Featured Member shines a spotlight on the diverse research interests of, and the exciting projects undertaken by, those affiliated with the Cultural Memory Studies Initiative. In this seventh instalment of the series, we speak to Catherine Gilbert, a Marie Curie fellow at Ghent University working on commemorative responses to the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

How did you develop an interest in memory studies?

I first came to memory studies through my work on trauma and testimony, although I wouldn’t initially have described myself as a memory studies scholar. My background was in French and Francophone studies, but my interest in memory really started to develop when I moved to Canada to complete an MA in the Département de langue et littérature françaises at McGill University, Montreal. My MA thesis focused on Haitian migrant writers, notably the work of Marie-Célie Agnant, whose novels and short stories are grounded in her sociological research with Haitian women who had fled the Duvalier regime and were living in Montreal, often in underprivileged and isolated conditions. I was interested in exploring how fiction can function as a form of testimony and shed light on the experiences of marginalized communities.

I then went on to complete an internship with Montreal Life Stories, a large-scale oral history project based at Concordia University with the goal of recording the life stories of Montreal residents who had been displaced by war, genocide, and other human rights violations. It was my interest in the Haitian community that initially led me to join this project, but I then came into contact with members of other working groups, including from Rwanda and Cambodia, as well as survivors of the Holocaust. This was an invaluable experience that broadened my horizons, and my encounter at this time with individuals such as American psychologist and oral historian Henry Greenspan and Rwandan literary scholar Josias Semujanga proved to be pivotal in inspiring me to go on to do a PhD focusing on Rwandan women’s testimonial literature.

So I returned to the UK and completed my PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2014. My thesis drew on trauma theory, Holocaust studies, and critical approaches to testimony in order to examine the ways in which the genocide is remembered in both individual and collective memory through the voices of Rwandan women, and to understand the struggles these women face in the ongoing process of surviving trauma. I wanted to show how their narratives challenge conventional (western) understandings of trauma, particularly in terms of countering the notion of the ‘unspeakablility’ of traumatic experience. In language that is both simple and raw, rich and complex, these women give voice to the specificity of their experiences and show that the problem does not necessarily lie in the ability to tell the story but in the audience’s ability to hear the story.

I believe my subsequent research has – at least to some degree – been driven by this growing sense of frustration at the lack of recognition of their suffering and other experiences that marginalized individuals and communities continue to encounter. This awareness culminated, for me, when I co-convened the Mellon-Sawyer seminar series Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation at the University of Oxford in 2017-2018. This series brought together academics, policy-makers, creative practioners, military veterans, activists, religious leaders, specialists in conflict resolution, and people working in the charitable and heritage sectors. Discussions were wide-ranging, covering commemorations of conflicts around the globe, from grassroots memory initiatives in Colombia to revolutionary fighters in Libya, from Iraqi poetry to Serbian folk songs, from European law courts to Sierra-Leonean memoir. We debated the significance of sites of memory from refugee camps to war memorials, monuments, and museums. We listened to the Syrian oud and sat in reflective silence. Time and again we returned to the difficulties surrounding diversity and inclusivity in commemoration and an acknowledgement that commemoration is as much about who is excluded as who is included.

Overall, this was an extremely moving experience that gave me an insight into the enormous scope and diversity of the field of memory studies, a field that has witnessed a rapid expansion in the first decades of the 21^st century, with a notable turn towards ‘transcultural’ and ‘transnational’ approaches, which call for a move beyond methodological nationalism. This underscores a necessary shift from more general theorization to the exploration of particular contexts, with more focus on the dynamics of memory’s articulation and transmission, which is significant for my current work on memory in the Rwandan diaspora. It has been fascinating to see these rapid developments across the field in the last few years, including through the expansion of the Memory Studies Association, which was founded in 2016 and whose most recent conference in Madrid in June 2019 boasted more than 1500 participants. There are so many rich conversations being generated, which I look forward to being a part of!

Could you tell us a little about your current project as a Marie Curie fellow? What insights have you gathered from your work in Belgium (and beyond)?

My project, ‘Genocide Commemoration in the Rwandan Diaspora’, explores commemorative responses to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, seeking to build an understanding of the forms of commemoration taking place among Rwandan genocide survivors living in the diaspora. I’m focusing on three case-study areas – Belgium, France, and the UK – in order to examine the myriad ways in which community groups, authors, artists, and creative practitioners are communicating their experiences of violence and exile to the host societies. In particular, I’m investigating the impact of place and displacement on commemorative practices within Rwandan diasporic communities, engaging with the concepts of the ‘locatedness’ (Radstone) of memory and how memory can be ‘translated’ (Hron) across cultures. Overall, the aim of this project is to advance new critical paradigms – conceptualized in terms of a particular form of ‘exilic memory’ – for understanding the articulation and transcultural circulation of memory in specific diasporic locations.

This is a two-year fellowship, and I have spent the first 12 months laying the groundwork, including building significant networks and familiarizing myself with the dynamics of the different communities. For example, it has been crucial to understand the structure and operations of the numerous survivor organizations, such as the umbrella organization Ibuka, which operates in six countries, including Rwanda, Belgium, and France, the ASBL Diaspora Rwanda Belgique/België and the UK-based Ishami Foundation. The year 2019 has been particularly significant as this marked the 25^th anniversary of the genocide, enabling me to collect a wealth of data through attending numerous commemoration ceremonies and vigils, conferences and exhibitions, book launches and performances.

One of the key insights arising from my fieldwork so far is the involvement of children of survivors in commemorative events. The younger generations often seem to be a driving force behind these activities, playing an active role in keeping the memory of the genocide alive and transmitting this memory to the host community through art, music, poetry, and other cultural forms. Yet what is the cost of shouldering the weight of this traumatic memory? How can survivors strike a balance between imposing a heavy burden on the younger generations and building a sense of resilience and responsibility for the future? How can creative practices help the younger generations to come to terms with their difficult heritage? These are all crucial questions that I will be exploring in more depth over the next 12 months as I conduct interviews with members of the survivor community, children of survivors, artists, and writers. For now, though, it is clear that commemoration plays a crucial role not only in transmitting this traumatic historical past, but also in educating and building a valuable cultural legacy for future generations.

One of the more difficult aspects I’ve had to grapple with during my fieldwork is the fact that this is extremely sensitive political and emotional terrain, and it is a constant challenge to understand the nuances and complexities on the ground, not least because these are compounded by the difficult historical relations between Rwanda and the European countries (i.e. Belgium’s role as the former colonial power that formalized ethnic identity in Rwanda and France’s close involvement with the Habyarimana government and genocidal regime). Living in Belgium, I have also encountered an unexpected level of negationism and revisionism, despite the Belgian government’s passing of a new law on genocide denial earlier this year. This negationism is prevalent not only among Rwandans who have connections to the former government and genocide perpetrators, but also among Belgian (especially Flemish) academics, intellectuals, and journalists. Nevertheless, I am constantly struck and humbled by the resilience and drive of the Rwandan survivor community and by the sheer range of creative responses to the memory of the genocide, which only serves to strengthen my belief in the importance of this work.

Your book From Surviving to Living: Voice, Trauma and Witness in Rwandan Women’s Writing, recently won an award from the Memory Studies Association. The book focuses on, among many topics, trauma and the role of collaboration in the production of testimony. Could you tell us a little about this book and your role as a researcher-collaborator?

Based on my doctoral research, my book examines the published testimonies (in French and English) of Rwandan women genocide survivors, exploring how these women respond to and communicate their experiences. The book is underpinned by questions of whose stories are listened to, who has the right to speak, and who has the right to speak for/on behalf of someone. It engages with notions of the figure of the witness, the ‘duty of memory’, silence, justice, and reconciliation. With this book I wanted to foreground the necessity of finding new ways of listening to the diversity of Rwandan women’s voices, in order not only to gain insight into how traumatized individuals remember but also to hear the challenges they pose to so-called ‘universal’ notions of trauma and healing.

At first, I didn’t view my own role as that of a researcher-collaborator, although collaboration was certainly a central theme of the book. I explored the conditions under which these testimonial narratives were produced, often in a dialogic setting with a direct collaborator/co-author, but also through networks of collaborative relationships with editors and publishers, and ultimately with the reader who has a responsibility as an empathic listener. Collaboration also in terms of how the women themselves have rebuilt a sense of community after the genocide, both in Rwanda and in the diaspora, in order to move from simply surviving to fully living.

Nevertheless, I have to confess to feeling nervous about publishing this book because my own positionality as a researcher is something that I reflect on and question constantly: what right do I have as a (white) female British academic to talk about this subject? Am I in some way appropriating or manipulating other people’s voices? Is it possible to fully understand and do justice to their experiences? From a personal point of view, I have always been interested in women’s experiences of violence and conflict. I am drawn by the idea that, throughout history, women have so often been the voiceless victims of conflict, something that has been slowly changing in recent decades. I am also motivated by a frustration that still so little is known about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, even among my generation who are old enough to remember what happened. I wanted to understand why there seems to be a fascination in contemporary society with stories of suffering and violence – an ‘empire of trauma’, to use Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman’s words – and yet certain stories are privileged, while others remain in the margins. Overall, my aim was to draw attention to these extremely strong and rich voices that may otherwise continue to be marginalized and silenced. So in that sense I have become a collaborator, and I strongly believe that we, as researchers, have the responsibility to drive forward and to constantly challenge the purpose of this type of scholarship – this type of memory work – to ensure that it strives to be as meaningful as possible to the communities it engages with. As such, it was a real honour to receive the 2019 SAGE Memory Studies Journal and MSA Outstanding First Book Award. The jury’s response to the book was overwhelmingly generous, even more so because the subject of the book is something that has become very close to my heart, and it was really wonderful to see the work being recognized in this way.

Your recent chapter “Writing as Reconciliation: Bearing Witness to Life after Genocide” focuses on the ways in which survivors of the genocide, both in Rwanda and in the diaspora, continue to heal and remain politically active through writing. How would you describe the importance of this work, particularly in relation to the genocide’s recent 25^th anniversary?

This links back to what I said above about the transmission of the legacy of the genocide to the younger generations and the educational function of commemoration. This is a constant struggle for many survivors, and writing can act as a way of working through these difficult issues. This chapter examines texts written by two Rwandan women whose earlier testimonies I analysed in my book. Both these women decide to return to writing after a long hiatus in order to (re)confront issues of justice, reconciliation, and the type of legacy they are building for future generations. Rather than ‘healing’ from the trauma of the genocide, these women have learned to ‘live with’ the painful memory of the past but are afraid of how that memory will impact the younger generations. Annick Kayitesi-Jozan recounts a particularly poignant moment when her three-year-old daughter asks her what happened to her parents. Unable to explain the real circumstances of their death to her young daughter, Kayitesi-Jozan simply tells her they ‘died in the war’. Her daughter is saddened that she will never know her grandparents. That her daughter already feels the weight of this loss and sadness is extremely distressing for Kayitesi-Jozan, and she reacts: ‘I remained wide-eyed, incapable of grasping that which terrified me the most. The genocide, its memory or the consequence it was having on my daughter.’ Writing provides a way of telling the story of what happened to their children, but also of preventing further suffering and ensuring that the younger generations are free from the burden of hatred and anger. In this sense, this is a future-oriented form of writing that anticipates the impact of a traumatic history and imagines a better future.

As we approach the end of this milestone anniversary year, I think this is a pivotal moment to be thinking about these questions and also to reflect on the developments in recent research focusing on post-genocide Rwanda, particularly in terms of post-traumatic growth and resilience. This chapter was part of an edited volume by Hannah Grayson and Nicki Hitchcott, Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change (Liverpool University Press, 2019), which arose from the collaborative project ‘Rwandan Stories of Change’ between the universities of Nottingham and St Andrews, the Aegis Trust, and the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. The focus on understanding change in specific cultural environments again foregrounds the importance and range of memory work that can help facilitate reconciliation and reconstruction in post-conflict settings.

You were recently offered a position in Newcastle. Could you describe the position and what directions your research might take in the future?

I’ve been awarded a five-year post at Newcastle University as part of their new NUAcT (Newcastle University Academic Track) Fellowship programme. I am extremely fortunate to have been offered this position and am very excited about taking up the role in September 2020! I will be returning to the School of Modern Languages, having been based in English and Comparative Literature departments for the last four years. In the first instance, it will give me the opportunity to complete my next book based on the research I am currently conducting as part of my Marie Curie fellowship. I then want to broaden the scope of my research in order to develop a large comparative project looking at memory practices among different diasporic communities. Through building international networks and developing partnerships with community organizations, I want to generate conversations about what diaspora and memory means and how we remember traumatic historical pasts as a global community, considering the implications not just for migrant communities but for our communities. The role is focused on research leadership, which offers a unique challenge and will also allow me to recruit a PhD student to be associated with the project. In terms of memory studies, Newcastle University also has an exciting new Cultures of Memory research network, which will bring together scientific research (e.g. neurological understandings of memory recall), medical and cultural humanities, and I’m really looking forward to exploring new sites of connection and interdisciplinary exchange.

Are there any recent or forthcoming conferences, exhibitions, or other events that you are particularly enthusiastic about?

I’m excited to be attending Rwanda Day in Bonn on 5 October 2019, where I will be among thousands of Rwandans (and friends of Rwanda) from across the diaspora who will gather to discuss solutions to current and future challenges. I am also really looking forward to attending the Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies (SFPS) annual conference in London in November 2019, as I’ve been asked to give a keynote lecture (my first!), which is a real honour. I’ve been attending their conferences since I began my PhD, and this is an encouraging indication of how far I’ve come as a researcher since those early days!

Works Cited

Fassin, Didier, and Richard Rechtman. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood. Trans. by Rachel Gomme. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009 [2007].

Gilbert, Catherine. From Surviving to Living: Voice, Trauma and Witness in Rwandan Women’s Writing. Montpellier: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée (Pulm), 2018.

Grayson, Hannah, and Nicki Hitchcott, eds. Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019.

Greenspan, Henry. Beyond Testimony: On Listening to Holocaust Survivors. 2^nd edition, revised and expanded. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2010 [1998].

Hron, Madelaine. Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature and Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

Kayitesi-Jozan, Annick. Même Dieu ne veut pas s’en mêler: Rwanda, une vie après. Paris: Seuil, 2017.

Radstone, Susannah. ‘What Place Is This? Transcultural Memory and the Locations of Memory Studies’. Parallax 17.4 (2011) : 109–23.

Semujanga, Josias. Le Génocide, sujet de fiction? Analyse des récits du massacre des Tutsi dans la littérature africaine. Québec: Nota bene, 2008.

Interview conducted via email by River Ramuglia.