Public amnesia and the political choice to 'forget' aspects of a difficult past define many post-atrocity contexts. Paths to Forgetting explores how distinct forms of transition such as rebel victory or power-sharing shape the memory regime and produce different forms of public amnesia in Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. The book focuses on sites of violence and their encounters with erasure to capture the everyday aspects of securitisation of memory. The book finds that public amnesia directly impacts conflict transformation and peacebuilding. It examines how amnesia contributes to grievance via non-recognition in Rwanda, and how exposures without meaningful redress in Burundi and the refusal to engage with deeper roots of conflict in Kenya undermine peacebuilding. Finally, the book highlights the importance of addressing the regional dimensions of memory and forgetting and equips readers with new conceptual tools for peacebuilding scholarship and practice.
By:
Andrea Purdeková (University of Bath)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Weight: 545g
ISBN: 9781009677608
ISBN 10: 1009677608
Pages: 266
Publication Date: 30 April 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Part I. Theoretical Framework: 1. Paths to forgetting: memory after violence; 2. Theoretical framework: regime transitions and memory; Part II. Case Studies: 3. Militant memocracy – Victor's peace and memory in Rwanda; 4. Coalition of oblivion– power-sharing and memory in Burundi; 5. Triumphalist Amnesia– memory and the war on terror in Kenya; Part III. Transitions, Memory, and Redress: 6. The blind spots of redress: rectification and the constitution of conflict; 7. Investigative missions: fact-finding and violence; 8. Regional memory and peacebuilding: beyond case studies; 9. Conclusion: memory in transition; Bibliography; Index.
Andrea Purdeková is Senior Lecturer in Conflict and Security at the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath and Transitional Justice Lead at the Centre for the Study of Violence. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Eastern African Studies (JEAS) and the author of Making Ubumwe: Power, State and Camps in Rwanda's Unity Building Project (2015), which was shortlisted for the 2016 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize.
