Imagining genocide heritage: Material modes of development and preservation in Rwanda

The Rwandan government has undertaken ambitious development projects resulting in major changes to the country’s built environment, including the materiality of genocide heritage. This article focuses on the genocide memorials of Nyamata and Ntarama, arguing that these sites demonstrate how globally...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of material culture
Main Author: Bolin, Annalisa (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Sage Publ. [2019]
In: Journal of material culture
Year: 2020, Volume: 25, Issue: 2, Pages: 196-219
RelBib Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
AG Religious life; material religion
KBN Sub-Saharan Africa
Further subjects:B Memorialization
B Rwanda
B Development
B World Heritage
B Heritage
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The Rwandan government has undertaken ambitious development projects resulting in major changes to the country’s built environment, including the materiality of genocide heritage. This article focuses on the genocide memorials of Nyamata and Ntarama, arguing that these sites demonstrate how globally-circulating discourses of development and preservation are vernacularized, instantiated, and transformed in their encounter with the national imaginary. The forces that affect the material choices of heritage management here include Rwanda’s state-led imperative toward a particular physical ideal of development, UNESCO World Heritage-driven concepts of authenticity, and the Rwandan government’s need for evidence of genocide. Differently affecting each site, these factors result in multiple modes of material intervention. The article argues that the physical form of heritage sites is shaped by engagements between global and local discourses and ideals of heritage and development; these engagements direct the processes of preservation and intervention that ultimately determine how heritage is materialized.
ISSN:1460-3586
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of material culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/1359183519860881