Remediation in Rwanda: Grassroots Legal Forums (The Ethnography of Political Violence)

Synopsis

Kristin Conner Doughty Examines How Rwandans Navigated The Combination Of Harmony And Punishment In Grassroots Courts Purportedly Designed To Rebuild The Social Fabric In The Wake Of The 1994 Genocide. Postgenocide Rwandan Officials Developed New Local Courts Ostensibly Modeled On Traditional Practices Of Dispute Resolution As Part Of A Broader National Policy Of Unity And Reconciliation. The Three Legal Forums At The Heart Of Remediation In Rwanda—genocide Courts Called Inkiko Gacaca, Mediation Committees Called Comite Y'abunzi, And A Legal Aid Clinic—all Emphasized Mediation Based On Principles Of Compromise And Unity, Brokered By Third Parties With The Authority To Administer Punishment. Doughty Demonstrates How Exhortations To Unity In Legal Forums Served As A Form Of Cultural Control, Even As People Rebuilt Moral Community And Conceived Alternative Futures Through Debates There. Introduction: Harmony Legal Models And The Architecture Of Social Repair -- Silencing The Past : Producing History And The Politics Of Memory -- Escaping Dichotomies : Grassroots Law In Historical And Global Context -- Gacaca Days And Genocide Citizenship -- Comite Y'abrunzi : Politics And Poetics For The Ordinary -- The Legal Aid Clinic : Mediation As Thick Description -- Improvising Authority : Lay Judges As Intermediaries -- Conclusion: Legal Architectures Of Social Repair. Kristin Conner Doughty. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 243-264) And Index.