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Full-Text Articles in Political Science
Speaking Of Genocide: Double Binds And Political Discourse, Benjamin Meiches
Speaking Of Genocide: Double Binds And Political Discourse, Benjamin Meiches
Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal
Genocide scholars have always argued over the best definition of genocide. However, recent genocide studies have begun to emphasize both the ‘contestable’ nature of genocide and, paradoxically, call for clear or rigid definitions of the term. This article evaluates this tension by examining the act of defining genocide as a type of epistemological practice. Placing the act of definition in the context of a complex socio-linguistic system, the article shows how genocide discourse is subject to a variety of demands and pressures. These pressures, internal to genocide discourse, inadvertently promote restrictive and paradoxical formulations of the concept. To illustrate this …
Liberating Genocide: An Activist Concept And Historical Understanding, Tony Barta
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 …