"The Politics of Representation: Genocide, Mass Violence and Atrocities in the Media."
Wahutu Siguru
Holocaust Genocide & Mass Violence Studies Workshop (HGMV)
Thursday, October 31
3:00 p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences Building
Wahutu Siguru's project takes a constructivist perspective on knowledge production in an attempt to explicate how knowledge about instances of mass violence, atrocities and genocide is produced and disseminated by the media. It begins from the understanding that representations are based on particular memory, social and knowledge structures leveraging multiple theories to investigate the effects of these on representations. This particular project is the first step towards a larger project that investigates differences and similarities in narratives about Rwanda and Darfur by the media in multiple countries within and outside of Africa.
Siguru's research interests are in the Sociology of Media, Genocide, Mass Violence and Atrocities (specifically on issues of representation of conflicts in Africa such as Darfur and Rwanda), Collective Memory, and perhaps somewhat tangentially Democracy and Development in Africa.
The workshop was founded in 2012 to foster interdisciplinary conversations on the subject areas of Holocaust studies, genocide and memory, peace and conflict studies, human rights, nationalism and ethnic violence, representations of violence and trauma, conflict resolution, transitional justice, historical consciousness and collective memory.
For more information about participation in the workshop please email Wahutau Siguru at siguru@umn.edu.
