Scholar Nicole Fox On Memorials, Transitional Justice, And The Inescapability Of Memory

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with Nicole Fox about her monograph, After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda (2021, The University of Wisconsin Press Press).

How does a society move forward after the mass violence of genocide? What role do public memorials play in creating healing narratives ? Whose experiences get told and re-told, and whose experiences get marginalized as years go by? 2024 marks thirty years since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and scholar Nicole Fox provides insight into these questions based on years of interviews with survivors who now dedicate their time to working at and maintaining public memorials. Fox makes a powerful argument for conceptualizing memorials "as a form of restorative justice through their ability to provide information on past atrocities, facilitate localized reconciliation and educational programs, and give survivors a sense of hope for the future."

Nicole Fox is an associate professor of criminal justice at California State University, Sacramento where she teaches about atrocity crimes, mass incarceration, global criminology and law. Her research centers on how racial and ethnic contention impacts communities, including how remembrances of adversity shape social change, collective memory and present-day social movements. Her book we’re discussing today, After Genocide, focuses on how physical memorials to past atrocity shape healing, community development and reconciliation for survivors of genocide and genocidal rape. Her most recent project examines bystander intervention, with an emphasis on individuals who conducted acts of rescue during times of social unrest and political violence. Her scholarship has been published in Social Problems, Signs, Social Forces, Deviant Behavior, the Journal for Scientific Study of Religion, Sociological Forum, and Societies Without Borders, among others. Her work has generously been supported by numerous national grants, and she also serves on the United Nations Economic and Social Council and contributes to the UN Commission for the Status of Women held annually at the UN headquarters.

You can find out more about Nicole Fox at http://nicolefoxphd.com.

Cover photo courtesy of The University of Wisconsin Press.