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Collaboration in genocide: the Ottoman Empire 1915–1916, the German-occupied Baltic 1941–1944, and Rwanda 1994
Anton Weiss-Wendt1, Uğur Ümit Üngör
1Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities (Oslo).
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
|January 19, 2012
Summary
This study redefines collaboration by examining its role in 20th-century mass killings, offering a new framework for understanding genocide. It highlights structural inequality as a key factor in participation, advocating for a bottom-up approach to genocide studies.
Area of Science:
- Sociology
- History
- Political Science
Background:
- Traditional comparative genocide studies often rely on binary explanations of conflict.
- The concept of collaboration has been primarily studied within the context of the Second World War.
Observation:
- This research analyzes three instances of collaboration in 20th-century mass killings.
- The study applies a multidisciplinary approach to situate these events within the broader framework of genocide.
Findings:
- Explanations of conflict based on binary systems are questioned.
- The decision to participate in mass murder is linked to a society's history of structural inequality.
Implications:
- The concept of collaboration, despite its vagueness, is valuable for promoting a bottom-up perspective in genocide research.
- This work offers a new paradigm for studying collaboration beyond historical wartime contexts.
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