Re-forging Rwanda’s Identity: The Case of the Rwandan Government’s Ingando Camps
Joint Seminar of the Glasgow Human Rights Network (GHRN) and Glasgow University Global Security Roundtable:
Monday 7th November 2011, 17.30 – 19.00, University of Glasgow, Lecture Room (209), 2 University Gardens
D15 on campus map: http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_1887_en.pdf
Speaker: James Kearney (United Nations Association for the UK)
James Kearney is UNA-UK’s Peace and Security Programme Coordinator. James has a breadth of experience in the peace and security area, having worked for the Africa Educational Trust in London, Nairobi and Rumbek, southern Sudan; for John Grogan MP as a parliamentary researcher; and in the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict for nearly two years. During his time at the UN he wrote the first report on the feasibility of forming a ‘watchlist for children and armed conflict’, which has now been established. Prior to this, he was a volunteer teacher in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After studying history at Oxford, James attained a Masters degree in international relations from Cambridge University. His PhD (Edinburgh University) examined Ingando camps in Rwanda using them as a case study in forging collective identity in post-ethnic-conflict environments. James’ research acknowledges that while Rwanda’s Ingando camps address the place of education as a fundamental right and use it to promote social cohesion it is done so at all costs with no room for questioning and debate among those being educated and he suggests that this may lead to longer-term resentment despite short-term successes. James is currently writing a report for the World Bank on the conclusions of his Rwanda research and this will form the basis of the seminar discussions.
“Kearney’s ethnographic research within Ingando explores the ways in which young people respond to the new history and hours of military training in the name of peace and unity….Ingando is considered unique in its explicit and clear mobilization of education towards an equally explicit vision of reconciliation through national unity – as Kearney shows, the effects of this unique strategy are less clear and straightforward” (Julia Paulson – editor of Education and Reconciliation: Exploring Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations, 2011, Continuum International Publishing Group)
This is an open event and all are welcome – the event is free of charge.
This seminar is sponsored by the University of Glasgow Global Security Roundtable (GSR) and the Glasgow Human Rights Network. Please direct any questions to eamonn.butler@glasgow.ac.uk or GHRNadmin@glasgow.ac.uk