Start Date
12-1-2012 10:30 AM
End Date
12-1-2012 12:00 PM
Description
In this essay we assess Patrick Mureithi’s (2009) documentary, ICYIZERE, as a document of collective memory (Blair, Dickinson, and Ott, 2010, p. 6).[1] Focusing on the power of memory in/of place, we argue that the local and national sites of atrocity and healing between perpetrators and survivors of the Rwandan genocide (i.e., a site of violence as well as the site of the reconciliatory workshop between Hutus and Tutsis in the film) serve as a sacred ground for healing and that this sacred ground is produced through negotiations of (dialectical) tensions between past and present and individual memory and collective memory. Additionally, we assert that the interplay between memory in/of place and (re)presentations of rehumanization within the workshop of the documentary situates a newly unified space to (re)interpret the Other. We analyze rehumanizaton processes in the documentary via identity widening theory (Ellis, 2006)[2] and through representations grounded in empathetic human interactions (i.e., workshop activities that involve remorse, empathy, laughing, and crying).[3] By shifting toward a broader, more abstract, conceptualization of Rwandan identity, the documentary workshop offers a challenging and engaged affective mode of interaction with the Other in situ. Through this affective interaction, the perpetrators and survivors navigate a memory of place that complicates understandings of the location as more than only a site of atrocity and violence, but also as material and symbolic ground for individual and collective reconciliation and healing as Rwandans.
KEY TERMS: Collective Memory, Rwanda, Reconciliation, Other, ICYIZERE
[1] Carol Blair, Greg Dickinson, and Brian L. Ott. “Introduction: Rhetoric/Memory/Place.” In Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott, Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials (2010; pp. 1-54). Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.
[2] See Ellis, D. G. (2006). Transforming conflict: Communication and ethnopolitical conflict. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
[3] Identity widening and empathetic human interactions were assessed for in a prior graduate seminar paper/National Communication Association convention presentation of one of the authors; see (Blind Author Citation, unpublished manuscript).
Mureithi's ICYIZERE: hope: Reconciliation, Rehumanization, and Collective Remembrance/Rebuilding of Sacred and Safe Space
In this essay we assess Patrick Mureithi’s (2009) documentary, ICYIZERE, as a document of collective memory (Blair, Dickinson, and Ott, 2010, p. 6).[1] Focusing on the power of memory in/of place, we argue that the local and national sites of atrocity and healing between perpetrators and survivors of the Rwandan genocide (i.e., a site of violence as well as the site of the reconciliatory workshop between Hutus and Tutsis in the film) serve as a sacred ground for healing and that this sacred ground is produced through negotiations of (dialectical) tensions between past and present and individual memory and collective memory. Additionally, we assert that the interplay between memory in/of place and (re)presentations of rehumanization within the workshop of the documentary situates a newly unified space to (re)interpret the Other. We analyze rehumanizaton processes in the documentary via identity widening theory (Ellis, 2006)[2] and through representations grounded in empathetic human interactions (i.e., workshop activities that involve remorse, empathy, laughing, and crying).[3] By shifting toward a broader, more abstract, conceptualization of Rwandan identity, the documentary workshop offers a challenging and engaged affective mode of interaction with the Other in situ. Through this affective interaction, the perpetrators and survivors navigate a memory of place that complicates understandings of the location as more than only a site of atrocity and violence, but also as material and symbolic ground for individual and collective reconciliation and healing as Rwandans.
KEY TERMS: Collective Memory, Rwanda, Reconciliation, Other, ICYIZERE
[1] Carol Blair, Greg Dickinson, and Brian L. Ott. “Introduction: Rhetoric/Memory/Place.” In Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott, Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials (2010; pp. 1-54). Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.
[2] See Ellis, D. G. (2006). Transforming conflict: Communication and ethnopolitical conflict. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
[3] Identity widening and empathetic human interactions were assessed for in a prior graduate seminar paper/National Communication Association convention presentation of one of the authors; see (Blind Author Citation, unpublished manuscript).