Jillian LaBranche

Graduate Student
University of Minnesota

Remembering the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

by Jillian LaBranche on April 7, 2023 at Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies
Today, we remember those who lost their lives 29 years ago during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.  Lasting only 100 days, April 7th, 1994, marked the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide in which over 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed as the international community and UN peacekeepers stood by. Emboldened by state-sponsored propaganda and […]

Visual Soc: Mining Love

by Isabel Arriagada and Jillian LaBranche on Feb. 8, 2022 at There's Research on That
Originally posted February 13, 2020. Over one million people will get engaged on Valentine’s Day, and as a result, diamond sales usually uptick around this time. Diamonds are both historical and cultural objects; they carry meaning for many — symbolizing love, commitment, and prestige. Diamonds are highly coveted objects, and scholars have found about 90 […]

The Erasure of Black Joy: A Film Review

by Jillian LaBranche on July 20, 2021 at Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the virtual Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival, specifically a showing of short films about activism. While I watched several shorts, it was the gut-wrenching work of Director E.G Bailey in his film “Keon” that still has me reflecting on anti-Black violence in the United States and the racial […]

Seeking Justice in Sanctuary Cities

by Jillian LaBranche on March 30, 2021 at Discoveries
Ricardo D. Martínez-Schuldt and Daniel E. Martínez, “Immigrant Sanctuary Policies and Crime-Reporting Behavior: A Multilevel Analysis of Reports of Crime Victimization to Law Enforcement, 1980 to 2004,” American Sociological Review, 2021 Although public awareness of sanctuary has increased dramatically in the last few years, sanctuary cities have actually existed since the 1980s. Sanctuary jurisdictions are […]

Gender Inequality Kills

by Jillian LaBranche on March 16, 2021 at Discoveries
Matthew D. Moore, Mark H. Heirigs, and Allison K. Barnes., “A State-Level Analysis of Gender Inequality on Male and Female Homicide,” Crime & Delinquency, 2021 Each March, we celebrate women’s history month. During this time we recognize influential women and highlight the various challenges and inequities that women face. Many scholars have shown that gender […]
More TSP with Jillian

Jillian is a PhD Candidate in the University of Minnesota’s Sociology Department. She is interested in large scale political violence (with a particular focus on the Sierra Leone Civil War and Rwandan Genocide), education, and collective memory. Her work focuses on how the naming of large scale political violence conditions the construction of national historical narratives. In her free time, she trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and enjoys watching the Boston Bruins.