From Holocaust Studies to Atrocity Prevention: Genocide Studies and the Growth of Transdisciplinary Activist Scholarship

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines the transdisciplinary, activist impulse in genocide scholarship by exploring several debates that have shaped and are shaping the field, along with their implications. Although the field of genocide studies certainly includes a number of scholars who are not concerned directly with the question of prevention, this article focuses on several ontological and epistemological debates regarding how genocide scholarship can contribute to prevention. The first debate concerns the question of what the field is actually studying. The second set of debates centers on how to study genocide and its prevention. These include debates on the methodological frictions that exist between focusing on the global, national, and local, as well as between a reliance on quantitative and qualitative research in the field.