Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities

This article analyses different criminological approaches to modern genocide. It starts from a critical review of authors (René Girard, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, and Alejandro Alagia) who explain genocide in terms of sacrificial violence; it contrasts these perspectives with Jean Piaget's empiric...

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Main Author: Daniel Feierstein
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Pluto Journals 2015-09-01
Series:State Crime
Online Access:https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/statecrime.4.2.0115
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author Daniel Feierstein
author_facet Daniel Feierstein
author_sort Daniel Feierstein
collection DOAJ
description This article analyses different criminological approaches to modern genocide. It starts from a critical review of authors (René Girard, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, and Alejandro Alagia) who explain genocide in terms of sacrificial violence; it contrasts these perspectives with Jean Piaget's empirically based distinction between two kinds of social relations: relations of constraint and relations of cooperation, and the different sanctions pertaining to each, developing tools to understand more complex ways of causality. Next, it reviews comparative studies of genocide, ignored in the works of the previous authors. The objective for doing it is to compare different causal explanations of genocide to add complexity to the previous analysis. Finally, it revisits Raphael Lemkin's pioneering vision of the role of annihilation in destroying identity. It argues that Lemkin provided some insights for a new criminological approach to genocide seen as a technology of power seeking to transform the social fabric with the terror of concentration camps.
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spelling doaj.art-5c4a1b43134c4238b348296489f877192023-05-03T16:14:47ZengPluto JournalsState Crime2046-60562046-60642015-09-014211512710.13169/statecrime.4.2.0115Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying IdentitiesDaniel Feierstein0National University of Tres de Febrero and University of Buenos AiresThis article analyses different criminological approaches to modern genocide. It starts from a critical review of authors (René Girard, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, and Alejandro Alagia) who explain genocide in terms of sacrificial violence; it contrasts these perspectives with Jean Piaget's empirically based distinction between two kinds of social relations: relations of constraint and relations of cooperation, and the different sanctions pertaining to each, developing tools to understand more complex ways of causality. Next, it reviews comparative studies of genocide, ignored in the works of the previous authors. The objective for doing it is to compare different causal explanations of genocide to add complexity to the previous analysis. Finally, it revisits Raphael Lemkin's pioneering vision of the role of annihilation in destroying identity. It argues that Lemkin provided some insights for a new criminological approach to genocide seen as a technology of power seeking to transform the social fabric with the terror of concentration camps.https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/statecrime.4.2.0115
spellingShingle Daniel Feierstein
Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
State Crime
title Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
title_full Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
title_fullStr Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
title_full_unstemmed Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
title_short Debates on the Criminology of Genocide: Genocide as a Technology for Destroying Identities
title_sort debates on the criminology of genocide genocide as a technology for destroying identities
url https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/statecrime.4.2.0115
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