ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates vexing issues of silence after atrocity, drawing from the Rwandan civil war (1990 to 1994) and genocide (1994), as the case study. It examines the role of silence as a form of agency in the lives of socially marginal and politically vulnerable women, using the life history of a genocide survivor named Jeanne. Her deployment of “engaged silences” demonstrates her political agency while highlighting the structural and institutional challenges of practicing silence in post genocide Rwanda. Jeanne’s silences since the 1994 genocide are not novel; they are part of a broader pattern of gendered, cultural and institutional silences that have informed her life. The chapter analyzes the methodological and ethical challenges of researching Jeanne’s life, to illustrate how silence is both a product of Rwanda’s legacy of political violence and reflective of the structural violence of the day. The author finds that when individual experiences of conflict challenge the official state-imposed narrative, individuals like Jeanne find subtle, discreet ways to have their say, whether with family members or government officials who rarely take the time to listen to them.
