Ma(r)king the Unthinkable: Cultural and Existential Engagements of Extreme Historical Violence

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Affect and Identities in Social Studies Education

Abstract

This project examined the function of culture within the context of extreme/unthinkable (historical) violence. Engaging with the perspectives of perpetrators from the massacre of Jews at Jedwabne, Poland (1941) and the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda (1994), the authors applied terror management theory to interrogate cultural implications of power. This project seeks a deeper (cultural) understanding of how the development of psychological structures—cultural worldviews and self-esteem—protects people, even evildoers, from existential terror. We argue that understanding this protective function will help social studies educators (re)conceptualize culture and potentially assist them in illuminating structures that enable violence.

Authors

• Bretton A. Varga, California State University - Chico

• Cathryn van Kessel, University of Alberta