Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur

What is it about?

Mass violence abounds around the globe. When and how do we learn about such violence, the degree of suffering, the responsibility of actors from low level personnel to government and military leaders. Do legal interventions play a role, in line with the hope of President Roosevelt and Justice Jackson that the Nuremberg Tribunal document the Nazi regime’s “incredible deeds with credible evidence”? Representing Mass Violence explores what role international legal institutions plays today. Specifically, how do interventions by the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court influence representations and the public understanding of mass violence? They do, but they are up against competing narratives generated in the humanitarian aid and diplomacy fields. Also, mass media process information provided by criminal law and its competitors before passing it on to the public. Zooming in on the case of Darfur, Joachim J. Savelsberg analyzes more than three thousand news reports and opinion pieces and interviews leading newspaper correspondents, NGO experts, and foreign ministry officials from eight countries to show the effects of law but also dramatic differences in the framing of mass violence around the world and across social fields. The book, published by the University of California Press, is available as a paperback, but also as an open access online publication. It can be downloaded at no cost here: http://www.luminosoa.org/site/books/detail/3/representing-mass-violence/

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Why is it important?

Representations of mass violence potentially affect responses that slow or enhance cycles of violence. Representing Mass Violence provides a theoretically guided and empirically founded examination of the competing social fields and national contexts that contribute to the way conflicts are perceived around the globe.