Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

‘Reclamation Road’: A Microhistory Of Massacre Memory In Clear Lake, California, Jeremiah J. Garsha

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article is a microhistory of not only the massacre of the indigenous Pomo people in Clear Lake, California, but also the memorialization of this event. It is an examination of two plaques marking the site of the Bloody Island massacre, exploring how memorial representations produce and silence historical memory of genocide under emerging and shifting historical narratives. A 1942 plaque is contextualized to show the co-option of the Pomo and massacre memory by an Anglo-American organization dedicated to settler memory. A 2005 plaque is read as a decentering of this narrative, guiding the viewer through a new hierarchy of …

Liberating Genocide: An Activist Concept And Historical Understanding, Tony Barta

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

From the outset, historians of genocide have seen themselves as activists. Among historians of colonial societies that is what distinguishes them most in relation to indigenous peoples. An ethnographic sensibility should be visible in any such study, and the more so when a question of genocide is raised. After all, if we do not have a sense of difference between peoples we fail the test of genocide at the first hurdle. And if we do not have an ethnographic sensibility towards our own cultures (including academic cultures) we will fail to make the most of our role in affecting deeply …

Killing Them Softly: Forcible Transfers Of Indigenous Children, Ruth Amir

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The forcible transfer of indigenous children in North America and Australia are part of a global phenomenon that consisted of the kidnapping, trafficking, removal, and identity changes of children of particular groups.

Article II(e) of the United Nation Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide prohibits the forcible transfer of children of a group to another group (FTC). The FTC echoes domestic and international legal norms and policies for the protection of children since early twentieth century. Its particular applicability to specific victims within a protected group – children –conveys a unique ethical position compared to the other acts …

Colonialism And Cold Genocide: The Case Of West Papua, Kjell Anderson

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Conventional understandings of genocide are rooted in the ‘Holocaust model’: intense mass killing directed at the immediate destruction of the group. Yet, such conceptions do not encompass cases of so-called “slow-motion” genocide, where the destruction of the group may occur over generations. The destruction of indigenous groups often follows such a pattern. This article examines the case of West Papua with a view to developing a new analytical model distinguishing high-intensity “hot” genocides, motivated by hate and the victims’ threatening nature, with low-intensity “cold genocides,” rooted in victims’ supposed inferiority.

Genocide's Aftermath: Neostalinism In Contemporary Crimea, Greta Uehling

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The Crimean Tatars’ genocide is one of the clearest, and yet least studied of twentieth-century genocides. This article explores that genocide’s aftermath, beginning with the Crimean Tatars’ attempts to reinscribe their presence in their historic homeland following the 1944 deportation. The ongoing contestations over the past are examined here as a historical habitus informing attitudes and behavior in the present. Drawing on unparalleled interview data with the Russian-speaking population in Crimea, I explore the durability and ontological resonance of constructions of Tatars as traitors both past and present. Ethnographic insight into the local understandings that feed exclusion, discrimination, and hatred …

A Double Dispossession: The Crimean Tatars After Russia’S Ukrainian War, Stephen Blank

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Genocide and genocidal political processes have been used by the Russian state for decades—if not centuries—as a technique of self-colonial rule intended to eliminate “dissident” ethnic identities. Within this context, the historical fate of the Crimean Tatars is surely a unique one. Despite Soviet obstructions, the Crimean Tatars eventually returned to their homeland in Crimea after suffering forced deportations and genocide at the hands of the Soviet government. Now, 70 years after their deportation and genocide by Stalin, the Crimean Tatars are still fighting for justice. Defined as an autonomous group in their own land under the Ukrainian government, the …