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Dissertation Proposal Presentation
Monday, April 29th, 10am-12pm
Truland Building 540
Genocide Survivors Who Kill: Socio-Psychological motivations for the re-perpetration of genocide in the Great Lakes Region
Sandra Jones, PhD Candidate
School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
George Mason University
Dr. Thomas Flores, Chair
Dr. Leslie Dwyer
Dr. June Tangney
This study seeks to uncover the relationship between trauma and conflictual attitudes among genocide survivors and subsequent violence between victims and perpetrators. The author contends that trauma and conflictual attitudes lead to the institutionalization of cultural and structural violence against perpetrators, causing the creation of group identities centered on conflict. I hypothesize that initial trauma against a victim group can lead to the development of conflictual attitudes that normalize support among the victim group for the institutionalization of structural and cultural violence against their tormentors. Such attitudes and indirect violence further the hardening of identities frozen around the conflict, which re-traumatizes both groups. Paired with the dehumanization of the tormentor group by the victim group, this institutionalized trauma leads to a normalization of attitudes supporting renewed direct violence as a justifiable response to victimization from both sides resulting in a repetitive cycle of violence, and even future genocides. It is further hypothesized that levels of support for violence depend on levels and types of experienced trauma. This work will be conducted in Burundi, a country understudied in a region poised on the verge of renewed violence. It will focus on the Tutsi identity group, which has played dual roles as both a victim and a perpetrator in conflicts in the Great Lakes Region. The research will utilize structured surveys, trauma measurements, and semi-structured interviews to probe the influence trauma has had on the development of conflictual socio-psychological beliefs with the goal of creating an in-depth model to develop appropriate prevention and intervention strategies.