Community Driven Peacebuilding Approaches: The Case of Post-Genocide Rwanda

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The notion of post-conflict peacebuilding has grown increasingly contentious and problematic in recent years. Various scholars have raised concerns about the appropriate levels (global, national, regional, or local) at which post-conflict resolution and reconstruction plans should be conceived and determined (Betts 2005; Donais 2009; Nhema & Zeleza 2008). This chapter contributes to this debate by discussing the limitations of dominant peacebuilding discourses and agendas and calling attention to community driven approaches. It contends that community driven approaches engender collective action toward reconstruction, reconciliation, and co-existence. The approaches discussed focus on ways that Rwandans construe their own experiences of the genocide and respond by locating peacebuilding efforts at the center of their everyday life. This view to peacebuilding echoes Erin Baines’ (2010) invitation to scholars to pay attention to “more informal, socio-cultural processes outside the purview of the state, particularly for how they promote social construction at the micro-level” (409). These informal contributions are critical to social change as they are grounded in local knowledge and experiences and are cognizant of the complex local dynamics that are most relevant to people’s lives.