Representing Mass Violence

How do interventions by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court influence representations of mass violence? What images arise instead from the humanitarianism and diplomacy fields? How are these competing perspectives communicated to the public via mass media? Zooming in on the case of Darfur, Joachim J. Savelsberg analyzes more than three thousand news reports and opinion pieces and interviews leading newspaper correspondents, NGO experts, and foreign ministry officials from eight countries to show the dramatic differences in the framing of mass violence around the world and across social fields. “A pathbreaking examination of the multiple international narratives around Darfur by human rights advocates, humanitarians, journalists, and diplomats. Thorough and rigorous—an essential contribution to the scholarship.” — ALEX DE WAAL, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, Tufts University “Darfur is the modern genocide that refuses to end, and this volume gives this mass atrocity the attention it deserves. It does so in highly original ways, including an unprecedented global analysis of media coverage, activism, and advocacy.” — JOHN HAGAN, John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and Co-Director of the Center on Law and Globalization at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago “Joachim Savelsberg’s engagement with the critics of the human rights regime, coupled with his analysis of media representations and their national variations (and similarities), provides a perspective that is more encompassing than anything I am aware of.” — DANIEL LEVY, Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University JOACHIM J. SAVELSBERG is Professor of Sociology and Law and Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair at the University of Minnesota. He is the coauthor of American Memories: Atrocities and the Law and author of Crime and Human Rights: Criminology of Genocide and Atrocities

Global Human Rights Organizations and National Patterns: Amnesty International’s Responses to Darfur

This article provides an analysis of Amnesty International and its efforts to establish a global, human rights-based narrative on the mass violence in Darfur, Sudan, during the first decade of the 21st century. Interviews show how Amnesty’s narrative resembles that of the judicial field. Respondents insist that justice, once achieved, will help reach other goals such as peace. Relative unanimity in representing the violence supports the notion of globalizing forces highlighted by the world polity school, but national conditions also color narratives, in line with recent literature on national contexts of INGO work and a long tradition of neo-Weberian scholarship. Amnesty workers within national sections are aware of their government’s traditions, interests and policy foci when they seek to influence government policies. They are also mindful of nation-specific carrier groups, cultural sensitivities and business interests, when they attempt to mobilize volunteers and the public and raise funds. Such mindfulness, a precondition for effective work at the national level, resulted in nation-level variations of global human rights-based representations of mass violence in Darfur

Knowing about Genocide

This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of the University of Minnesota. Learn more at the TOME website, available at openmonographs.org. How do victims and perpetrators generate conflicting knowledge about genocide? Using a sociology of knowledge approach, Savelsberg answers this question for the Armenian genocide committed in the context of the First World War. Focusing on Armenians and Turks, he examines strategies of silencing, denial, and acknowledgment in everyday interaction, public rituals, law, and politics. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic accounts, documents, and eyewitness testimony, Savelsberg illuminates the social processes that drive dueling versions of history. He reveals counterproductive consequences of denial in an age of human rights hegemony, with implications for populist disinformation campaigns against overwhelming evidence

Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles

How do victim and perpetrator peoples generate conflicting knowledge about genocide? Using a sociology of knowledge approach, Joachim J. Savelsberg answers this question in the context of the Armenian genocide committed during the First World War. Focusing on Armenians and Turks, Savelsberg examines strategies of silencing, denial, and acknowledgment in everyday interactions, public rituals, law, and politics. He draws on interviews, ethnographic accounts, documents, and eyewitness testimony to illuminate the social processes that drive dueling versions of history. Ultimately, this study reveals the counterproductive consequences of denial in an age of human rights hegemony, demonstrating the implications for populist disinformation campaigns against overwhelming evidence.This book was funded through the TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) Initiative at the University of Minnesota

Sozialräumliche Prozesse: Übersehene Determinanten der "Konstitution sozialer Probleme"? Das Beispiel Jugendkriminalität

Der Verfasser behandelt die Bedeutung sozialräumlicher Prozesse (Urbanisierung, Segregation) für die Konstitution abweichenden Verhaltens. Während die Komplexität des Urbanisierungskonzepts über einen 'deskriptiv-statistischen Zusammenhang' von Urbanisierung und Kriminalität hinausgehende Aussagen nicht erlaubt, erweisen sich 'sozialräumliche Prozesse auf der Ebene der Stadt', vor allem Segregation, als 'konstitutive Randbedingungen' zur Erklärung abweichenden Verhaltens. Abschließend wird auf die Bedeutung der räumlichen Dimension für die soziologische Theoriebildung hingewiesen. (WZ

Violações de direitos humanos, lei e memória coletiva

Institutional responses to gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law may affect future human rights records, partly by contributing to the collective memory of the dark chapters in a nation's history. This article begins with an exploration of various theoretical ideas concerning the impact of legal responses on collective memory and cultural trauma. It examines ways of empirically measuring the effects of law trials on collective memory, systematically analyzing the procedures adopted in recent studies into the collective memory of atrocities. Here it takes as examples the Vietnam and Balkan wars as reported in the New York Times and described in textbooks on the History of the United States. Some of the findings from these studies are explored, indicating the conditional and selective effects of criminal trials on collective memory. Finally, the article draws some conclusions for future research in Latin America and elsewhere.Respostas institucionais a violações maciças dos direitos humanos e do direito humanitário podem afetar os registros de direitos humanos futuros, pois, entre outras implicações, contribuem para aviventar a memória coletiva referente aos capítulos sombrios da história de uma nação. Este artigo explora, primeiramente, as idéias teóricas concernentes ao impacto que respostas legais podem ter sobre a memória coletiva e o trauma cultural. Em seguida, procede a um exame das formas de mensuração empírica dos efeitos de processos jurídicos sobre a memória coletiva, discriminando sistematicamente os passos seguidos em estudos recentes acerca da memória coletiva de atrocidades, tomando como exemplos as guerras do Vietnã e dos Bálcãs enquanto reportadas pelo New York Times e em livros de história dos Estados Unidos. Alguns dos resultados desses estudos são relatados, indicando os efeitos condicionais e seletivos de processos criminais incidentes sobre a memória coletiva. Por fim, são elaboradas conclusões visando a pesquisas futuras na América Latina e alhures

Soziale Probleme in Deutschland und in den Vereinigten Staaten: vergleichender Kommentar zu Best und Steinert und Vorschläge

Soziale Probleme haben in den Vereinigten Staaten ein anderes Gesicht als soziale Probleme in Deutschland; daneben geschieht der soziale Prozess der Definition sozialer Probleme in beiden Ländern unter unterschiedlichen Bedingungen; und schließlich findet die akademische Abhandlung sozialer Probleme und ihrer Definition in beiden Ländern in unterschiedlichen institutionellen Kontexten statt. Diese drei Unterschiede überlagern sich in den interessanten Essays von Joel Best und Heinz Steinert in diesem Heft. Der Beitrag versucht, diese Unterschiede wissenssoziologisch zu erfassen, versucht einen Vergleich einer amerikanischen und deutschen Standortbestimmung durchzuführen und nimmt die Beobachtungen und Vorschläge der Autoren Best und Steinert (Steinerts Kritik des Neoliberalismus und Bests Vorschlag der engeren sozialen Problemtheorie mit sozialen Bewegungen) kritisch für die eigene soziologische Arbeit auf. (ICH

Representing Mass Violence

How do interventions by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court influence representations of mass violence? What images arise instead from the humanitarianism and diplomacy fields? How are these competing perspectives communicated to the public via mass media? Zooming in on the case of Darfur, Joachim J. Savelsberg analyzes more than three thousand news reports and opinion pieces and interviews leading newspaper correspondents, NGO experts, and foreign ministry officials from eight countries to show the dramatic differences in the framing of mass violence around the world and across social fields. “A pathbreaking examination of the multiple international narratives around Darfur by human rights advocates, humanitarians, journalists, and diplomats. Thorough and rigorous—an essential contribution to the scholarship.” — ALEX DE WAAL, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, Tufts University “Darfur is the modern genocide that refuses to end, and this volume gives this mass atrocity the attention it deserves. It does so in highly original ways, including an unprecedented global analysis of media coverage, activism, and advocacy.” — JOHN HAGAN, John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and Co-Director of the Center on Law and Globalization at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago “Joachim Savelsberg’s engagement with the critics of the human rights regime, coupled with his analysis of media representations and their national variations (and similarities), provides a perspective that is more encompassing than anything I am aware of.” — DANIEL LEVY, Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University JOACHIM J. SAVELSBERG is Professor of Sociology and Law and Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair at the University of Minnesota. He is the coauthor of American Memories: Atrocities and the Law and author of Crime and Human Rights: Criminology of Genocide and Atrocities