Ontologically dirty knots: the production of numbers after the Srebrenica genocide (original) (raw)
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Social studies of science, 2016
In 1984, a group of Argentine students, trained by US academics, formed the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team to apply the latest scientific techniques to the excavation of mass graves and identification of the dead, and to work toward transitional justice. This inaugurated a new era in global forensic science, as groups of scientists in the Global South worked outside of and often against local governments to document war crimes in post-conflict settings. After 2001, however, with the inauguration of the war on terror following the September 11(th) attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, global forensic science was again remade through US and European investment to increase preparedness in the face of potential terrorist attacks. In this paper, I trace this shift from human rights to humanitarian forensics through a focus on three moments in the history of post-conflict identification science. Through a close attention to the material semiotic networks of forensic science...
Terms such as ‘relationship testing’, ‘familial searching’ and ‘kinship analysis’ figure prominently in professional practices of disaster victim identification (DVI). However, despite the dependence of those identification technologies on DNA samples from people who might be related to the dead and despite also the prominence of the notion of ‘relatedness’ as a device for identifying the dead, the concepts of ‘relatedness’ and ‘kinship’ remain elusive both in practice and in analyses of the social and ethical aspects of DVI by DNA; they are hidden in full sight. In this article we wish to bring kinship more to the fore. We achieve this through a case study of a setting where bio-legal framings dominate, that is, in the trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of Radovan Karadžić for the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. DNA samples from the families of those massacred in Srebrenica were vital for the identification of individual victims but are now also utilized as ‘evidence’ by both the prosecution and the defence. By viewing practices of science (‘evidence’ and ‘identification’) and legal practices (‘justice’, ‘prosecution’ and ‘defence’) through the lens of kinship studies, we will present some alternative and complementary framings for the social accomplishment of ‘relatedness’.
Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
Abstract: This article analyses different criminological approaches to modern genocide. It starts from a critical review of authors (René Girard, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, and Alejandro Alagia) who explain genocide in terms of sacrificial violence; it contrasts these perspectives with Jean Piaget’s empirically based distinction between two kinds of social relations: relations of constraint and relations of cooperation, and the different sanctions pertaining to each, developing tools to understand more complex ways of causality. Next, it reviews comparative studies of genocide, ignored in the works of the previous authors. The objective for doing it is to compare different causal explanations of genocide to add complexity to the previous analysis. Finally, it revisits Raphael Lemkin’s pioneering vision of the role of annihilation in destroying identity. It argues that Lemkin provided some insights for a new criminological approach to genocide seen as a technology of power seeking to transform the social fabric with the terror of concentration camps.
This article explores the dynamics and challenges of undertaking human identifications in states experiencing armed conflict or emerging therefrom. It emphasises the integral role of the State in human identifications and the need for the legal acts of the State in identifying an individual and confirming their death to be integrated into any humanitarian response to repatriating the dead. Conflict-related mass fatalities occur in uncontrolled circumstances, making DNA-based human identifications necessary. In states lacking the necessary forensic infrastructure, the promise of expedited human identifications through outsourcing DNA work can lead to the State abdicating the necessary jurisdiction and scientific transparency over DNA samples and their analysis. This raises important issues of consent, privacy and human rights. Furthermore, attempts to minimise initial delays in human identifications at the expense of building local knowledge, skills and necessary legal frameworks risks undermining the legitimacy of the human identification effort. Through analysis of the cases of Guatemala, the former Yugoslavia, and Libya, the authors conclude that human identification efforts cannot be separated from the need for a long-term integrated solution within a transitional justice context in which accountability and the right to the truth are addressed as part of a political solution.
Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation (Introduction, 2009)
The study of violence has often focused on the political and economic conditions under which violence is generated, the suffering of victims, and the psychology of its interpersonal dynamics. Less familiar are the role of perpetrators, their motivations, and the social conditions under which they are able to operate. In the context of postcolonial state building and more latterly the collapse and implosion of society, community violence, state repression, and the phenomena of judicial inquiries in the aftermath of civil conflict, there is a need to better comprehend the role of those who actually do the work of violence-torturers, assassins, and terrorists-as much as the role of those who suffer its consequences.
Collectivist Logic in Comparative Genocide Studies and in the Battles for Memory
„Narracje o Zagładzie” 2020, nr 6, 2020
Abstract: The article aims to present the mechanisms of collectivist logic as it functions in three areas: (1) in the historical comparative analysis of genocides – the basic method of genocide studies; (2) in the activities of the organizations of victims and survivors, as well as in actions undertaken by animal rights activists; (3) in nationalist discourses and in the politics of memory. Collectivist logic is a set of operations that address human communities – groups of individuals linked together by significant social bonds and interests, and perceived as culturally distinctive – as the subject of history. As a result of the application of such logic, we may think about collective guilt and collective merit. The article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of historical comparative analysis as an essential methodological tool of genocide studies. The argument further focuses upon the use of the symbolic capital attributed to the term “genocide” in studies involving analyses comparing other crimes – as well as the industrial exploitation of animals – to genocides. Finally, the author describes the relationship between the state policy of memory, nationalist discourses, and the academic integrity of genocide scholars. Keywords: historical comparative analysis, genocides, genocide studies, politics of memory
2020
This book is concerned with the connection between the formal structure of agency and the formal structure of genocide. The contributors employ philosophical approaches to explore the idea of genocidal violence as a structural element in the world. Logics of Genocide will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy, critical theory, genocide studies, Holocaust and Jewish studies, history, and anthropology.
Peace and Conflict Resolution Conference 2018 Conference Proceedings , 2018
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), an emerging norm in international relations dedicated to mass atrocity prevention and response, has enjoyed meteoric success. Though R2P remains controversial, many observers have argued that the scope and speed of its progress in the normative arena is unparalleled. The principle puzzle in this paper is about explaining why it and none of any number of alternative ideas dedicated to alleviating mass human suffering have moved neither as far nor as fast as R2P. This question is important because the elevation of concern for mass atrocity crimes over other sources of mass human suffering, such as extreme poverty or infectious diseases, promises to reveal something about the social and material composition of international society. To tackle this sort of problem, I develop in the first half of this paper a theoretical framework for unpacking the constituent elements of the R2P “idea” – its meanings, as Epstein emphasizes – which seems to enjoy such a privileged place in the current pantheon of ideas. For it is those constituent meanings – the intersubjective building blocks of competing norms – that explain, as we will see, the transformation of the discourse of mass human suffering into one that emphasizes not necessarily those who suffer but those whose security interests are said to be threatened by such suffering. To assess the validity of this framework I employ it in an examination of the ways in which advocates have sought to gain international society’s favor and resources to manage three equally compelling vectors of human tragedy: mass atrocity crimes, HIV/AIDS (hereafter “AIDS”), and global extreme poverty (hereafter “poverty”).
Subject to Surveillance: Genocide Law As Epistemology of the Object
2011
This article analyzes the discourse on genocide from two angles: the legal genesis of the term in the 1940s and subsequent legal "capture" of the concept of genocide, and a recent socio-political critique of the legal meaning of genocide. The article suggests that a cross-disciplinary critique of genocidal violence not only describes the event and the victim, but also produces knowledge of them as discursive "objects." The key issue is the "surveillance" role of the outside observer, also produced as such in discursive relation to the object. At stake in this view of genocide law as epistemology is the capacity to reimagine law in order to help us make hard choices about how, whether, and when to intervene in events that may be characterized as genocide.