Women and War in Rwanda

Reviews / Votes

'In this carefully researched work, Georgina Holmes sets out a series of fundamental challenges: to media presenters and reporters about their knowledge and professionalism; to feminist (and other) theorists about the roles of women as both victims and agents; to politicians about their attitudes and behaviour with respect to the threat and actuality of genocide; and to civil society as a whole regarding issues of race, international relations, and Africa. In this study of women, genocide, and war in Rwanda there are critical lessons for all of us.' Ken Booth, FBA, AcSS. Director, David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies; Senior Research Fellow, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, "Georgina Holmes takes up a very important discussion of how gender can be used as an enabler of different agendas in political warscapes" - Jill Trenholm, Senior Lecturer, Uppsala University, 'When read as a set of case studies of gender, media representations, and violent conflict, this book is highly compelling. Holmes deftly analyzes how media of the Global North represent African women in ways that depict them as helpless victims without any agency. Her examination of the BBC s various news programs representation of the conflicts in the African Great Lakes and genocide in Rwanda is well grounded in primary sources and clearly connected to relevant international relations literature...Scholars of gender and media, conflict in Africa, and feminist international relations will find this book stimulating and informative. Scholars specializing in the African Great Lakes region may also find the book helpful as a reliable source of information about international and regional media reporting on or operating in Rwanda and eastern Congo between 1990 and 2011.' --Jennie E. Burnet, African Studies Quarterly, Volume 15, Issue 3, June 2015