Social cohesion governance: legal aid strategies in Rwanda

After collective violence, states often work to rebuild and repair the social fabric by promoting legal institutions and fostering peaceful relationships. The case of legal aid in post-genocide Rwanda provides insight into how legal aid providers manage cases in the context of overburdened courts and the state’s prioritization of reconciliation. This study relies on ethnographic and interview data with legal aid providers at legal aid centers throughout Rwanda to show how legal aid providers communicate the state’s moral vision of social cohesion to manage an overburdened court system through two interconnected strategies. First, legal aid providers orient people to moral beliefs about ways of being through community awareness-raising initiatives and extra-legal obligations that promote peaceful relations. Second, legal aid providers stall cases from going to court by counseling through narratives of forgiveness and reconciliation. These strategies prevent cases from reaching the courts by managing emotional expectations about the law’s limitations and reminding people of their societal obligations. Building on the law and culture literature, these findings highlight how social actors charged with interacting with vulnerable people creatively navigate the lasting ramifications of collective violence in everyday dispute resolution and conflict mediation.