About:
One hundred and fifty-two countries have outlawed genocide since it became a crime of international law. While some people who commit genocide evade conviction, hundreds of thousands of people—from Cambodia to Rwanda to Bosnia-Herzegovina—have consequently been found guilty of genocide, served prison sentences, and returned home. This talk is based on a project that follows 200 people who spent time in prison for committing genocide in Rwanda and who returned to their communities. Drawing upon intensive fieldwork—including interviews with each participant before they left prison, 6 months after their release, and 1-year after their release, as well as focus groups with survivors and other community members—I ask: What obstacles do people convicted of genocide face as they reenter society, and what are the individual, family, community, and state-level factors that are associated with successful reintegration? How do community members view the return of people who committed genocide, and how does their return impact peace-building processes? In the talk, I will focus on the factors associated with who is welcomed home, as well as the reasons behind variation in successful reintegration into communities.
Speaker:
DR. HOLLIE NYSETH BREHM
Dr. Hollie Nyseth Brehm is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at The Ohio State University. She has published more than 30 articles and book chapters on genocide and violence and is the recipient of the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ Emerging Scholar prize as well as the American Society of Criminology’s Cavan Young Scholar Award, which are the highest honors given to early-career scholars in each association. Nyseth Brehm is the Principal Investigator of two grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation that each focus on how countries recover from violence. She serves on a U.S. atrocity prevention task force and has worked with Rwanda’s National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide since 2012. Nyseth Brehm is also on the boards of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Refuge, and I-Activism, and she serves as a consultant for numerous other organizations and leads a research cluster on transitions after violence at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. At Ohio State, Nyseth Brehm teaches classes on genocide, terrorism, and violence. She has won both the college’s and the university’s highest teaching honors, and she brings Ohio State University students to Rwanda each summer to learn about genocide.