Purity and Exile by Liisa H Malkki
This study of Hutu refugees from Burundi, driven into exile in Tanzania after their 1972 insurrection against the dominant Tutsi was brutally quashed, 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, the author 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, showing how the movement of large refugee populations across national borders has shaped patterns of violence in the region.
Malkki, Liisa H.: - 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.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780226502724 |
| ISBN 10 | 0226502724 |
| Title | Purity and Exile |
| Author | Liisa H Malkki |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | The University of Chicago Press |
| Year published | 1995-08-15 |
| Number of pages | 374 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |