Implications of a Reconciliation Process on Psychological Health and Attitudes toward Coexistence and Reconciliation: The Gacaca Process in Rwanda
Project Leader Karen Brounéus
Project Period
2008-2009
Project Description
The future legitimacy and credibility of truth commissions will depend on the impact they have on the individuals participating and may mean the difference between recycled violence and peace in developing countries emerging from violent conflict. Since 2002, the gacaca process, the largest officially driven reconciliation process in the world today, is underway in Rwanda. The gacaca is based on a traditional, community-based method for conflict resolution and is a functional equivalent to a truth and reconciliation commission.
In 2006 I conducted fieldwork in Rwanda with the aim to test the validity of the claim made in the peacebuilding literature and rhetoric that truth telling is healing. Two studies were conducted, one in-depth interview study with 16 women genocide survivors and one survey study including 1,200 people chosen through stratified cluster sampling in four Provinces in Rwanda in order to interview three subgroups: survivors, inyangamugayo/judges in the gacaca, and neighbors. The first results of these studies, focusing on the gacaca and psychological health (please see dissertation), challenge the assumption of truth telling as healing and present a novel understanding of the complexity of reconciliation in postconflict peacebuilding.
In the present project I will analyze the second part of the survey, concerning people’s attitudes towards reconciliation and coexistence and see if, and in that case how, this is related to participation in the gacaca and degree of psychological ill-health. This project has two focal points: One concerns the relation between psychological health (depression and PTSD levels) and attitudes on participating in the gacaca, on trust, coexistence, truth, and healing. We know that many people in postconflict settings suffer from depression and PTSD. Does psychological ill-health affect attitudes toward issues such as trust and coexistence? If so, what implications does this have for relationship- and peacebuilding at the grassroots level? The second focus of the project is to explore similarities and differences between women and men concerning psychological health and attitudes on the above-mentioned issues. Do they differ and if so how?
Main Financial Support
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs