Afterword.Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America: A View from Critical Genocide Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 325-332
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Genocide Studies

scholarly journals How the Holodomor Can Be Integrated into our Understanding of Genocide

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Norman M. Naimark
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Legal Structure ◽  
Genocide Studies

The study of the Holodomor should be integrated into a broader understanding of genocide as a whole, given that a consensus that has evolved among a substantial group of scholars that the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–33 fits the general template of genocide. Raphael Lemkin, who introduced this concept into the legal structure of the international system, was clearly aware of the famine of 1932–33 and developed a notion of the “Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine” as a multi-pronged genocidal assault on the Ukrainian people. The events of the Holodomor remained largely unknown to the general Western public until the publication of Robert Conquest’s <em>Harvest of Sorrow</em> in 1986. Presently, the links between the study of the Holodomor and genocide studies in North America are relatively underdeveloped.  As such, there are many aspects of genocide studies that could be illuminated by an understanding of the Holodomor. These include its examination as a “Communist genocide” as per Mao’s 1950s famine or Cambodia, but perhaps more specifically within the context of Stalin’s actions in the 1930s.  Another important aspect is the problem of isolating ethnic from social and political categories:  the Holodomor saw a concomitant attack on the Ukrainian intelligentsia and Ukrainian language and culture. The question of the numbers of victims remains controversial, although the figure of 3–5 million Ukrainians who died in Ukraine and the Kuban seems to withstand scrutiny. Finally, there is the question of intentionality. Here, in light of recent interpretations of international law, it seems quite clear that Stalin was responsible for genocide in the case of the Holodomor.

scholarly journals A Library Matter of Genocide: The Library of Congress and the Historiography of the Native American Holocaust

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Q Dudley
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Library Of Congress ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
Genocide Studies ◽  
Original Definition ◽  
Subject Headings ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Mass Killings

For decades, Indigenous experiences of mass killings, atrocities, ethnic cleansing, and assimilation have been marginalized from genocide studies due to the ways in which knowledge is constructed in the field, specifically in terms of its focus on definitions and prototype-based conceptions. This article argues that these exclusions are not merely owed to discourses internal to genocide studies, but are affirmed by conventional library terminologies for the purposes of knowledge organization and information retrieval in the form of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and classification, as applied to books regarding genocidal colonial encounters with Indigenous Peoples. These headings largely exhibit euphemistic tendencies and omissions that often fail to reflect the contents of the materials they seek to describe, not only impeding retrieval of books on this subject, but also their incorporation into current scholarship. To determine the extent to which the assignment of LCSH and call numbers corresponded reasonably to the stated intent of the authors, searches in OCLC’s global WorldCat catalogue were conducted for books related to the Library of Congress subject “Indians of North America” and some variation of the keywords genocide, holocaust, or extermination, yielding a list of 34 titles. The subject headings and classification designations assigned to these books were then analyzed, with particular attention paid to euphemisms for genocide, colonial narratives, the exercise of double standards when compared to non-Indigenous genocides, or outright erasure of genocide-related content. The article argues that Western epistemologies in both genocide studies and library science have marginalized Indigenous genocides, reproducing barriers to discovery and scholarship, and contributing to a social discourse of Native American Holocaust denial. Instead a pragmatic view in library science is proposed, in which claims of genocide on the part of authors are taken as given and which would recognize the legitimacy of Indigenous perspectives concerning their relationship to land and how processes of assimilation (such as Canada’s residential school system) were consistent with Raphael Lemkin’s original definition of genocide. It argues that enabling our ability to name and discuss genocide in North America can contribute to a more honest reckoning with our history and hence the basis for reconciliation and social justice.

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