Healing The Wounds, Bridging The Divide : Exploring “Community Participation” in Post-Conflict Development through Trauma Healing in Rwanda

Abstract: “Community participation” is a common concept in contemporary development initiatives worldwide. As an approach, it aims to include the targeted population in its planning and implementation, by recognizing the need in understanding local contexts, beliefs, and values. As such, this thesis aims to explore the possibilities, as well as limitations, of community participation, specifically in the context of post-conflict development through a case study of a development project, The Bugesera Societal Healing Initiative (BSHI), in Rwanda. This is done within the theoretical context of the anthropology of development and post-development theory. Through ethnographical inquiry into the lives of BSHI participants suffering from trauma following the 1994 Genocide, this thesis conveys the essence for development organizations in catering to the specific needs of a given local population. In turn, this is placed in a broader discourse, within the development sector as a whole, to understand the limitations and obstacles in achieving comprehensive societal transformation. It is argued that, while development initiatives driven by the idea of community participation may succeed on a local level and positively impact the targeted population, it may still leave wider political structures perpetuating issues of, for instance, poverty unaltered. In this, it seems that for these structures to be addressed, it requires a more radical approach to development in which the status quo is being challenged.