Call for Contributions:

"GENOCIDES BY THE OPPRESSED:
Subaltern Movements and Retributive Genocide"

Edited by Nicholas Robins & Adam Jones

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Scholars and students of genocide are cordially invited to submit chapter proposals for this forthcoming volume.

OVERVIEW

In the last two decades, the field of comparative genocide studies has flourished. The result is an increasingly rich literature on the targeting of various groups for extermination and other atrocities, throughout history and around the contemporary world. However, the phenomenon of "genocides by the oppressed," that is, retributive genocidal actions carried out by subaltern actors, has received almost no attention in this literature. It is possible that the prominence in subaltern genocide of non-state actors, combined with the perceived moral ambiguities of retributive genocide that arise in analyzing genocidal acts by subaltern actors, have so far dissuaded serious investigation.

"Genocides by the Oppressed" seeks to address this oversight, opening the subject of subaltern genocide for exploration by scholars of genocide, ethnic conflict, and human rights. The book seeks to cast its analytical net widely, exploring case-studies of subaltern genocide as well as its sociological, psychological, symbolic, and normative dimensions.

GUIDING THEMES AND QUESTIONS

• What are the core phenomena under consideration?
• What literature is relevant to the study of subaltern genocide?
• What is the place of subaltern genocide in comparative genocide studies?
• How might a reckoning with subaltern genocide prompt revision of established theoretical frameworks?
• What core ethical-normative issues are involved in subaltern genocide?

POSSIBLE CHAPTER CONTRIBUTIONS

An overview of the book's guiding themes will be provided by Robins & Jones in the Introduction. The editors will also be addressing the following subjects:

• The symbolism of millenarian uprisings in the Americas (Robins)
• Slave revolts, class war, and peasant uprisings (Jones)

We also have a commitment for a chapter exploring genocide against ethnic Germans in the late stages and aftermath of World War II. Other possible chapter contributions follow. **Please note that potential contributors should not feel themselves limited by this list, but should also feel free to propose alternative angles and approaches.**

• Causal factors in subaltern genocide
• Subaltern genocide and the "moral economy" of peasants and workers
• Genocide against ethnic Germans in the aftermath of World War II
• Anticolonial rebel movements in Africa
• Rwanda (Hutu vs. Tutsi)
• Rebel movements and genocide "provocation"?
• Genocidal assaults against privileged minorities in ethnically plural states
• The psychology and/or sociology of retributive genocide
• The ethical-normative dimension of subaltern genocide

PLAN OF PREPARATION AND PRODUCTION

Publishers will be approached when abstracts of chapter contributions have been supplied. Contributors will be invited to present their findings on a panel to be proposed for the Sixth Biennial Conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), to be held in Boca Raton, Florida, from 4-7 June 2005. The panel will provide an opportunity to "workshop" some of the chapter contributions, but panel participation is not required of contributors. It is anticipated that editing and final preparation of the volume will take place for submission to the publisher by the end of the year, and publication in 2006.

TO SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL

Please send us an abstract of no more than 250 words outlining your planned subject and approach. Abstracts can be sent to Nicholas Robins (contact information provided below) and/or Adam Jones (adamj_jones@hotmail.com). Please also provide a short biographical note, along the lines of the following.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Nicholas Robins is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Duke University. He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. He is author of "Native Insurgencies and the Genocidal Impulse in the Americas" (Indiana University Press, in press); "Genocide and Millennialism in Upper Peru: The Great Rebellion of 1780-1782" (Praeger Publishers, 2002); "The Culture of Conflict in Modern Cuba" (McFarland Publishers, 2003); "Mesianismo y Semistica Indmgena en el Alto Perz: La Gran Rebelisn de 1780- 1782" (Hisbol Publishers, 1998), and "El mesianismo y la rebelisn indmgena: La rebelisn de Oruro en 1781" (Hisbol Publishers, 1997). He is also editor of "Cambio y continuidad en Boliva: ethnicidad, cultura e identidad" (Editorial Plural, in press).

Adam Jones is presently a researcher in the Division of International Studies at the CIDE think-tank in Mexico City. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of British Columbia, and serves as executive director of Gendercide Watch (www.gendercide.org), a Web-based educational initiative. He has published two edited volumes on genocide: "Gendercide and Genocide" (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004) and "Genocide, War Crimes & the West: History and Complicity" (Zed Books, 2004). He is also author of the forthcoming "Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction" (Taylor & Francis), and serves as executive director of Gendercide Watch (www.gendercide.org), a Web-based educational initiative that confronts gender-selective atrocities worldwide. His scholarly articles have appeared in Review of International Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Genocide Research, Journal of Human Rights, and other publications.