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Description
This thesis examines the 1994 Rwandan genocide with a specific emphasis on the rape of Tutsi women as a weapon of genocide. From the perspective of scholarship in trauma studies, an account of the conflict and colonialism leading up to the genocide is offered in order to demonstrate the historical making of the ground of collective trauma in Rwanda. Further, this thesis examines the discursive means of the perpetuation of collective trauma in the form of the Hutu demonization of Tutsi women. Shortcomings in the justice system emerging from the genocide are also discussed as a perpetuation of trauma. Finally, projects of justice and healing among Tutsi women are examined in an account of survival and resiliency. In conclusion, women that survived the genocide have navigated through societal and governmental systems to provide better lives for themselves, their families and the society.
ContributorsArmitage, Rebecca Lainé (Author) / Stancliff, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Casper, Monica (Committee member) / Simmons, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The state of exception in Rwanda did not spontaneously occur in Rwanda, it was initially developed by German and Belgian colonizers, adopted by two successive Hutu regimes, and nurtured and fed for 35 years of Rwandan independence until its final realization in the 1994 genocide. Political theory regarding the development of the "space devoid of law" and necropolitics provide a framework with which to analyze the long pattern of state action that created a milieu in which genocide was an acceptable choice of action for a sovereign at risk of losing power. The study of little-known political theories such as Agamben's and Mbembe's is useful because it provides a lens through which we can analyze current state action throughout the world. As is true in many genocidal regimes, the Rwandan genocide did not just occur as a "descent into hell." Rather, state action over the course of decades in which the subjects of the state (People) were systematically converted into mere flesh beings (people), devoid of political or social value, creates the setting in which it is feasible to seek to eliminate those beings. A question to be posed to political actors and observers around the world today is at what point in the process of one nation's creation of the state of exception and adoption of necropolitics does the world have a right, and a duty, to intervene? Thus far, it has always occurred too late for the "people" in that sovereign to realize their political and social potential to be "People."
ContributorsSinema, Kyrsten (Author) / Johnson, John (Thesis advisor) / Quan, Helen (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Doty, Roxanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The question of whether there has been an American Indian genocide has been contested, when genocide is defined according to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Yet, I argue that both social and cultural genocide of American Indians has had volatile consequences for both Native and non-Native peoples. Because of the contested nature of this genocide, American Indian Studies scholars contend that Indigenous people's experiences often get marginalized and reconstructed, relegating stories to the category oppression, rather than proof of genocide, which has created intellectual and social absences (Vizenor 2009). Other American Indian Studies scholars argue for reform within American Indian educational settings, where Indigenous nations use their values and traditions within curricula to combat national absences. Despite excellent work on American Indian education, scholars have not addressed the central questions of how such absences affect both Native and non-Native students, why those absences exist, and why the U.S. dialogue around genocide is a rhetoric of avoidance and erasure, once any comparison begins with other genocide victims. Without adequate analysis of both American Indian genocide and absences within curricula, particularly humanities courses such as literature, where stories about American Indians can have a prominent space, we undervalue their impact on America's past and present histories, as well as current knowledges and values. Erasure of American Indian presence affects both Native and non-Native youth. Many American Indians are traumatized and believe their tribe’s stories are not worthy of inclusion. As well many non-Natives are unaware of Indigenous experiences and often left with stereotypes rather than realities.
A Haudenosaunee paradigm of Good Mind can re-situate how we think about the canon, literature, and the classroom. The Good Mind allows for a two-way path where ideas pass back and forth, respecting differences, rather than replacing those differences with one ideology. This path is meant to open minds to connections with others which are kind and loving and lead to peaceful relationships. Theorizing literary erasure and genocide of the mind through experiences from Native and non-Native students and teachers embodies the Good Mind.
A Haudenosaunee paradigm of Good Mind can re-situate how we think about the canon, literature, and the classroom. The Good Mind allows for a two-way path where ideas pass back and forth, respecting differences, rather than replacing those differences with one ideology. This path is meant to open minds to connections with others which are kind and loving and lead to peaceful relationships. Theorizing literary erasure and genocide of the mind through experiences from Native and non-Native students and teachers embodies the Good Mind.
ContributorsMichal, Melissa (Author) / Maring, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Kelsey, Penelope (Thesis advisor) / Poe, Mya (Committee member) / Fredrick, Sharonah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
ABSTRACT
This research analyzes the testimonies of eleven women survivors of state terrorism and genocide from several different regions of the world in an effort to glean the patterns that emerge from their lived experiences. Women often have been targeted and used instrumentally in political violence by states. Yet, when it comes to nation-building, national narratives and identities, their voices are excluded. Data were collected from archival interviews with women survivors and one case-study interview conducted with a survivor recruited for this study, as a cross-check backdrop to compare similarities and differences in contexts and experiences. Four dominant themes appear to emerge across interviews: gendered violence; internalization/reproduction of gender roles; identity relationship to national narrative; and perception of perpetrators. The case-study participant interview revealed disconfirming evidence across themes, suggesting that sense of belonging may be an important facet of national identity which needs further exploration. Relationships between women’s experiences of state terror, genocide, national narrative construction, and nation-building are examined. Suggestions for future research include the need for expanded survivor demographic information, increased in-person interviews, and similar work centered on women perpetrators of state terror and genocide, as well as men’s experiences of state terror and genocide. Keywords: state terrorism; genocide; women; gender; nation-building; social hierarchy
ContributorsMoio-Johnson, Hadley (Author) / Oliverio, Annamarie (Thesis advisor) / Lauderdale, Pat (Committee member) / Yellow Horse, Aggie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation seeks to understand two universal experiences that have pervaded human society since man first climbed out of the trees: violence and trauma. Using theories gleaned from the Holocaust and other twentieth century atrocities, this work explores narratives of violent action and traumatic reaction as they occurred among peoples of the nineteenth-century American Southwest. By examining the stories of individuals and groups of Apaches, Ethnic Mexicans, Euro-Americans, and other diverse peoples within the lens of trauma studies, a new narrative emerges within US-Mexico borderlands history. This narrative reveals inter-generational legacies of violence among cultural groups that have lived through trauma and caused trauma within others. For both victims and perpetrators alike, trauma and violence can transform into tools of cultural construction and adaptation.
Part I of this work establishes the concept of ethnotrauma-- a layered experience of collective trauma among minority populations under racial persecution. By following stories of Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Warm Springs Apaches in the nineteenth-century Southwest, this dissertation reveals how Apaches grappled with ethnotrauma through generations during times of war, imprisonment, and exile. These narratives also reveal how Apaches overcame these legacies of pain through communal solidarity and cultural continuity. Part II explores the concept of perpetrator trauma. By following stories of Mexican norteños, Mexican-Americans on the US-Mexico border, and American settlers, the impact of trauma on violators also comes to light. The concept perpetrator trauma in this context denotes the long-term cultural impacts of committing violence among perpetrating communities. For perpetrating groups, violence became a method of affirming and, in some cases, reconstructing group identity through opposition to other groups. Finally, at the heart of this work stands two critical symbols-- Geronimo, victim and villain, and the land itself, hostile and healing-- that reveal how cycles of violence entangled ethnotrauma and perpetrator trauma within individuals struggling to survive and thrive in a savage land.
Part I of this work establishes the concept of ethnotrauma-- a layered experience of collective trauma among minority populations under racial persecution. By following stories of Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Warm Springs Apaches in the nineteenth-century Southwest, this dissertation reveals how Apaches grappled with ethnotrauma through generations during times of war, imprisonment, and exile. These narratives also reveal how Apaches overcame these legacies of pain through communal solidarity and cultural continuity. Part II explores the concept of perpetrator trauma. By following stories of Mexican norteños, Mexican-Americans on the US-Mexico border, and American settlers, the impact of trauma on violators also comes to light. The concept perpetrator trauma in this context denotes the long-term cultural impacts of committing violence among perpetrating communities. For perpetrating groups, violence became a method of affirming and, in some cases, reconstructing group identity through opposition to other groups. Finally, at the heart of this work stands two critical symbols-- Geronimo, victim and villain, and the land itself, hostile and healing-- that reveal how cycles of violence entangled ethnotrauma and perpetrator trauma within individuals struggling to survive and thrive in a savage land.
ContributorsWatkinson, Margery Hunt (Author) / Fixico, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Cichopek-Gajraj, Anna (Committee member) / Meeks, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of neoliberalism on the occurrence and intervention of genocide, particularly the ability to create othered groups through a process of dehumanization that desensitizes those in power to the human condition. I propose Social Externalization Theory as paradigm that explains how neoliberalism can be used as a means social control to create subjects vulnerable to political and collective violence that is justified as the externalized cost of economic growth, development, and national security. Finally, the conflict in Darfur (2003 - 2010) serves as a case study to analyze the influence of neoliberal policies on the resistance of the International community to recognize the violence as genocide. Analysis of the case study found that some tenets of neoliberalism produce results that fit within the ideologies of genocide and that some aspects of neoliberalism assume a genocidal mentality. In this case, those in positions power engage in daily activities that justify some suffering as acceptable, thus desensitizing them to the harm that their decisions generate.
ContributorsCalleja, Robert J (Author) / Romero, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Beth Blue (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013