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Erin Jessee is a Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Research Fellow in the Department of Modern History at the University of Glasgow. She has over a decade of experience conducting qualitative fieldwork, particularly in Rwanda, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Uganda. She is the author of Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History, which was published in Palgrave Macmillan’s ‘Studies in Oral History’ series in 2017. She has also published several articles in notable journals such as Memory Studies, Conflict and Society, History in Africa, Oral History Review, and Forensic Science International, among others. In addition to her research, Jessee teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on oral history, genocide in the twentieth century, and Rwandan history, and offers workshops on oral history, the use of qualitative methods in conflict-affected settings, and managing danger in fieldwork. She has been an active member of the Oral History Association since 2009, and has served on the Board of Editors for its journal, The Oral History Review, since 2013. 

Recent Publications

“The Life History Interview.” Springer Handbook of Methods in Health Social Sciences edited by Pranee Liamputtong (New York: Springer, 2018).

Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History (New York: Palgrave MacMillan’s Studies in Oral History series, 2017).

“Reconciliation.” In A. Petö (ed.) Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbook: Gender, War (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2017): 229-246.

“Managing danger in oral historical fieldwork.” Oral History Review 44:2 (2017): 322-347.

“The danger of a single story: Iconic stories in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.” Memory Studies 10:2 (2017): 144-163.

“Rwandan women no more: Female génocidaires in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.” Conflict and Society: Advances in Research 1 (2015): 60-80.

With Sarah Watkins. “Good kings, bloody tyrants, and everything in between: Representations of the monarchy in post-genocide Rwanda.” History in Africa 41 (2014): 35-62.

“Promoting reconciliation through exhuming and identifying victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.” Centre for International Governance Innovation Africa Initiative Discussion Paper Series, no. 4 (July 2012): https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/no4_0_0.pdf.

“The limits of oral history: Ethics and methodology amid highly politicized research settings.” Oral History Review 38:2 (2011): 287-307. Reprinted in: G. Smith (ed.) Oral History, Vol. 3 (New York: Routledge, 2017); and R. Perks and A. Thomson (eds.) The Oral History Reader, 3^rd edition (London: Routledge, 2016): 674-688.

Media Coverage

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@erinjessee

Country Focus

Rwanda

Expertise by Geography

Africa

Expertise by Chronology

Early Modern, Modern

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Gender, Genocide, Human Rights, Politics, Public History, Sexual Violence, Women