« C’est d’abord la réconciliation avec soi » : Pour une sociologie des pratiques locales de réconciliation au Rwanda

Schildt, Jana
(2016) Déviance et société — Vol. 40, n° 3, p. 327 (2016)

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  • Schildt, JanaUCLouvain
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Abstract
(en) This article addresses the question of reconciliation in Rwanda. It sheds new light on this phenomenon by proposing a shift of perspective for its study. It aims to discover the meaning of reconciliation "from below" by taking an interest in individual actors who engage in what they consider to be reconciliation. The article begins with a review of the existing academic literature on reconciliation in Rwanda. With the help of this review, we show that, due to very strong polarization between authors, it tends to be based on rather simplified and binary conceptions of Rwandan social dynamics. By seeing the society in this way a lot of weight is given to political actors imposing reconciliation, which means that local actors have so far remained invisible. It is in this sense that reconciliation in Rwanda is described as a black box which can be opened by analyzing it through the lens of individual actors. Furthermore, we argue that the cyclical movements of exile and return fashion the logics of Rwandan reconciliation, so that it can only be fully understood when considering its extraterritorial dimensions. By focusing on individual militants' reconciliation and their extraverted biographical trajectories, this article explores the meanings with which they invest it using qualitative field study This microperspective indicates that while they conceive of reconciliation as engagement to transform social relations, they ultimately cast it in reflexive terms. Through their various forms of engagement, they put an accent upon the necessity of reconciling with oneself.
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Schildt, J. (2016). « C’est d’abord la réconciliation avec soi » : Pour une sociologie des pratiques locales de réconciliation au Rwanda. Déviance et société, 40(3), 327. https://doi.org/10.3917/ds.403.0327 (Original work published 2016)