The best road to progress is freedom's road. - JFK
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Lee Ann Fujii (3 January 1962 - 2 March 2018) was an American political scientist, author, and professor, with a research focus on political violence, ethnicity, and race.
Lee Ann Fujii was born to American parents of Japanese descent, who had met during internment in World War II. Her family’s history of violence influenced her specific field of research, that of political violence, ethnicity, and race.
She graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon with a BA in music, and then worked as an actress as well as in tech in San Fransisco before pursuing her master's in international relations.
She graduated with an MA in International Relations from San Fransisco State University in 2001, with a thesis on the Rwandan Genocide. This research is reflected in her first published book, Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda. This seminal work focuses on the relationship between the social environment of communities and political violence, as well as how in the case of Rwanda, the perpetrators and instigators of the genocide filled other roles as well, that of “heroes” and “saviors”, often engaging in acts of kindness and generosity on top of acts of terror.
The structure of her published works is like her early career as an actor in California before she pursued political science. She relates acts of violence to that of performance with staging and theatrics; she understood that groups who committed these acts would do so publicly to send messages.