History Commons^™

The Social Determinants Of Health And Genocide: Towards A Public Health Integrated Framework Of Genocide And Mass Violence, Sian Persad, Cheng Xu

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper makes a normative argument about transformations of public health as a necessary condition required in any transitional justice process. We seek to bridge the gap between the fields of genocide and public health to understand the recursive relationship between genocide and the social determinants of health. We show that structures and institutions established during genocide create enduring impacts on the public health outcomes of victim and survivor groups even after the ousting of the original perpetrators. Our comparative analysis of the Rwandan Genocide and the colonial genocide of Indigenous communities in Canada surveys the available public health literature …

Book Review: Kings, Conquerors, Psychopaths: From Alexander To Hitler To The Corporation, Tim Bakken

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The book Kings, Conquerors, Psychopaths is a survey of a vast amount of human wrongdoing. It lays bare the motivations of aggressors who wish to subjugate nations or groups of people and corporate executives and government bureaucrats who make discretionary decisions that harm people. Along with cataloging mass killings by despots and soldiers, the book includes stories about Ponzi-schemers and the deaths of automobile drivers and passengers who were killed by vehicle defects known to the manufacturer. The book posits that “[p]owerful, elite forces are trying to force us backward toward a non-democratic state, one where power, wealth, and prerogative …

Negationist Denialism In The "Comfort Women" Issue In Japan, Tetsushi Ogata

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article deals with the pervasive and entrenched nature of Japanese denialism on wartime memories, mainly focusing on the “comfort women” issue. It argues that a lens of “negationism” is more beneficial to address entrenched denialism. The net effect of denialism has been to perpetuate binary identity constructs, the deniers and the denied, one side re-engineering social relations to dominate and continue dominating the other. Conventional approaches to counter such denialism have relied heavily on truth-seeking and justice-dispensing mechanisms, but they are inept at addressing negationist denialism. The article explores a post-atrocity model of narrative and identity to go beyond …

Round Table (Part 2): Reflections & Questions, Sarah Federman

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Climate Disasters, Mass Violence, And Human Mobility In South Sudan: Through A Gender Lens, Marisa O. Ensor

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article examines the links between gender, mass violence, climate change, and displacement in South Sudan. I argue for risk-informed gender-sensitive strategies that incorporate local capacities and sources of resilience. When civil war engulfed South Sudan again in 2013, egregious human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence, were perpetrated with near complete impunity. As the national army was divided along Dinka-Nuer ethnic lines, soldiers from each faction turned against each other in a deadly pattern of revenge and counter-revenge attacks that soon spread across the national territory. Inter-communal conflicts also intensified, often centering on competition over land for pasture, …

Mass Violence, Environmental Harm, And The Limits Of Transitional Justice, Rachel Killean, Lauren Dempster

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The relationship between the environment and mass violence is complex and multi-faceted. The effects of environmental degradation can destabilize societies and cause conflict. Attacks on the environment can harm targeted groups, and both mass violence and subsequent transitions can have harmful environmental legacies. Given this backdrop, it is notable that the field of transitional justice has paid relatively little attention to the intersections between mass violence and environmental degradation. This article interrogates this inattention and explores the limitations and possibilities of transitional justice as a means of addressing the environmental harms associated with mass violence. The article makes four key …

Book Review: Armed Conflict, Women And Climate Change, Shelly Clay-Robison

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

The Experiences Of Black And Hispanic Males Retained Through Florida’S Mandatory Third Grade Retention Law, Sophia Mcmorris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There has been a constant argument that if students cannot read by third grad, then they will have an uphill struggle for the rest of their educational journey. Researchers have provided evidence signaling some truth to this claim and efforts have been established to ensure that all students receive high-quality instruction (Tweed, 2001). Many states have struggled with policies on how to correct this problem, and they have been challenged to answer whether students who cannot read proficiently by the third grade should be promoted, or if they should be pertained and provided with intensive interventions before moving on to …

Book Review: Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare As A Crime Against Humanity And Nature, Jeremy Ritzer

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The subtitle of Emmanuel Kreike’s Scorched Earth foreshadows the goal of this impressive and comprehensive contribution to the field. His goal is to chip away at the Nature-Culture dichotomy that he argues drives, and limits, much of the analysis that is produced of historical, and modern, warfare. Kreike uses the concept of environcide, which he defines as “intentionally or unintentionally damaging, destroying, or rendering inaccessible environmental infrastructure”, and argues that the traditional assumptions about nature and culture in the study of warfare obscure the importance of the natural world in determining who lives and who dies. For the field of …

Book Review: Last Train To Auschwitz The French National Railways And The Journey To Accountability, Timothy Plum

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The book Last Train to Auschwitz: The French National Railways and the Journey to Accountability, written by Sarah Federman traces the SNCF’s journey toward accountability in France and the United States. Told from the Holocaust survivors’ perspective the volume illustrates the long-term effects of the railroad’s complicity with the Nazis on individuals, and transitional justice that leads to corporate accountability. In a time when corporations are increasingly granted the same rights as people, Federman’s detailed account demonstrates the obligations businesses to atone for aiding and abetting governments in committing atrocities.

Book Review: Remembrance And Forgiveness: Global And Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Genocide And Mass Violence, Amina Hadžiomerović

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The volume Remembrance and Forgiveness, edited by Ajlina Karamehić-Muratović and Laura Kromják, brings together a diversity of disciplines, authors, and cultural contexts to discuss the legacies of the post-Holocaust era genocides by focusing on the (de)mobilisation of memory in seeking truth, justice, and forgiveness. The book provides a compendious overview of the social, historical, and political contexts behind the insurgencies and gives a better sense of understanding of (the obstacles to) the healing process and reconciliation in the global frame.

State Building In Post Conflict Rwanda: Popular Participation Of Citizen In Local Conflict Mitigation, Innocent Ndahiriwe

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

When studying local state building this article addresses the questions how does state led conflict mitigation in post conflict Rwanda work? How is it experienced by the citizens in terms of participation, accountability and local state legitimacy? Theoretically, the study engages with literature on state-building, state society relations and local conflict mitigation. The study’s findings have indicated that the citizens’ contribution to local state-building was still modest due to low motivation among the citizens involved in the conflict mitigation process due to insufficient resources and infrastructure in the conflict mitigation process, despite the fact that the state has granted legal …

Human Rights? What A Good Idea! From Universal Jurisdiction To Crime Prevention, Daniel Feierstein

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Over the last decades, Genocide Studies has entered in a “comfort zone.” With fellowships and support from governments or NGOs, we have developed a very comfortable environment in which the knowledge we produce about genocide prevention is neither critical nor useful. We have become trapped by assumptions we have never checked against reality and many of us have chosen to work inside the circle of those assumptions: genocide and mass violence are horrible acts committed by horrible people; we cannot stand by and do nothing; we have the responsibility to protect civilian populations and that responsibility takes the form, as …

Book Review: The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story Of Indian Enslavement In America, Emily A. Willard

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills In History And The Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Approach By Kathleen W. Craver, Victor J. Ricchezza, H L. Vacher

Numeracy

Kathleen W. Craver. Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Standards Approach (Lantham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2014). 191 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4758-1050-9 (cloth); ISBN …-1051-6 (pbk); ISBN…-1052-3 (electronic).

This book could be a breakthrough for teachers in the trenches who are interested in or need to know about quantitative literacy (QL). It is a resource providing 85 topical pieces, averaging 1.5 pages, in which a featured Web site is presented, described, and accompanied by 2-4 critical-thinking questions purposefully drawing on data from the Web site. The featured Web sites range from …