Nicholas J Wahutu
My research wrestles with questions about how people acquire knowledge and construct reality about Africa and Atrocities in African; how events such as the Holocaust and the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda become iconic and influence collective memory when reporting on and framing conflicts in Africa; is Africa created and painted anew with every instance of violence or is the image of Africa as violent, savage, barbaric and tribal an ever-present reality when talking about conflict in Africa. If the latter, what structures make this representation endure, despite the continent being more accessible now than in the early years of imperial project? Does the feeling of failure - by Western nations such as the U.S., for example, during the Rwandan genocide, make it obligatory to report other atrocities, like Darfur, as being similar to or capable of being worse than Rwanda? How is this sold to an audience far from Africa in the era of ‘compassion fatigue’? It seeks to go beyond the dyadic relationship of The West and The Rest by bringing to the table how other African countries represent instances of Mass Violence and Atrocities, specifically the representation Darfur and Rwanda.