Genocide studies is an academic field of study that researches

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

. Genocide became a field of study in the mid-1940s, with the work of

Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin ( pl, Rafał Lemkin; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is best known for coining the term ''genocide'' and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocid ...

, who coined ''genocide'' and started genocide research, and its primary subjects were the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...

and

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...

; 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

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu ...

occurred. It received further attraction in the 2010s through the formation of a gender field. It is a complex field which has a lack of consensus on definition principles and has had a complex relationship with mainstream

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

; 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.

History

Background

The beginning of

research arose around the 1940s when

, 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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. 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 Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

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.

1990s

Starting off as a side field to Holocaust studies, several scholars continued Lemkin's genocide research, and the 1990s saw a strong growth in academic journals, such as the '' Genocide Studies and Prevention'' and the '' Journal of Genocide Research'', within the field. The major reason for this increase in research can be traced back to the

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 Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states ( war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (for ...

, 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 Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...

roots and reliance on methodological approaches that did not convince mainstream political science; in addition, genocide studies are explicitly committed to

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional ...

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.

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. Anton Weiss-Wendt describe comparative genocide studies, which include an activist goal of preventing genocide, as having been a failure in genocide prevention.

2010s

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

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-Herzegonia and Rwanda, in which war crimes tribunals acknowledged that several women were raped and men were sexually abused.

Feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

scholars study the differences between males and females during genocide by studying the lives of women survivors during the Holocaust. Similar research on the

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 Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

History

Background

1990s

2000s

2010s

Gender field

See also

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Further reading