Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation (The Cultures and Practice of Violence) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 082234405X ISBN 13: 9780822344056

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2009

Synopsis

What happens to people and the societies in which they live after genocide? How are the devastating events remembered on the individual and collective levels, and how do these memories intersect and diverge as the rulers of post-genocidal states attempt to produce a more monolithic 'truth' about the past? In this important volume, leading anthropologists consider such questions about the relationship of genocide, truth, memory, and representation in the Balkans, Guatemala, Indonesia, East Timor, Germany, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, and other locales. Specialists on the societies they write about, these anthropologists draw on ethnographic research to provide on-the-ground analyses of communities in the wake of mass brutality. They investigate how mass violence is described or remembered, and how those representations are altered by the attempts of others, ranging from NGOs to governments, to assert 'the truth' about outbreaks of violence. One contributor questions the neutrality of an international group monitoring violence in Sudan and the assumption that, at worst, such groups are benign. Another examines the consequences of how events, victims, and perpetrators are portrayed by the Rwandan government on the annual day marking that country's 1994 genocide. Still another explores the silence around the deaths of 80,000-100,000 people on Bali during Indonesia's state-sponsored anticommunist violence of 1965-66, a genocidal period that until only recently was rarely referenced in tourist guidebooks, anthropological studies on Bali, or even among the Balinese themselves. Other contributors consider issues of political identity and legitimacy, coping, the media, and 'ethnic cleansing'. "Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation" reveals the major contribution that cultural anthropologists can make to the study of genocide.

About this title

Review

"This volume brings rich historical and contemporary ethnographic material to bear on the urgent task of writing against violence and terror. The volume benefits greatly from the long-term professional commitments of anthropologists working in settings embroiled in violence and engaging with peoples suffering the ongoing sequelae and cycles of genocidal terror." --Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio and co-editor of Violence in War and Peace

"Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation brings the scholarship on genocide to a new level. The editors have assembled a superb group of anthropologists who demonstrate that innovative research and deep, probing questions can also be accompanied by great empathy for victims. Every chapter inspires a rethinking of received categories without ever losing sight of the immense, tragic dimension of genocide."-- --Eric D. Weitz, author of A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation

From the Author

Alexander Laban Hinton is Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and Associate Professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs at Rutgers University, Newark. He is the author of Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide and editor of Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide.

Kevin Lewis O’Neill is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Edition details

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 082234405X
• ISBN 13: 9780822344056
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 350
• Editor: Hinton