Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania

by Liisa H. Malkki

In this study of Hutu refugees from Burundi, driven into exile in Tanzania after their 1972 insurrection against the dominant Tutsi was brutally quashed, Liisa Malkki shows how experiences of dispossession and violence are remembered and turned into narratives, and how this process helps to construct identities such as "Hutu" and "Tutsi."

Through extensive fieldwork in two refugee communities, Malkki finds that the refugees' current circumstances significantly influence these constructions. Those living in organized camps created an elaborate "mythico-history" of the Hutu people, which gave significance to exile, and envisioned a collective return to the homeland of Burundi. Other refugees, who had assimilated in a more urban setting, crafted identities in response to the practical circumstances of their day to day lives. Malkki reveals how such things as national identity, historical consciousness, and the social imagination of "enemies" get constructed in the process of everyday life. The book closes with an epilogue looking at the recent violence between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, and showing how the movement of large refugee populations across national borders has shaped patterns of violence in the region.

Genres: Anthropology, Africa, Nonfiction, History, Ethnography, Eastern Africa, Tanzania

374 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1995

Reviews

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good! A lot of interesting stuff on nationalism and memory. She writes about how national belonging is constituted differently among refugees resettled in camps, as opposed to integrated into communities, and how the concept of 'homeland' is reproduced. A really fantastic ethnography rooted in solid and satisfying theorization.

[Margarita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read her "National Geographic" article many times, but my friend and colleague Ana said the book would likely be useful for me and she was SO RIGHT.