1st Edition
Cultural Genocide Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations
This book explores concepts of Cultural genocide, its definitions, place in international law, the systems and methods that contribute to its manifestations, and its occurrences.
Through a systematic approach and comprehensive analysis, international and interdisciplinary contributors from the fields of genocide studies, legal studies, criminology, sociology, archaeology, human rights, colonial studies, and anthropology examine the legal, structural, and political issues associated with cultural genocide. This includes a series of geographically representative case studies from the USA, Brazil, Australia, West Papua, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, and Canada.
This volume is unique in its interdisciplinarity, regional coverage, and the various methods of cultural genocide represented, and will be of interest to scholars of genocide studies, cultural studies and human rights, international law, international relations, indigenous studies, anthropology, and history.
Introduction: Bringing Cultural Genocide into the Mainstream
Jeffrey Bachman
Part I: Cultural Genocide in International Law
1. Raphaël Lemkin: Culture and Cultural Genocide
Douglas Irvin-Erickson
2. An Historical Perspective: The Exclusion of Cultural Genocide from the Genocide Convention
Jeffrey Bachman
3. A Modern Perspective: The Current Status of Cultural Genocide Under International Law
David Nersessian
Part II: Global Manifestations of Cultural Genocide
Section One: Settler Colonialism, Forced Assimilation, and Indigenous Genocide
4. Destroying Indigenous Cultures in the United States
Lauren Carasik and Jeffrey Bachman
5. Genocide and Settler Colonialism: How a Lemkinian Concept of Genocide Informs Our Understanding of the Ongoing Situation of the Guar ani Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
Genna Naccache
6. A Political Economy of Genocide in Australia: The Architecture of Dispossession Then and Now
Martin Crook and Damien Short
7. Colonialism and Cold Genocide: The Case of West Papua
Kjell Anderson
Section Two: Cultural Destruction
8. Heritage Wars: A Cultural Genocide in Iraq
Helen Malko
9. A Century of Cultural Genocide in Palestine
Daud Abdullah
10. The Baha’i Community of Iran: Cultural Genocide and Resilience
Moojan Momen
Section Three: Justice and Restitution
11. Ontological Redress: The Natural and the Material in Transformative Justice for ‘Cultural’ Genocide
Andrew Woolford
Biography
Jeffrey Bachman is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC. He is the author of The United States and Genocide: (Re)Defining the Relationship. He is currently working on a new book, The Politics of Genocide: From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect, contracted by Rutgers University Press for its Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights series.
"Jeffrey Bachman and his colleagues are to be commended for this important and significant addition to our growing realization of the importance of cultural genocide in keeping with Raphael Lemkin’s own understanding that it cannot be divorced from physical annihilation or extermination. These essays encompass such diverse geographies as the United States, Brazil. Australia, West Papua, Iraq, Palestine, Canada, but further broaden our framework to include law, both nation-state and international, thus providing readers with a resource from which to carry the larger question of "what constitutes genocide" forward in this 21st century. The time has now come to revisit the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and secure an amendment to now include cultural genocide as well. This text will go a long way towards making that happen." - Steven Leonard Jacobs Professor of Religious Studies and Emeritus Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair of Judaic Studies, The University of Alabama, USA.
