Caroline Williamson Sinalo

Caroline Williamson Sinalo came to University College Cork as a Lecturer in World Languages in February 2015. Before joining UCC, she worked as Teaching Associate at the University of Nottingham where she also obtained a PhD in French and Francophone Studies. Williamson Sinalo’s AHRC-funded thesis, which won the Dean Moore Endowed Postgraduate Prize, examined posttraumatic identities in the testimonies of Rwandan women survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, with a particular focus on the concept of posttraumatic growth. As part of her doctoral training, she spent one year working in Rwanda for the Aegis Trust, a charity that campaigns against genocide and runs the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. 

Since joining UCC, Williamson Sinalo has authored two books. The first of these, Rwanda after Genocide: Gender, Identity and Posttraumatic Growth (Cambridge, 2018), collates her doctoral research on posttraumatic growth in Rwandan women with an Aegis Trust-funded project on Rwandan men. Reviewers have praised the book as "an important intervention in the field of genocide studies" (George Macleod in French Forum), "a welcome critical addition" (Maria Berghs in Africa) and as "outstanding and highly recommended" (Noam Schimmel in Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice). 

Her second book, Transmitting Memories in Rwanda: From a Survivor Parent to the Next Generation, was published with Brill Press in 2023 and co-published for African readers with the Kigali-based publishers, Imagine We. With support from SURF, survivors' fund, the Irish Embassy in Kampala and private donations, the book was launched at the Kigali Marriott hotel in April 2023 as part of the 2023 national Rwandan commemoration, Kwibuka29, which was covered by the Rwandan national news media. For Kwibuka30, the book was showcased at the United Nations International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in New York. 

Williamson Sinalo spent 2024-2025 in Malawi working in collaboration with the Malawian Ministry of Health and Malawi Institute of Journalism on a national Health Promotion conference, held in May 2025.

She has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Manchester and spent a year at the Institut de Psychologie de l'Université de Paris. Before becoming an academic, she worked for the FIFA Ticketing Office and was involved in organizing the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. 

Williamson Sinalo’s research focuses on the Great Lakes region of Africa and covers a diverse range of topics and themes, including gender, conflict, violence and trauma, particularly with reference to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. More recently, she has become interested in the Health Humanities, working on media narratives and lived experiences of infectious diseases in Africa (Covid-19, Mpox). Over the years, Williamson Sinalo has developed close collaborations with both academic and non-academic partners including anti-genocide charity, the Aegis Trust, the Kigali-based Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP), the Malawi Institute of Journalism, the Malawian Ministry of Health and the Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa. 

Williamson Sinalo’s first book, Rwanda after Genocide: Gender, Identity and Posttraumatic Growth (Cambridge, 2018), explores the ways in which Rwandans have rebuilt their lives, paying particular attention to the relationship between posttraumatic growth and gender and examining it within the wider frames of colonialism and traditional cultural practices. In addition to the book, this project on posttraumatic growth in Rwandan testimonies resulted in the publication of 7 journal articles, a book chapter and 17 conference presentations.  

In 2016, Williamson Sinalo began a collaboration with Claver Irakoze, a Rwandan genocide survivor and education activist, to co-author his testimony with a focus on parenting after genocide. That project resulted in the publication of Transmitting Memories in Rwanda: From a Survivor Parent to the Next Generation (Brill Academic Publishers, 2023). This book recounts the personal life story of Claver Irakoze who survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi as a child. Now a parent of young children, the narrative focuses on issues surrounding childhood, parenting and the transmission of memories between generations. As part of the groundwork for the book, in 2017, Irakoze and Williamson Sinalo were awarded funding by the Aegis Trust to conduct a survey of over 300 Rwandan parents to investigate disclosure practices surrounding genocide experiences in families. This project produced 9 conference presentations, including one organised stream at the ASAUK biennial conference and a keynote paper at Webster University. To disseminate Transmitting Memories in Rwanda on the African market, the authors signed a co-publishing agreement with the Kigali-based publishers, Imagine We. With support from SURF, survivors' fund, the Irish Embassy in Kampala and private donations, Irakoze and Williamson Sinalo launched this version at the Kigali Marriott hotel in April 2023 as part of the 2023 national Rwandan commemoration, Kwibuka29. This event was covered by the Rwandan national news outlet, IGIHE. There was also a significant social media campaign surrounding the dissemination of the book (see #TransmittingMemoriesInRwanda), as well as a number of media appearances in Rwanda including on Rwanda TV on two separate occasions, in The New Times, on Twitter Space as well as on IGIHE. For Kwibuka30, the book was showcased at the United Nations International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in New York.

Another strand of Williamson Sinalo’s research has emerged from her convenorship of the research cluster, Violence, Conflict and Gender in UCC's Centre for Advanced Study in Languages and Cultures (CASiLaC) (2015-2023). This cluster is a dedicated intellectual and creative space for critical reflection on the gendered construction of violence and conflict. It is attentive to cross-cultural thinking on the nature of violence and covers a range of time periods. Keeping our cluster members at the focus of our activities, our recent work has centred around 4 key priority areas: global feminisms, supporting postgraduate researchers (PGRs), community engagement and internationalisation. As part of my role in the cluster, Williamson Sinalo mentored PhD student Nicoletta Mandolini in the Irish Research Council-funded project Representing Gender-Based Violence (2017) which produced an edited volume published in 2023 with Palgrave Macmillan (Representing Gender-Based Violence: Global Perspectives). More recently, she worked on the cluster's Global Feminisms seminar series.    

Williamson Sinalo’s current research explores lived experiences and media narratives of infectious diseases in Africa. Building on recent publications in the field of African journalism, she is collaborating with colleagues from the Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa, to develop a project that combines news media analysis with participatory journey mapping, a form of visual storytelling, with former Covid-19 patients and healthcare workers.

Williamson Sinalo currently supervises 3 PhD students and 1 MRes student. With funding from Cusanuswerk, Louisa Esther Diagana’s project uses ethnographic methods to elaborate the concept of exile journalism, based on field work in East Africa and Latin America. Funded by UCC's French Department Postgraduate Fund and a CACSSS Excellence Scholarship, Joy Uwanziga's project explores the relationship between migration and development in the Great Lakes region of Africa, also drawing on ethnographic methods. Co-supervised with Angela Veale from the School of Applied Psychology, Darwesh Obeid’s project is exploring individual and collective memories of anti-Kurdish violence in Iraq using visual methodologies. MRes student Margaret O’Carroll is exploring processes of intergenerational trauma in African fiction.

From 2022-2024, Williamson Sinalo was external mentor to MSCA-funded postdoctoral researcher, Janne Rantala, whose project examined public memory in Mozambique, focusing on hip hop's performance of historical knowledge. Rantala and Williamson Sinalo collaborated in the conceptualisation and organisation of UCC Transbordagem: Hip Hop Overflowing Workshop, an event which explored space, memory and decoloniality in contemporary Hip Hop through dialogue between artists and scholars.

2025: Returner's scheme, funding to cover research costs associated with my sabbatical year in Malawi (2024-2025), including the Malawian National Health Promotion conference (May 2025) co-organised with the Malawian Ministry of Health and the Malawi Institute of Journalism and a research trip to present keynote presentation at a conference on Covid-19 at UKZN, South Africa: €5000

2023: CACSSS Excellence Scholarship, UCC, Ireland as supervisor to Joy Uwanziga’s project ‘Migration Effects on the Social and Cultural Development of the Great Lakes Region: A Case Study of Rwanda and Uganda’: €17,310

2023: Irish Embassy in Kampala, Uganda: PI for “Dissemination of Transmitting Memories in Rwanda: From a Survivor Parent to the Next Generation”: €3000

2023: Department of French PhD Studentship, UCC, Ireland as supervisor to Joy Uwanziga’s project ‘Migration Effects on the Social and Cultural Development of the Great Lakes Region: A Case Study of Rwanda and Uganda’: €5,770

2022-2024: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, UCC, Ireland as Mentor to Janne Rantala for the project ‘Political Memory as Hip-Hop Knowledge in Mozambican Rap’. €121,920

2021-2024: Cusanuswerk – Bischöfliche Studienförderung (Episcopal scholarship) PhD funding, Germany/Ireland, as supervisor for Louisa Esther Mugabo’s project ‘Towards a conceptualisation of exile journalism: A study of East African and Latin American journalists’ norms and practices in exile’: €80,000

2019: Enterprise Ireland H2020 Co-ordinator Proposal Preparation Support Scheme to cover consultancy and communication support services in relation to a major funding application: €5,904

2019: Government of Ireland International Academic Mobility Programme, Ireland: PI for a mobility at the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace for the project ‘Developing A Funding Application for the Project: Knowledge Production and African Conflicts: Language, Translation and Context’: €7540

2018: Aegis Trust, as PI. Exploring disclosure practices among Rwandan parents. €3000

2017: Irish Research Council New Foundations, as Mentor to Nicoletta Mandolini: Representing Gender Based Violence: Establishing an Interdisciplinary International Network: €5000

2016: Irish Research Council New Foundations, as PI. "On Pandering" to a Western Readership: €8500

2015: Aegis Trust, as PI. Posttraumatic Growth in Rwandan Men's Testimonies. €3000

2010-2014: Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award: Posttraumatic identities: Developing a culturally informed understanding of posttraumatic growth in Rwandan women genocide survivors: €80,000

I contribute to a range of modules at all levels across the Department of French and the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. My two research-led modules in French are as follows:

FR2311  Africa: Colonialism to Continental Crisis: Through the study of a diverse range of texts, this second year module introduces students to the long-term consequences of European colonialism in Africa with a focus on the Great Lakes Crisis.

And   FR4311 Trauma and Narrative in the Francophone World: This final year module introduces students to theories of trauma from Freud to the present day. Through the study of a range of francophone texts about major traumatic events (slavery, WWII, the Rwanda genocide, terrorism etc.), students examine the strengths and weaknesses of different theories and consider the role of narrative in understanding atrocity. 

As Director of the BA in World Languages, I am also involved at all levels of  programme and teach the following modules: 

WL1103 Becoming Multilingual: This module familiarizes students with the main theories, methods and practices of second-language acquisition in order to allow them to maximize their university study of languages.   

WL2102 Introduction to Semiotics: This module introduces students to the principles of semiotics through the study of the nature of systems of signs, both linguistic and non-linguistic.

At postgraduate level, I regularly contribute to the following:

LL6024 Conflict, Memory and Nation Building: This module considers how conflict, memory and processes of nation building have shaped the Francophone world. 

LL6111 Theorising the Global: This module introduces postgraduate students to and immerses them in a range of critical theories that can be used to analyse and explore the intersecting political, social, cultural, linguistic and geographic power structures that define the contemporary global order. 

WS6005 Gender and Society II: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: This module analyses the gendered aspects of social and cultural life within an interdisciplinary framework.