(Un)Noticing Yemen: The Forgotten War in Yemen and Critical Genocide Studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT The war in Yemen, which began in late 2014, has received relatively little attention from genocide scholars, despite the hundreds of thousands of victims it has claimed. In this article, we examine the war through the lens of Critical Genocide Studies (CGS), as a case study of how and why a mass atrocity that leads to the destruction of a substantial part of a distinct group becomes “forgotten” or “hidden.” At the same time, we problematize previous attempts to come to terms with Yemen by critical genocide scholars. Our aim is to sharpen the challenges and conundrums that emerge when attempting to include in the study of genocide cases that are outside the “hegemonic” concept of genocide and the common “genocidal imagination.”