Ambivalence and Mnemonic Role Attributions in the Politics of Memory in Post-Genocide Cambodia and Rwanda

In post-genocide societies, there is often a clear understanding in public discourses of who the victims and who the perpetrators of atrocities were. And yet, contemporary research suggests that these categories are not that easy to delineate and that actually different groups and individuals act in a host of different ways during genocide, countering this clear-cut ascription of roles. As such, it is a very political process in post-genocide societies that produce different and often conflicting ascriptions of roles and responsibility to social groups involved in the conflict in the construction of the violent pasts in the politics of memory. Governments can draw on their past heroic actions, a demonization of past others or the suffering of victims to legitimise their current rule and stabilise their grip on power, while other actors can contest these versions of memory and try to undermine these ascriptions of roles. This paper will introduce the concepts of ambivalence and mnemonic role ascriptions to attempt to analyse the politics of memory in post-genocide societies. These ideas will be developed conceptually and will then be used as a framework to guide empirical analysis of the politics of memory in Cambodia and Rwanda, in particular also looking at transitional justice mechanisms, cultural heritage sites and broader political dynamics.