Genocide, Social Movements and the Politics of Naming

• In Event: 2366 - Section on Peace, War, and Social Conflict Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. Peace, War, and Social Conflict: New Methods and Perspectives

Abstract

Using the tripartite approach to social movements, this paper demonstrates how both the field of social movements and genocide have similar theoretical underpinnings. Both collective actors operating in genocide and those in social movements are pulling from the same tool kit. Thus both fields’ approaches to resource mobilization, political opportunities and framing processes are analyzed. This paper highlights existing calls for research that seek to bridge social movement research with research on mass violence and argues that the mechanism preventing this work from being accomplished is the politics of naming. This paper argues that both social movement and genocide scholars must stop looking at genocide as intrinsically different. Instead, they must recognize its roots in collective action and look at it in relation to other forms of contentious politics. It is only then, that scholars can begin to consider and theorize genocide as a social movement of the elite.

Author

• Jillian LaBranche, University of Minnesota