An Archive of Possibilities

“This ethnography of violence and repair, hospitals and therapeutics, is set in eastern Congo’s still warlike Kivu region. It is mediated by the astute eyes and sensibilities of the very talented American anthropologist and surgeon, Rachel Marie Niehuus. Her focus on the intimate, the clinical, and the traumatic, with her pressing arguments about repair, stands to transform how anthropologists and conflict studies scholars approach medical practice, violence, enmity, and injury in Congo and well beyond. Awash with original contributions to studies of violence, humanitarianism, and the affective, this moving book tells some crucial regional histories while it investigates lively strands about hope and possible futures.” - Nancy Rose Hunt, author of A Nervous State: Violence, Remedies, and Reverie in Colonial Congo

“In this outstanding work of storytelling and ethnography, Rachel Marie Niehuus delves deep into the harrowing realities of life in the war-torn landscape of eastern Congo. Beyond the hospital’s sterile walls, amid the constant specters of violence and death, Niehuus uncovers a resilient and profoundly human story of survival, repair, and healing. Vivid and eye-opening, An Archive of Possibilities is a poignant exploration of a people’s unwavering determination to create a future beyond the scars of their past. An immensely thought-provoking and illuminating book.” - Laurence Ralph, author of Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him

"This is a thought-provoking ethnography grounded in radical compassion and a concern for Black/Congolese aliveneness, with dynamic human stories of hope and survival that have the potential to profoundly transform not just conflict studies, researchers or humanitarians but also healthcare professionals and students in how they view the nexus of trauma, health and healing, and to appreciate its complex human and sociopolitical dimensions, which are often overlooked."
  - Hina Shahid, Sociology of Health & Illness

"An Archive of Possibilities is a welcome contribution to the recent turn to bring theorizations about anti-Blackness in the diaspora to continental African contexts." - Scott Ross, Anthropological Quarterly

"An Archive of Possibilities is a timely ethnography that unbandages the wounds of the DRC, giving readers an understanding of the country’s historical and present-day strengths and vulnerabilities." - Mercedes Baptiste Halliday, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford