Title

Locality and the hidden realities of genocide

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Abstract

This article looks at the significance of local circumstances, including direct encounters between victims and assailants, in the genocide process. In what scholars term "the micropolitical turn in the study of social violence," the argument here considers the encounter from the perspectives of both constituent parties. Assailants often acted before they thought, raising questions about the premise of intention and calculation that anchors the defining Article 2 in the United Nations Genocide Convention. Victims in local encounters express in their accounts a recognition of their assailants and describe what amounts to a betrayal of the trust they invested in their compatriots. Expressions of recognition in witness accounts attenuate victims' resentment and recrimination, opening a space that permitted possibilities for postgenocide reconciliation and even qualified forgiveness. © Berghahn Journals.

Publication Title

Historical Reflections

First Page Number

30

Last Page Number

39

DOI

10.3167/hrrh.2013.390204

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