Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania

Malkki, Liisa H.

ISBN 10: 0226502724 / ISBN 13: 9780226502724

Published by University of Chicago Press, 1995

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Synopsis:

In this study of Hutu refugees from Burundi, driven into exile in Tanzania after their 1972 insurrection against the dominant Tutsi was brutally quashed, Liisa Malkki shows how experiences of dispossession and violence are remembered and turned into narratives, and how this process helps to construct identities such as "Hutu" and "Tutsi."

Through extensive fieldwork in two refugee communities, Malkki finds that the refugees' current circumstances significantly influence these constructions. Those living in organized camps created an elaborate "mythico-history" of the Hutu people, which gave significance to exile, and envisioned a collective return to the homeland of Burundi. Other refugees, who had assimilated in a more urban setting, crafted identities in response to the practical circumstances of their day to day lives. Malkki reveals how such things as national identity, historical consciousness, and the social imagination of "enemies" get constructed in the process of everyday life. The book closes with an epilogue looking at the recent violence between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, and showing how the movement of large refugee populations across national borders has shaped patterns of violence in the region.

About the Author: Liisa H. Malkki is associate professor of cultural anthropology at Stanford University and author of Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and ...
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: 1995
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good