Building Peace at Sites of Memory: Community Relationships with UNESCO World Heritage in Post-Genocide Rwanda

In 2023, Rwanda inscribed a set of genocide memorials on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, based in part on the memorials’ value to peace. Considering the importance of communities to the sustainability of heritage-based peacebuilding projects, this article examines the management plan for the newly listed Rwandan sites in terms of its framework for community engagement and participation. It argues that while the plan for these sites reflects a shift toward a closer relationship between heritage and communities than has generally been seen in Rwandan heritage management, it retains significant constraints on community participation. These constraints derive from the challenges of narrative inclusivity in a post-conflict context, Rwanda’s internal politics around genocide memory, and the influence of the international World Heritage regime. The management plan for Rwanda’s newly inscribed sites, then, demonstrates the tensions between peace, participation, and politics at World Heritage sites, even those inscribed partly on the basis of their value to peace itself.