Genocide studies
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. 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. It is a complex field which lacks consensus on definition principles.
The field emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, as social science began to consider the phenomenon of genocide. Due to the Bosnian genocide, Rwandan genocide, and the Kosovo crisis, genocide studies exploded in the 1990s. In contrast to earlier researchers who assumed that liberal and democratic societies were less likely to commit genocide, revisionists associated with the International Network of Genocide Scholars considered how Western ideas led to genocide. The genocides of indigenous peoples as part of European colonialism were initially not recognized as genocide. Patrick Wolfe spelled out the genocidal logic of settler projects in places like the Americas and Australia. Nevertheless, most genocide research focuses on twentieth-century genocides, while many other cases are understudied. Many genocide scholars are concerned both with objective study of the topic, and helping prevent future genocides.
Definitions
The definition of genocide generates controversy whenever a new case arises and debate erupts as to whether or not it qualifies as a genocide. Sociologist Martin Shaw writes, "Few ideas are as important in public debate, but in few cases are the meaning and scope of a key idea less clearly agreed." Perceptions of genocide vary between seeing it as "an extremely rare and difficult to prove crime", to one that can be found, couched in euphemistic language, in any history book.Some scholars and activists use the Genocide Convention definition. Others prefer narrower definitions that reduce genocide to mass killing or distinguish it from other types of violence by the innocence, helplessness, or defencelessness of its victims. Most genocides occur during wartime, and distinguishing genocide or genocidal war from non-genocidal warfare can be difficult. Likewise, genocide is distinguished from violent and coercive forms of rule that aim to change behavior rather than destroy groups. Isolated or short-lived phenomena that resemble genocide can be termed genocidal violence.
Cultural genocide or ethnocide refers to actions targeted at the reproduction of a group's language, culture, or way of life. Although left out of the Genocide Convention, most genocide scholars believe that both cultural genocide and structural violence should be included in the definition of genocide, if committed with intent to destroy the targeted group. Many of the more sociologically oriented definitions of genocide overlap that of the crime against humanity of extermination, large-scale killing or induced death as part of a systematic attack on a civilian population. Although included in Lemkin's original concept and by some scholars, political and social groups were also excluded from the Genocide Convention. As a consequence, perpetrators attempt to evade the stigma of genocide by labeling their targets as a political or military enemy.
Criticism of the concept of genocide and alternatives
Most civilian killings in the twentieth century were not from genocide. Alternative terms have been coined to describe processes left outside narrower definitions of genocide. Ethnic cleansing—the forced expulsion of a population from a given territory—has achieved widespread currency, although many scholars recognize that it frequently overlaps with genocide, even where Lemkin's definition is not used. Other terms ending in -cide have proliferated for the destruction of particular types of groupings: democide, eliticide, ethnocide, gendercide, politicide, classicide, and urbicide.The word genocide inherently carries a value judgement as it is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil. Although genocidal violence has at times been celebrated by its perpetrators and observers, it always had its critics. The idea that genocide sits on top of a hierarchy of atrocity crimes—worse than crimes against humanity or war crimes—is controversial among scholars and suggests that the protection of groups is more important than of individuals and the intention of states is more important than the suffering of civilian victims of violence. A. Dirk Moses and other scholars argue that the prioritization of genocide causes other causes of civilian deaths, such as blockades, bombing, and other "collateral damage" to not be considered in study and response.
Underlying assumptions
Perceptions of genocide vary between seeing it as "an extremely rare and difficult to prove crime", to one that can be found, couched in euphemistic language, in any history book. Some scholars and activists use the Genocide Convention definition. Genocide can be seen as a form of large-scale political violence with the purpose of group destruction. Others prefer narrower definitions that indicate genocide is rare in human history, reducing genocide to mass killing or distinguishing it from other types of violence by the innocence, helplessness, or defencelessness of its victims. Most genocides occur during wartime, and distinguishing genocide or genocidal war from non-genocidal warfare can be difficult. Likewise, genocide is distinguished from violent and coercive forms of rule that aim to change behavior rather than destroy groups. Some definitions include political or social groups as potential victims of genocide. Many of the more sociologically oriented definitions of genocide overlap that of the crime against humanity of extermination, which refers to large-scale killing or induced death as part of a systematic attack on a civilian population. Isolated or short-lived phenomena that resemble genocide can be termed genocidal violence.The field remains based on an underlying implicit condemnation of genocide and the goal of preventing, prohibiting, and abolishing it.
History
Background
The beginning of genocide research arose around the 1940s when Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, began studying genocide. Known as the 'father of the genocide convention,' Lemkin invented the term genocide and studied it during World War II. 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. 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." For Lemkin, genocide is the annihilation of a group's culture even if the group themselves are not completely destroyed.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.
Debate on the definitions of Genocide and its legal implications started in the Nuremberg trials. However, Genocide was not declared to be against international law, and it did not take center stage on the Nuremberg trials. Some suggest that a lack of Jewish representation in the trials resulted in the targeted crimes against the Jewish people not being voiced adequately. The Soviet Union provided the only Jewish testimony heard in the trials. The Polish trials were the first to implement Lempkin's idea of Genocide by declaring a Polish Genocide.
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".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. 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. 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; 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.The International Association of Genocide Scholars 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.