David Mwambari is an Associate Professor at the faculty of social sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven in Belgium and the Principal Investigator for TMSS project funded by European Research Council (ERC). He is a board member at the Oxford Consortium on Human Rights, University of Oxford. He was an assistant professor at Kings College London (UK), United States International University (Kenya) and was a fellow at the University of Cambridge and CODESRIA in Senegal. His research has appeared in international academic journals, including African Affairs, Qualitative Research, Memory Studies, and Africa Development.

• Foreword


• Preface


• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• Chapter 1: Commemorating the Past and the Evolution of Concepts in Memory Studies


• Chapter 2: Rwandan Narratives and Rwandan Pasts


• Chapter 3: Shaping the Emergence and Evolution of the Genocide Master Narrative


• Chapter 4: Imprinting the Land with the Materials of Memory


• Chapter 5: Localizing Commemoration and Individual Responses to the Master Narrative


• Chapter 6: Expressing Memory after Genocide: The Art of Commemoration


• Chapter 7: The Media, Commemoration, and the Enforcement of the Master Narrative


• Conclusion: The Malleability of Memory and Reflections on the Future of Knowledge Production on Rwanda and in Memory Studies


• References

Navigating Cultural Memory examines how a master narrative of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi evolved into a hegemonic narrative both in Rwanda and globally. Identifying key actors who shaped and responded to the evolution and enforcement of the master narrative in the first two decades after the genocide and civil war ended, it engages with important questions about collective memory, trauma, and power following violent and divisive events.