Genocide Studies Research Articles

Gazacide: Palestinians From Refugeehood to Ontological Obliteration

This article addresses the ongoing genocide in Gaza and argues that it must be understood in a larger historical context of settler colonialism. While Israel has always sought the completion of its settler-colonial project, I argue that the current genocide seeks immediate results of dispossession and annexation. My study examines the plight of refugees and contends that the right of return is at the center of Palestinians’ struggle. Return, land, and resistance are three key elements of the Palestinian identity that should be stressed in genocide studies. I argue that Israel’s approach before 7th October constituted slow-motion genocide and after that date its approach marked an accelerated form of genocide. I employ the new term Gazacide to encompass Israel’s approach in Gaza since the 1948 Nakba. To gain a deeper understanding of genocide and the destruction inflicted upon Gazans as a social group, I employ figurational sociology. I conclude with a discussion on culpability and intent and argue that all levels of the Israeli bureaucratic system as well as individuals must be held accountable.

Postgenocide and decolonizing approaches to peace education in the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT This article addresses the intersection of genocide studies, climate change, and peace education. It does so by examining the state of these connections, and proposes a fresh concept for considering the entanglements of contemporary violence in the Anthropocene. A notion of postgenocide sees the elements of geopolitical order, warlordism, climate change and resource exploitation. Postgenocide is an approach to mass violence occurring beyond the usual framing of state violence and intent. It aims to enrich the ongoing decolonization of peace education, as well as empower peace educators in conveying these often-complex relations in a violence-prone and climate changing world. Thinking outside of legal constraints of genocide or emotive fuzziness of climate change, educators can broaden their appeals and promote decolonized thinking of how violence works, its agents, and who it impacts in the Anthropocene. Postgenocide offers a transformative research and praxis link frame beyond globalizing Holocaust education as a stand-in for human rights education. Peace educators can leverage global concepts like postgenocide to cut through and examine the complexity of such entanglements.

Water People: Genocide, Children, and Nature in Canadian Residential Schools

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on connections between Indigenous Peoples and water to better understand the cultural destruction wrought by residential schools. We begin with an overview of how genocide studies address connections between childhood socialization and the natural world, and how human links to nature are impacted by genocide. This point is further illustrated through a discussion of the centrality of water within Anishinaabe culture, whereby relationships with water contribute to the process of becoming Anishinaabe. We note that childhood is an important time for the development of water relations. Residential schools interrupted these relationships by transforming water into a tool of violence, compelling Indigenous children to reimagine their connection to water through the lens of settler capitalism and Judeo-Christian morality. Drawing on Survivor testimonies of their childhood and relationships with water before, during, and after residential schools, we demonstrate how their ability to co-create themselves as Anishinaabe with water was stifled in residential schools. We also note Survivor testimonies where water is engaged to resist assimilation and heal trauma, evidencing how the natural world can play an ambivalent role in projects of cultural destruction.

Beyond Hate Speech and Misinformation: Facebook and the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar

ABSTRACT The case of the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar has increasingly come to illustrate the maximum evil of Facebook and its parent company, Meta. Yet most analyses of this case share a distinctive feature that radically narrows the scope of the problem: the focus is only on content that negatively characterizes the Rohingya, whether through hate speech, misinformation, or other efforts to construct them in ways that may be used to justify genocide. Such content is an important matter of concern. It warrants action, independent of causal effect. But the question of what conduct and content on Facebook may help cause violence must include analysis of a broader potential range that extends beyond characterizations of the victims. To specify some of this range, the article turns to scholarship from the field of genocide studies. In particular, it looks to the process of “in-group policing,” which involves constructing not just victims of genocide but also those who are supposed to support it. The bulk of the article then analyzes in-group policing in Myanmar and on Facebook, by offering new interpretations of publicly available evidence and drawing on observations from work in Myanmar during the five years before large-scale military attacks on the Rohingya in 2016–17. The article concludes by discussing the implications of its findings for ongoing efforts to pursue restitution and accountability for the Rohingya genocide, and proposing concrete questions with broad relevance for scholars and practitioners.

Considering Person-First Language in Genocide Studies

Numerous researchers, policymakers, and activists have advocated for the use of person-first language when referring to people who engaged in crime or violence. Such advocacy is rooted in firm evidence that person-first language (e.g. a person who committed a felony rather than a felon) is associated with lower rates of recidivism, more robust reintegration into communities, and less fear amongst members of the public. In this article, we extend this important discussion to genocide studies. Specifically, we suggest that genocide scholars — as well as policymakers, reporters, and other professionals — should consider the power tied to labelling people by their actions, as well as the impacts of these labels. To do so, we rely upon interviews with 165 people who were incarcerated for genocide in Rwanda, whom we interviewed both during their incarceration and upon their release. Given that the movement toward person-first language hinges on how people want to be labelled, we emphasize how those who committed genocide speak about themselves. Ultimately, we encourage consideration of person-first language following violence, which would involve departing from terms like perpetrator and genocidaire. We simultaneously acknowledge the discomfort in this discussion and underscore that person-first language does not remove responsibility for heinous actions. Rather, scrutinizing common terminology is part of our ethical duty to reflect upon the impact of our words.

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

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.”

Settler Antisemitism, Israeli Mass Violence, and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies

This article examines the depiction of Israel as a nation-state like any other as a mechanism of disavowing Israeli settler colonialism. It is a depiction that also brings into focus the antisemitic marginalization and violence against Jews in nation-states. In this framework, the article shows that since modern antisemitism emerged at the intersection of the nation-state system and European imperialism and colonialism, Israel as a settler nation-state also functions according to the logic of what the author calls settler antisemitism. While the racialization of Jews in the frame of White supremacy in other settler-colonial states could include Jews as immigrant settlers but never more, White supremacy in Israel has manifested itself as Jewish supremacy, which defined the project of creating a White Jewish settler society. The article concludes with a discussion of the crisis in Holocaust and genocide studies that this situation has exposed, especially in the midst of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism: Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Unprecedented Crisis to Unprecedented Change

Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism: Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Unprecedented Crisis to Unprecedented Change

Horizontal Economic Inequality and Mass Atrocity Risk: A Large-Sample Empirical Inquiry

Our research question is: Does inter-group horizontal economic inequality elevate state-perpetrated mass atrocity risk? Theoretical perspectives in genocide studies show how economic and other forms of discrimination against ethnic or religious groups can elevate the risk of government violence against them. Among the approximately five dozen large-sample empirical studies of mass atrocity risk, only a few consider the effects of economic discrimination. Moreover, no large-sample empirical studies, to the best of our knowledge, test hypotheses related to how inter-group horizontal economic inequalities (as distinct from vertical economic inequalities based on GINI coefficients or quantile income or wealth measures) affect mass atrocity risk. Drawing upon two data sources, we construct four horizontal economic inequality measures for groups within nations. The measures relate to access to economic resources in general and to electricity in particular. We then empirically test hypotheses related to horizontal economic inequality and mass atrocity risk for a sample of 175 nations spanning the period 1946–2019. We find modest support that horizontal economic inequality elevates mass atrocity risk broadly defined, but not genocide risk. We also find that vertical income inequality measures do not usually elevate mass atrocity or genocide risk.

Ethnic Tensions and Global Response: Disentangling the Complexities of the Bosnian War

This article critically examines the Bosnian War within the broader framework of international law, with a specific focus on understanding its role in managing ethnic conflicts. The aim is to analyze the effectiveness of international law in addressing the complex dynamics of ethnic strife, particularly in the context of post-Cold War Yugoslavia. The key hypothesis guiding this research posits that international legal mechanisms, while crucial, faced significant challenges and limitations in effectively resolving the ethnic conflicts that characterized the Bosnian War. The study delves into the historical and socio-political factors fueling ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia, highlighting how nationalism and ethnic separatism culminated in widespread violence. The article critically evaluates the international response to the conflict, including the effectiveness of UN Peacekeeping Forces and the Dayton Peace Agreement, and discusses the broader implications for global peace and security. Furthermore, the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is explored as a key development in international law. The study assesses the impact of the ICTY on promoting accountability and justice, and its role in facilitating reconciliation efforts post-conflict. The findings of this study have significant relevance for contemporary international law, offering insights into its potential in preventing and resolving ethnic conflicts in a rapidly changing global landscape.

Research in the information age and the risks of researcher vicarious trauma

Exposure to traumatic material during research may traumatize scholars, contributing to negative health outcomes and curtailing research work. This article argues the social sciences have been slow to address the challenges engagement with potentially traumatizing material pose to researchers. The article reviews key literature on vicarious or secondary trauma and outlines how it might affect scholars. It considers examples from the professions, and scholarly fields including the technology industry, international development, countering violent extremism studies, and genocide studies which have already begun to grapple with these challenges. A case study focused on Myanmar-focused social sciences research outlines how recent improvements in mobile phone camera technology, Internet availability, and international linkages enabled by social media increase researchers’ exposure to potentially traumatizing material. A description of Researcher Vicarious Trauma is proposed and suggestions for how scholars, institutions, and professional associations might positively tackle the contemporary challenges of Researcher Vicarious Trauma are made.

“An Asiatic Deed”: The Cambodian Genocide and the West German Right, Or a Study of an Illiberal Variant of Multidirectional Memory

ABSTRACT This article explores West German commentary on the Cambodian genocide (1975–1979) to theorize the existence of an illiberal multidirectional memory. Multidirectional memory, as defined by Michael Rothberg, involves the intercultural interaction between different memory regimes. Since Rothberg coined the term, scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies have used this concept to investigate how the memory of the Holocaust informed political battles waged in the aftermath of colonial violence. Yet, few scholars have considered how multidirectional memory functions as a tool for right-wing political commentators. Examining the West German New Right’s response to the Cambodian genocide and the Historikerstreit of 1986–1987, a famed debate over the historicization of the Holocaust, this article uncovers an illiberal variant of multidirectional memory. It shows how right-wing thinkers in the 1970s and 1980s forged multidirectional discourses, connecting Nazi and Khmer Rouge violence, to condemn the organized left and promote self-exculpatory narratives. Scholars have recently argued for the necessity of studying the right’s memory politics. This article demonstrates that such studies should feature investigations into Europe’s illiberal, multidirectional memories.

The Crime of Crimes

Genocide is a topic that is almost universally ignored by criminology. While it is frequently referred to as “the crime of crimes,” there is virtually no criminological coverage of genocide. The following analysis is a review of existing criminological literature in genocide studies, situating mainstream criminology’s ignorance of genocide in a socio-historical context in order to determine the reason(s) for this disregard. This analysis proposes that the mainstream criminological ignorance of genocide is a calculated and intentional act. Such willful blindness avoids and deflects from disciplinary accountability because of criminology’s historical complacency in genocide. Most of the existing mainstream criminological literature on genocide is criticized because of its hyperfocus on definitional arguments, the redemptive nature of such academic coverage, and the quantification of such atrocities. Thus, an argument for a critical criminological approach to genocide studies is desperately needed for criminology to interpret genocidal acts adequately.

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

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.

Introduction to the Special Issue of Holocaust and Genocide Studies on the Holocaust and Memory Cultures in the Nordic countries

Introduction to the Special Issue of Holocaust and Genocide Studies on the Holocaust and Memory Cultures in the Nordic countries

Armenian Genocide Studies: Development as a Field, Historiographic Appraisal, and the Road Ahead

This essay is a survey of the field of Armenian Genocide studies, which outlines its academic development over the past sixty years and the conditions of its production. The latter refers to the state-sponsored denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey, and to the collusion, or at least acquiescence, of some Middle East studies scholars or organizations with such a denial. The essay assesses the state of the current historiography and the issue of access to the main relevant archival sources. Finally, it points to some of the current debates and gaps in the existing literature, and possibly to the road that lies ahead. 1

The Hegemony of a Ruling Party as a Common Element in the Armenian Genocide, the Holodomor and the Holocaust

With the development of comparative genocide as the second generation of genocide studies over the last decades it became important to examine the Holodomor as a crime of genocide committed by the Communist party of the Soviet Union in comparative perspective with other genocides. In this article, the author offers a comparative analysis of the Holodomor with cases of genocide in the first half of the 20th century – namely, the Armenian genocide of the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust of Nazi Germany – from the perspective of perpetrators (organizers). The author compares the three genocides as crimes under international law in terms of one of the mental elements of genocide that characterizes each of them, noting the similarities in ruling political parties as organizers of those crimes who exercised the collective intent in each of the case of genocide under analyses. The author argues that hegemony of a ruling party: the Ittihadists, the Communists, and the Nazis which substituted the state organization was a common element in the genocides perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Third Reich. Moreover, in the ongoing Russian genocide against the Ukrainian nation with culmination since 24 February 2022, it is again the ruling party – Yedinaya Rosiya (Single Russia) which is the foundation of Russian totalitarian regime that organized this crime of genocide.

How Soon We Forget: National Myth-Making and Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

ABSTRACT Scholars in genocide studies have covered much ground in identifying causes and consequences of genocides. But much less has been done in the area of genocide recognitions: Why have countries recognized some genocides but not others? Strategic and economic relations with perpetrator states, or the influence of diasporan ethnic minorities are often assumed as causes, but we propose that conceptions of national identity may underlie these other factors. We explore a case that other factors do not readily explain: Given New Zealand’s previous bold stances on human rights, its strong self-identity as a human rights supporter, its recognition of some genocides, and its active and vociferous support of Armenians before, during and after the genocide, why does it refuse to recognize the Armenian genocide? We explore New Zealand’s reversal of attitudes by analyzing its public and official discourse in three time periods – first at the time of the Armenian genocide; second, in the late twentieth century when new narratives of national identity, enthusiasm for trade relations with Turkey, and the Anzac myth were established, and third, in the contemporary era, in which successive governments continue to refuse recognition. While we think the anticipated closer economic relations with Turkey during the second timeframe helped drive the shift, we theorize that New Zealand’s current refusal to recognize the genocide is grounded in the construction of its national identity during the second period – particularly in the establishment of the Anzac myth. This involved a changing portrayal of “the Turks” from enemy to fellow victims of the evils of war and imperial invasion, and modern-day Turkey as the sacred “home” of New Zealand’s war dead.

The Power of Personal Archives in Witnessing, Teaching, and Visual Storytelling: The Armenian Memory Project

Abstract The Armenian Memory Project (AMP) is a collaborative effort designed to harness the energy and resources of the University of Connecticut and the New England Armenian community for the goal of fostering greater understanding of the region’s Armenian cultural heritage and the impact human rights crimes had on the Armenian community. In 2019, students and faculty from the university worked with Armenian American institutions and individuals on an initial component of the AMP, employing digital media technology to tell the story of one immigrant Armenian family, the Dildilians. A unique course was created to produce a documentary film centring around this family’s experiences in Ottoman Turkey before, during, and after the Armenian Genocide. Designed and taught by a documentary filmmaker with support from a family archivist/historian, the course brought students together in a collaborative learning experience. By immersing themselves in the family’s extensive photograph archive, these students came to understand the important role that the past continues to play in the lives of present-day Armenians. Furthermore, by taking on the responsibility as storytellers of the Dildilian narrative, students developed a deeper identification with this distant history and, in a wider sense, an appreciation for the ethical value of memory in bearing witness to the past. This collaborative and participatory framework for teaching using archival collections can serve as a model for creating a transformative learning experience in the study of human rights, war, and genocide.

Queering the Responsibility to Protect

Abstract Research on the Responsibility to Protect has become increasingly intersectional with over two decades of research; however, there remains a blind spot on the persecution of queer people. This is surprising given that queer people have been persecuted in atrocity crimes as far back as the Holocaust. While the field of genocide studies has recently begun to engage with this area, we frame queer persecution more broadly around the four R2P crimes. In this article we set out the rationale and urgency for including a queer lens in the prevention of atrocity crimes. This is not only about a focus on queer people; we argue for a queer politics and ethics that ceaselessly interrogates all relations of power. We outline the scale of the gap in academic research, policy and state understandings of R2P. Since R2P is often framed as a foreign policy matter by western states, with the global South as the object of R2P, we include two case-studies on escalating persecution against LGBTI+ people in Europe: the United Kingdom and Hungary. We argue that the R2P research and policy communities should remove what we call the ‘cishetronormative blindfold’ and engage more broadly with intersectional approaches to atrocity prevention.