying degrees expressed connections between their daily preoccupations to what had the intergenerational transmission of legacies of genocide and its aftermath that we identified in our happened in the1)
Summary
When a child asks you: What happened to your family? Who killed them? Isn’t it [sibyo]?!. The theory of the cycle of violence, which refers to the idea that violence is passed on from generation to generation, was first formulated in research on domestic violence and child abuse [13,14] and it receives significant attention in studies investigating the intergenerational continuity of anti-social behavior and offending [15,16]. These studies have shown that experiences as victims or as perpetrators may shape the course of offending later in life and of generations (see for a literature review, [17]). We approached the family environment as embedded within the community environment and influenced by the more distal, wider society
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