The Ghosts of Collective Violence: Pathways of Transmission Between Genocide-Survivor Mothers and Their Young Adult Children in Rwanda

Abstract

Collective violence has intergenerational consequences. In this chapter, young adult children of mothers who suffered through rape and other losses during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda speak about the after-effects in their lives. In our analysis of their stories, using the metaphor of a ghost, we trace how the violence experienced by their mothers in the past can invade and haunt present relationships. But we also show that these children are not merely the passive recipients of a parent-child relationship deeply fractured by historical collective violence: in between the emotional storms of their mothers, they actively engage with their parents about their experiences during the genocide and search for familial history. In other words, the children confront the ghost of the past. Finally, we show that not only can trauma be transmitted from parent to child, so can healing. The findings are based on a longitudinal qualitative study of the children of mothers we interviewed previously.