From Child to Genocide Perpetrator: Narrative Identity Analysis Among Genocide Prisoners Incarcerated in Muhanga Prison, Rwanda

BACKGROUND: This article focuses on the narrative identity of eight convicted genocide perpetrators in Rwanda, who participated in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Narrative identity is the internalised and evolving story of the self that a person constructs to make sense and meaning out of his life. This study focused on the key autobiographical memories, present day experiences and the anticipated future of genocide perpetrators by exploring the self-perception of genocide perpetrators, in the context of their psychosocial rehabilitation. METHODS: The Biographic Narrative Interpretive Methods (BNIM) were used for the collection and analysis of life stories of the eight genocide prisoners in Muhanga Prison. RESULTS: The narratives of the respondents converged into five main themes: (a) the childhood experience of abandonment, (b) the process of ethnic self-discovery and positioning, (c) the perpetrator narrative, (d) the imprisoned self and (e) the imagined future self. Two main feelings from their narratives were outlined. Those feelings were the feeling of the abandoned and the feeling of the abandoner in the context of making sense and meaning out of their lives. Results revealed that the positioning of genocide perpetrators through their narratives can influence positively or negatively their rehabilitation. What is important in this article is the exploration of the account of the self-perception of the convicted genocide perpetrators throughout pre- and post-genocide Rwanda and the way they project their future self. Two main feelings from their narratives were outlined: the feeling of the abandoned and the feeling of the abandoner in the context of making sense and meaning out of their lives. Results revealed that positioning of genocide perpetrators through their narratives can influence positively or negatively their rehabilitation. CONCLUSION: Genocide perpetrators in the context of Rwanda continuously work on ways to acknowledge, rationalise or justify those acts as part of their biography. Interventions enabling their self-discovery can have a positive impact on their self as prisoners, their families and the community at large in post-genocide Rwanda.