Genocide, Geographies of

Geographies of Genocide as a Field of Study

Genocide, literally meaning “race murder,” was coined by Raphael Lemkin during his lifelong struggle to garner international support against mass extermination. His crowning achievement, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. The Genocide Convention defines genocide as any action intended “to destroy in whole, or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Significantly, it asserts that recognizing a genocide event is an obligation to intervene, thereby giving genocide legal status as an internationally recognized crime. With a growing awareness of the prevalence of genocide, numerous other terms have been coined in attempts to refine, expand, or focus attention. These include ethnic cleansing and the related term ethnocide (or ethnicide), democide, politicide, cultural genocide, gendercide, and femicide among others.

Genocide as a topic of study is relatively recent, and most scholars view modern genocide studies as having roots in the movement to comprehend and explain the Jewish Holocaust that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in sociology, history, psychology, and political science. Subsequently, scholars expanded their range of interest to include broader issues of genocide in other regions and time periods. In addition to numerous case studies at a variety of scales (e.g., from coverage of an entire genocide to an individual episode of mass killing in a village on a single day), researchers have also sought to address major questions such as the motivation and rationale of the persecutors, the role of bystanders, and the reactions of victims. One recent emphasis is comparative studies across genocidal events with the ultimate goals of prediction, warning, and prevention.

Geography and Genocide Studies

Although researchers outside geography occasionally have made laudable efforts to approach genocide from a geographical point of view, they have frequently fallen short because of failure to understand the complexities of geographic factors such as spatial variation, the flexible meaning of boundaries, place-based identity, and the multiple meanings of territory. Geographers bring to the study of genocide at least three important skill sets and perspectives: (1) in-depth regional expertise, or knowledge of places; (2) an understanding of political geography and geopolitics; and (3) mapping and spatial analysis.

A geographic perspective on genocide has much to contribute. In particular, a political geographic perspective allows for an untangling of the nexus of territory, identity, and power—issues that repeatedly play a central role in contexts of mass violence—complemented by thick, context-specific knowledge of places. It is important to understand the formation, persistence, and changing quality of territory and boundaries, and it is equally important to assess how these spatial arrangements reflect power dynamics and identity formation at multiple scales. Understanding spatial patterns and processes entails thinking outside (or inside) the concept of the state since states are not necessarily the sole or best unit of analysis to consider if we are to understand events of mass violence. A geographic approach avoids the “territorial trap,” as described by John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge, of assuming that a focus on state activity suffices to capture or explain events within a state's boundaries. Instead, geographers examine relations and flows across borders, understanding that each reflects changing processes. Additionally, geographers seek to understand patterns of differentiation within state boundaries rather than assuming that a state represents a container of homogeneous identity or evenly distributed access to power and resources.

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