Help Anthropology Essay - Anthropologist/Historians needed!

[Morphius]

Hi everyone, this is an appeal to those of you, if there are any, who study Anthropology or even History.

I am having to write a 4000 word essay on the role of Colonialism in the Rwandan Genocide. Grim topic I know. I've done a fair bit of research and have even more books coming soon hopefully.

I have just started to write an introduction, I've started obviously by stating what I will discuss in the essay and then giving a brief background on the inhabitants of Rwanda as Genocide is the attempt to massacre and destroy a whole caste of people, as such you must understand them etc.

The trouble I'm having is that this is meant to be an Anthropology essay and not a History essay. I find that when I come to think about writing a paragraph it seems to sound incredibly historical and not anthropological which is what I need.

Any guidance?

 

[Naetha]

The problem you have is in the title - you're trying to find the effect of colonialism on the genocide, however the colonialism is a historical effect. From what I (briefly) understand the French had the ability to prevent the genocide, but didn't because traditionally they supported the Hutus above the Tutsis (due to the history). Also the Germans and the Belgians thought that the Tutsis were racially superior to the Hutus (as the Tutsis were from the Horn of Africa rather than the Hutus who are of Bantu origin) and romanticised their history and gave them justification for being the ruling elite over the majority Hutus. Much of the genocide was an uprising rebelling against years of oppression (admittedly historical), but it had just come to a head.

Sorry if I'm not making much sense - I read a lot about the history of the Rwandan genocide somewhere, but I'm damned if I can remember where. THink it may have been this book by Mark Thomas.

 

[swords]

Start from the beginning, work your way through the middle and finish up at the end at around 4000 words roughly... I hope this helps

 

[Morphius]

thanks Swords, that's great.

Yeh I Understand the background of it, but colonialism is a topic which we study in Anthropology, so what I'm looking at is the actions taken by the colonial powers when they took charge of Rwanda, IE the introduction of the identity card by the Belgian officials and the and the way they failed to look at the countries situation holistically and the ethnocentrism of the communities.

 

[swords]

I would definitely produce a plan, with sections and subsections, before you start writing anything substantial.
Once you've done the main body of research make a skeleton for your document including the key points you wish to discuss and in an order which tells a story. Anything which gives your work structure helps you write it and helps the person marking to read and understand it. This should get you much better marks overall, hope that helps!

 

[Morphius]

love!