Genocide Studies

Pathways Ahead

Edited by Jeffrey S. Bachman

SERIES: Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights

Rutgers University Press

In recent years, the world has been shaken by numerous events that have caused and continue to cause massive human suffering, from the COVID-19 pandemic to intrastate and interstate armed conflicts. Moreover, climate change continues to plow ahead, contributing to growing tensions, population movements, and resource scarcity. Meanwhile, the methods by which groups and group life are threatened, and the means by which violence is incited and perpetrated, continue to evolve. Such divergent crises, even when they overlap or intersect, confound definition and label. This book seeks not to answer the question, "What is genocide?" but rather "What is Genocide Studies?" When Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in 1944 he could not have foreseen what the world would look like today. Now is the time to think about current manifestations of genocide and those likely to emerge in the future.

In this paradigm-shifting collection, Jeffrey Bachman assembles authors who are prepared to transcend the boundaries of conventional thinking about genocide. What the 'destruction of nations' means in the age of climate change, pandemics, machine-driven killing, and other challenges to the existence and flourishing of humans is radically rethought in Genocide Studies: Pathways Ahead.' A.Dirk Moses, author of The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression

Jeffrey S. Bachman is an associate professor at American University's School of International Service. He is the author of The Politics of Genocide: From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect (Rutgers University Press, 2022) and The United States and Genocide: (Re)Defining the Relationship, and the editor of Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations.

Preface: Charting Pathways Ahead for Genocide Studies
Jeffrey S. Bachman
Chapter 1: The Need for Education about the Holocaust and Genocide in the 21st Century
Sara E. Brown

Part I: Evolving and Emerging Forms and Tools of Genocide
Chapter 2: The New Prominence of Alternative forms of Genocidal Violence
Esther Brito
Chapter 3: Genocide, “Destitucide,” and the Covid-19 Pandemic
Adam Jones
Chapter 4: Resource Induced Mass Atrocity: Famine as Genocide in the Era of Climate Change
Elisabeth Hope Murray
Chapter 5: Genocide in the Digital Era
Timothy Williams

Part II: Agency, Human-Nonhuman Relations, Social Being, and Identity
Chapter 6: Weapons, Agency, and Genocide
Benjamin Meiches
Chapter 7: “We Are Our Mountains”: Pathways toward a Post-Anthropocentric Genocide Studies
Andrew Woolford and Wanda June
Chapter 8: Ecocidio and Genocidas: Anthropological Reflections on Existence and Extermination in Latin America
Eva van Roekel
Chapter 9: Reentry and Reintegration Following Genocide: Emerging Findings from Post-1994 Rwanda
Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira and Jamie D. Wise

Part III: Genocide Studies and Permanent Security
Chapter 10: Accounting for Permanent Security: The Light and Shadow of Transitional Justice
Lauren M. Balasco
Chapter 11: Permanent Security: Unsettling Genocide Studies
Jeffrey S. Bachman

Related Titles