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The Armenian and Rwandan genocides: some preliminary reflections on two oral history projects with survivors

The purpose of this article is to share preliminary reflections on findings from two oral history projects with genocide survivors. In 1993 we published a book on the Armenian genocide that analyzed in considerable detail the memories of elderly survivors of their childhood experiences. In 2002 we became involved in a collaborative project with a group of young Rwandan adults who had formed an association of orphans known as AOCM—in English, the Association for Orphan Victims of Genocide that Take Care of Themselves: House Heads. All AOCM members lost both their parents during the 1994 genocide, and all are now heading households of their surviving siblings, relatives and neighbor children. These two projects have considerable methodological similarities, since we worked with the leadership of AOCM to develop an interview guide that structurally parallels the questions we asked Armenian survivors. On the other hand, there is a major methodological difference between them, since the Rwandan survivors project is an attempt at self-documentation by an organization of survivors, whereas the Armenian research project followed a more traditional academic oral history methodology. In other words, we ourselves carried out the interviews in the Armenian project, whereas AOCM members did their own interviewing based on our instructions and training. In both projects, 100 interviews were conducted and all were translated and transcribed. Another difference is that the interviews for the Armenian project were approximately twice as long as those for the Rwandan survivors project— two hours rather than one. Furthermore, Armenian survivors were of course reflecting on their experiences 50 or more years after their occurrence, whereas only eight years had elapsed for the Rwandans. Correspondingly, the Armenian survivors had spent many years processing their experiences, while the events of