Genocide studies

Last updated September 17, 2024

Genocide studies is an academic field of study that researches genocide. Genocide became a field of study in the mid-1940s, with the work of Raphael Lemkin, who coined genocide and started genocide research, and its primary subjects were the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust;^[1] the Holocaust was the primary subject matter of genocide studies, starting off as a side field of Holocaust studies, and the field received an extra impetus in the 1990s, when the Bosnian genocide and Rwandan genocide occurred.^[2] It received further attraction in the 2010s through the formation of a gender field.^[3]

It is a complex field which has a lack of consensus on definition principles^[4] and has had a complex relationship with mainstream political science;^{[ clarification needed ]} it has enjoyed renewed research and interest in the last decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century. It remains a relevant yet minority school of thought that has not yet achieved mainstream status within political science.^[5]

History

Background

The beginning of genocide research arose around the 1940s when Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, began studying genocide.^[1] Known as the "father of the genocide convention", Lemkin invented the term genocide and studied it during World War II.^[6] In 1944, Lemkin's book Axis Rule introduced his idea of genocide, which he defined as "the destruction of a nation or ethnic group"; after his book was published, controversy broke out concerning the specific definition. Many scholars believed that genocide is naturally associated with mass murder, the Holocaust being the first case; there were also several other scholars who believed that genocide has a much broader definition and is not strictly tied to the Holocaust.^[7] In his book, Lemkin wrote that "physical and biological genocide are always preceded by cultural genocide or by an attack on the symbols of the group or violent interference of cultural activities."^[8] For Lemkin, genocide is the annihilation of a group's culture even if the group themselves are not completely destroyed.^[9]

After the publication of Lemkin's 1944 book, Israel Charny sees Pieter Drost's 1959 publication of The Crime of State and a 1967 Congress for the Prevention of Genocide held by La Société Internacionale de Prophalylaxie Criminelle in Paris as two of the few notable events in genocide research prior to the 1970s.^[10]

1970s/1980s

Charny credits the main launch of genocide studies to four books published in the late 1970s/early 1980s: Genocide: State Power and Mass Murder, by Irving Louis Horowitz in 1976; Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization in the Holocaust, by Helen Fein in 1979; Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, by Leo Kuper in 1981; his own 1982 book, How Can We Commit the Unthinkable? Genocide: The Human Cancer; and Genocide and Human Rights: A Global Anthology, by Jack Nusan Porter in 1982. He argues that although Fein's book did not directly refer to genocides other than the Holocaust, its comparison of genocide in different countries occupied by the Nazis "laid groundwork for thinking about comparative studies of genocide in general".^[10]

1990s

Starting off as a side field to Holocaust studies, several scholars continued Lemkin's genocide research, and the 1990s saw the creation of an academic journal specific to the field, the Journal of Genocide Research . The major reason for this increase in research, according to Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses, can be traced back to the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s, which showed Western scholars the prevalence of genocide.^[2] Despite growth in the preceding decades, it remained a minority school of thought that developed in parallel to, rather than in conversation with, the work on other areas of political violence, and mainstream political scientists rarely engaged with the most recent work on comparative genocide studies.^[5] Such separation is complex but at least in part stems from its humanities roots and reliance on methodological approaches that did not convince mainstream political science;^[5] in addition, genocide studies are explicitly committed to humanitarian activism and praxis as a process, whereas the earlier generations of scholars who studied genocide did not find much interest among mainstream political science journals or book publishers, and decided to establish their own journals and organizations.^[5]

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) was created in 1994, with Fein as its first president. Charny credits the plan to create the IAGS with Fein, Robert Melson, Roger W. Smith, and himself meeting at a 1988 Holocaust conference in London in which the four participated in a session on genocides other than the Holocaust.^[10]

2000s

In the 2000s, the field of comparative genocide studies lacked consensus on the definition of genocide, a typology (classification of genocide types), a comparative method of analysis, and on time frames.^[4] Anton Weiss-Wendt describe comparative genocide studies, which include an activist goal of preventing genocide, as having been a failure in genocide prevention.^[4]

In 2005, a second international association of genocide scholars, the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS), was created.^[11] In 2006, the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention was launched by Charny on behalf of the IAGS.^[10]

2010s

In the 2010s, genocide scholarship rarely appeared in mainstream disciplinary journals, despite growth in the amount of research.^[5]

2020s

In the 2020s, following the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, genocide and Holocaust scholars published their evidence and analyses of allegations of genocide in the Hamas-led attack and on the topic of Gaza genocide. Raz Segal and Luigi Daniele argued that a crisis in the overlapping fields of studies occurred, stating, "We argue that the crisis stems from the significant evidence for genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza, which has exposed the exceptional status accorded to Israel as a foundational element in the field, that is, the idea that Israel, the state of Holocaust survivors, can never perpetrate genocide."^[12] Omar McDoom, describing the two fields of study together as HGS (Holocaust and genocide studies), observed a split in the HGS community in which "Israel-uncritical" researchers saw "only Hamas [as having] transgressed", while another part of the community saw "both sides [being] engaged in legally and morally problematic violence". McDoom's analysis found "evidence strongly suggestive of bias in favour of Israel" by a part of the community and made recommendations on "ethical obligations and good practices for scholars engaged in public commentary" in the field.^[13]

Gender field

In 2010, the study of genocide connected to gender was a new field of study and was considered as a specialty topic within the broader field of genocide research. The field attracted research attention after the genocides of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda, in which war crimes tribunals acknowledged that several women were raped and men were sexually abused.^[3] Feminist scholars study the differences between males and females during genocide by studying the lives of women survivors during the Holocaust.^[14] Similar research on the Armenian genocide has explored the representation of Armenian women as victims with specific focus on the film Ravished Armenia . These studies focus on the power of representations to disempower the object of the representation (as "the Armenian women"). Some scholars argue that representations of rape, when they become disempowering, can be viewed as acts of violence themselves.^[15]

Related Research Articles

Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people.

Mass killing is a concept which has been proposed by genocide scholars who wish to define incidents of non-combat killing which are perpetrated by a government or a state. A mass killing is commonly defined as the killing of group members without the intention to eliminate the whole group, or otherwise the killing of large numbers of people without a clear group membership.

Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who is known for coining the term genocide and campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention. During the Second World War, he campaigned vigorously to raise international awareness of atrocities in Axis-occupied Europe. It was during this time that Lemkin coined the term "genocide" to describe Nazi Germany's extermination policies.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is an international non-partisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes, and consequences of genocide, including the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Bangladesh, Sudan, and other nations. The IAGS also advances policy studies on the prevention of genocide. The association's members consider comparative research, case studies, links between genocide and other human rights violations, predictive models for prevention of genocide, and tribunals and courts for the punishment of genocide. The organization's membership includes academics, anti-genocide activists, artists, genocide survivors, journalists, jurists, and public policy makers. Membership is open to interested persons worldwide.

Leo Kuper was a South African sociologist specialising in the study of genocide.

The Journal of Genocide Research is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies of genocide. Established in 1999, for the first six years it was not peer-reviewed. Since December 2005, it is the official journal of the International Network of Genocide Scholars. Previous editors have been Henry R. Huttenbach, Dominik J. Schaller, and Jürgen Zimmerer. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Political Science Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, and America: History and Life. As of 2022, the journal is published by Routledge and the editor-in-chief is A. Dirk Moses.

Genocide definitions include many scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide, a word coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. The word is a compound of the ancient Greek word γένος and the Latin word caedō ("kill"). While there are various definitions of the term, almost all international bodies of law officially adjudicate the crime of genocide pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG).

Israel W. Charny is an Israeli psychologist and genocide scholar. He is the editor of two-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide, and executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.

Donald Bloxham FRHistS is a Professor of Modern History, specialising in genocide, war crimes and other mass atrocities studies. He is the editor of the Journal of Holocaust Education.

The assertion that the Holocaust was a unique event in human history was important to the historiography of the Holocaust, but it has come under increasing criticism in the twenty-first century. Related claims include the claim that the Holocaust is external to history, beyond human understanding, a civilizational rupture, and something that should not be compared to other historical events. Uniqueness approaches to the Holocaust also coincide with the view that antisemitism is not another form of racism and prejudice but is eternal and teleologically culminates in the Holocaust, a frame that is preferred by proponents of Zionist narratives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape during the Armenian genocide</span> 1915–1917 war crimes in the Ottoman Empire

During the Armenian genocide, which occurred in the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of the CUP, Armenian women in the Ottoman Empire were targets of a systematic campaign of genocidal rape, and other acts of violence against women described by scholars as "instruments of genocide" including kidnapping, forced prostitution, sexual mutilation and forced marriage into the perpetrator group.

Anthony Dirk Moses is an Australian scholar who researches various aspects of genocide. In 2022 he became the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of Political Science at the City College of New York, after having been the Frank Porter Graham Distinguished Professor of Global Human Rights History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a leading scholar of genocide, especially in colonial contexts, as well as of the political development of the concept itself. He is known for coining the term racial century in reference to the period 1850–1950. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research.

War and genocide studies is an interdisciplinary subject that identifies and analyzes the relationship between war and genocide, as well as the structural foundations of associated conflicts. Disciplines involved may include political science, geography, economics, sociology, international relations, and history.

The relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust has been discussed by scholars. The majority of scholars believe that there is a direct causal relationship between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, however, some of them do not believe that there is a direct causal relationship between the two genocides.

The connection between colonialism and genocide has been explored in academic research. According to historian Patrick Wolfe, "[t]he question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism." Historians have commented that although colonialism does not necessarily directly involve genocide, research suggests that the two share a connection.

The International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide was the first major conference in the field of genocide studies, held in Tel Aviv on 20–24 June 1982. It was organized by Israel Charny, Elie Wiesel, Shamai Davidson, and their Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, founded in 1979. The conference's objective was to further the understanding and prevention of all genocides; it marked the shift from viewing genocide as an irrational phenomenon to one that could be studied and understood.

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group's conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

This is a select annotated bibliography of scholarly English language books and journal articles about the subject of genocide studies; for bibliographies of genocidal acts or events, please see the See also section for individual articles. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included for items related to the development of genocide studies. Book entries may have references to journal articles and reviews as annotations. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External links section contains entries for publicly available materials on the development of genocide studies.

Below is an outline of articles on the academic field of genocide studies and subjects closely and directly related to the field of genocide studies; this is not an outline of acts or events related to genocide or topics loosely or sometimes related to the field of genocide studies. The Event outlines section contains links to outlines of acts of genocide.

References

Footnotes

1 2 Bloxham & Moses 2010, p. 2; Moses 2010, p. 22.
1 2 Bloxham & Moses 2010, p. 2.
1 2 Von Joeden-Forgey 2010, p. 61.
1 2 3 Weiss-Wendt 2008, p. 42.
1 2 3 4 5 Verdeja 2012, p. 307.
↑ Bloxham & Moses 2010, p. 2; Moses 2010, pp. 19, 21.
↑ Moses 2010, p. 32.
↑ Moses 2010, p. 34.
↑ Moses 2010, p. 35.
1 2 3 4 Israel Charny (2024). "A Personal Autobiographical Essay on the Origins and Beginning Years of Genocide Studies, and Some Reflections on the Field Today". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 17 (3). ISSN 1911-0359. Wikidata Q127976569. Archived from the original on 8 July 2024.
↑ USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research Will Host the 2024 International Network of Genocide Scholars Convention, USC Shoah Foundation, 8 August 2022, Wikidata Q127984049, archived from the original on 28 July 2024
↑ Raz Segal; Luigi Daniele (5 March 2024). "Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism: Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Unprecedented Crisis to Unprecedented Change" . Journal of Genocide Research . doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2325804. ISSN 1462-3528. Wikidata Q127945239. Archived from the original on 21 June 2024.
↑ Omar Shahabudin McDoom (25 April 2024). "Expert Commentary, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and the Question of Genocide: Prosemitic Bias within a Scholarly Community?". Journal of Genocide Research . doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2346403. ISSN 1462-3528. Wikidata Q127943398. Archived from the original on 27 July 2024.
↑ Von Joeden-Forgey 2010, p. 63.
↑ Chabot et al. 2016, p. needed.

Bibliography

Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (2010). "Editors' Introduction: Changing Themes in the Study of Genocide". In Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–15. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199232116.013.0001 . ISBN 978-0-19-923211-6.
Chabot, Joceline; Godin, Richard; Kappler, Stefanie; Kasparian, Sylvia (2016). Mass Media and the Genocide of the Armenians: One Hundred Years of Uncertain Representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-34-956606-8.
Moses, A. Dirk (2010). "Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide". In Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 19ff. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199232116.013.0002. ISBN 978-0-19-923211-6.
Von Joeden-Forgey, Elisa (2010). "Gender and Genocide". In Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 61ff. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199232116.013.0004. ISBN 978-0-19-923211-6.
Verdeja, Ernesto (June 2012). "The Political Science of Genocide: Outlines of an Emerging Research Agenda". Perspectives on Politics. 10 (2). Washington, D.C.: American Political Science Association: 307–321. doi:10.1017/S1537592712000680. JSTOR 41479553. S2CID 145170749.
Weiss-Wendt, Anton (2008). "Problems in Comparative Genocide Scholarship". In Stone, Dan (ed.). The Historiography of Genocide. London: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230297784. ISBN 978-0-230-29778-4.