Archives in Equal Parts. Archives, Writing History and Genocide in Rwanda

Against the presupposition that there are no archives in Rwanda - a presupposition that is attached to a large number of sub-Saharan African states - this article aims to highlight the richness of the Rwandan archival heritage and the use that is made of it by researchers, particularly when it comes to analysing the historical processes that led to the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994. Even though they are not the subject of systematic deposit policies or inventories, and even though they can be kept in conditions that commit them to preservation, such collections exist, scattered throughout the country, particularly in local administrations, and make it possible to write a history that is mindful of local specificities and the complexity of historical dynamics, in its continuities and discontinuities. The article also reviews the history of the national archives, from their creation in 1979 to their current restructuring, in a dual movement of institutional reorganisation and digitisation. The creation over the last ten years of reconstituted archival collections, specifically devoted to the genocide, raises questions both about the evolution of historiography and about archival policies themselves.