Toward a Socio-Historical Theory of Persecution and an Analytical Concept of Genocide

Abstract

I will try, in Part I, to recast the peculiar development of the theorisation of this concept and explain how this development has conditioned the different cognitive frameworks through which we think about genocide. The political context in which this field has been articulated, and the implications of adopting and reproducing these approaches, will be highlighted. I will, in Part II, also show how alternative theorisations of genocide could lead to more fruitful empirical research and more subtle conceptual definitions. Finally, I will recommend new research avenues related to the project of a reappropriation of this concept by the social sciences. In addition to the cognitive and ethical purposes presented earlier, the project exposed in this paper has different purposes. It intervenes in different fields and engages a different problématique. Even though these purposes will not always be obvious, I find it important to state my principal intentions: (a) I will recommend a division of labour between jurists and social scientists with regards to the theorisation of the concept of genocide, (b) I will challenge theorisations of the concept of genocide in social science, particularly the attempt to consider genocide as a transhistorical phenomenon, and (c) I will propose guidelines in order to conduct a comparative socio-historical study of mass murders.