Toronto—The Zoryan Institute and its division, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, are introducing Genocide Studies International, the continuation of publishing efforts by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) (“IIGHRS”) and the University of Toronto Press since 2006.
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International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
A Division of the Zoryan Institute
Announcing New Journal: Genocide Studies International
Toronto—The Zoryan Institute and its division, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, are introducing Genocide Studies International, the continuation of publishing efforts by the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) (“IIGHRS”) and the University of Toronto Press since 2006.
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This peer-reviewed journal, edited by the team of Maureen Hiebert, Herbert Hirsch, Roger W. Smith, and Henry Theriault, is interdisciplinary and comparative in nature. It welcomes submissions on individual case studies, thematic approaches, and policy analyses that relate to the history, causes, impact, aftermath, and all other aspects of genocide.
Armenians around the world recognize the first-hand impacts of genocide, and from that vantage point understand better than most the incredible need for genocide prevention to be encouraged, developed, and legislated.
The first issue of GSI will be concerned with “The Failure of Prevention,” focusing on Sudan—Darfur, the Nuba Mountains crisis —and on the politics of prevention or the lack thereof. The March 2015 issue will focus on the 100th anniversary of the Ottoman Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.
In an interview with editor Henry Theriault, we take a closer look at what GSI represents and how the editors chose the topic of their first issue.
Q. What do you hope to achieve with this new journal?
“I hope that we can accomplish two things that go beyond the typical academic fare. First, I hope that the work published will have a policy dimension that can have an effect on actual genocide prevention. Second, I hope that we can identify and publish truly innovative work that is not just mere academic filler, but that presents genuinely new ideas about genocide and provides new frameworks that will change, in a positive way, how we approach the problem.”
Q. Why does a journal like this emphasize comparison in Genocide Studies?
“It is not just comparison, which is more of a 1990s concept in Genocide Studies – looking at how cases of genocide are alike and different: we have moved to a more sophisticated level, where the attempt to theorize genocide as human social practice, history, and political process requires engaging many different cases of genocide. Earlier theorizing of genocide sometimes was quite limited by focus on just the Holocaust or at most the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide. As important as these cases are, one simply cannot understand genocide through examination of them alone. Case studies are very important not just to historians, political scientists and sociologists, etc., but also to philosophers, anthropologists, etc., who attempt to theorize the issue more generally. Too often in fields such as philosophy it is possible to go through a whole article on “genocide” that does not discuss a single actual genocide, even for illustration purposes, and thus engages abstractions without any real meaning or value.”
Q. Why did the editors decide on genocide prevention as the subject matter for the first issue?
“Ultimately, this is the goal. While it is important to understand what has happened in the past in the fullest way possible and to engage issues of justice and rehabilitation for past cases, the editorial team and IIGHRS are very concerned about doing something meaningful to try to stop or mitigate genocide. What is more, we have all long been frustrated at the lack of success in this regard, a failure that runs across academia, journalism, public policy, and beyond. We wanted to start by getting attention to just how little we’ve done in that regard, despite an incredible, even exponential growth in the field of Genocide Studies. It might even be that the growth of the field as an academic area has been inversely proportional to the impact of work in the field on the problem of genocide.”
Q. How do you think policy makers will be affected by the content of GSI?
“This is very difficult to predict, but first and foremost I hope that they will pay attention to its content when trying to engage an issue that is either related to something in GSI or that we have an article directly on. The field has a good deal to offer policy makers if they are (1) simply willing
Henry Theriault, editing team of GSI to do some reading that goes beyond policy briefs (usually the same old stuff that analysts have been turning out for years) and press releases, and (2) interested in genuinely addressing the problem of genocide, rather than just appearing for public relations purposes to do so. Too often policy decisions are based on simplistic or inaccurate understandings of the forces in play, the histories of violence, etc. GSI can help policy makers get accurate information and, even more importantly, reliable interpretations for the tough challenges they face.”
Q. How do you foresee this journal affecting the field of Genocide Studies?
“The field is at a crucial point. It is expanding in a way similar to other fields developed in the past 50 years initially through political and ethical concerns and challenges to academia and to the socio-political order. It is now beginning to follow such fields down the road of institutionalization. Now graduate students are typically choosing topics of research not out of a genuine intellectual and ethical concern, but in order to catch the next trend so that they can get good academic jobs. Factions in the field have developed that are focused on territorial power and protection in academia, not dealing with genocide. Genocide Studies is often now much more about the individual scholars than the object of study, just as traditional disciplines long ago became. By publishing a different kind of scholarship that puts the object back at the focus and looking for new, innovative work that is typically on the margins of a field and not in its establishment, institutionalized center, GSI might help reverse this trend somewhat – or at least carve out enough space for those special junior (and not so junior) scholars who work at the margins to produce really innovative work, despite the institutionalization of the field.”
“In conclusion, one of the things that makes GSI so special and unique is the leadership role the Zoryan Institute, and its division, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies has played in the creation of the journal and will play in establishing it as one of the premiere journals in human rights studies. Zoryan’s work has long been at the cutting-edge of important developments in both the study of and, importantly, prevention of genocide and other mass human rights abuses. With its special tie to Armenians in North America and around the world, it provides globally-minded Armenians an opportunity to support innovative scholarship and policy initiatives on the Armenian Genocide and other human rights issues affecting groups across the world. GSI offers the next step in translating the heartfelt support from Armenians into important scholarship and real, positive change, toward the ultimate goal of finally making good on the pledge of ‘Never again.’”
GSI is now available online at www.utpjournals.com/Genocide-Studies-International.html and will be available in print in April 2014.
For more information please contact the IIGHRS at admin@genocidestudies.org or call 416-250-9807.
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