Salutogenesis and the Prevention of Social Death: Cross-Cultural Lessons from Genocide-Impacted Rwandans and Indigenous Youth in Canada

Combining trans-disciplinary theories with cross-cultural ethnographic research, this paper explores community-based approaches to genocide prevention among Canadian-Indigenous groups as well as with Rwandan student genocide survivors. A Salutogenic framework is used to examine community responses to the micro-foundations of genocide (Antonovsky 1987). These processes are explored using first-hand accounts from “New Family” networks of student genocide survivors in Rwanda and members of a Canadian urban-Indigenous “Village.” These perspectives shed light on how locally adaptive, socially networked practices can help promote emergent forms of genocide prevention (Williams 1977). This paper focuses on three areas of local practice that have helped build meaningful community resilience: mutual aid, kinship, and ritual. These features contribute to salutogenic pathways that enhance group life and help communities to circumvent and supplant the day-to-day conditions that Claudia Card describes as social death (Card 2003)