Why Did They Kill?

Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide
1. Auflage 2004
ISBN: 978-0-520-24179-4
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 382 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 227 mm, Gewicht: 528 g

Reihe: California Series in Public Anthropology

Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide. Why Did They Kill? is one of the first anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants—almost a quarter of the population--who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hinton, Alexander Laban

Weitere Mitwirkende

Lifton, Robert Jay

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Völkermord, Ethnische Säuberung, Kriegsverbrechen
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Politische Ethnologie, Recht, Organisation, Identität
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophische Anthropologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Terrorismus, Religiöser Fundamentalismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Timeline
List of Personages
Foreword by Robert Jay Lifton
Introduction: In the Shadow of Genocide

Part One • The Prison without Walls
Preamble
1. A Head for an Eye: Disproportionate Revenge
2. Power, Patronage, and Suspicion
3. In the Shade of Pol Pot’s Umbrella

Part Two • The Fire without Smoke
Preamble
4. The DK Social Order
5. Manufacturing Difference
6. The Dark Side of Face and Honor
Conclusion: Why People Kill

Note on Transliteration
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Alexander Laban Hinton is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, Newark. He is the editor of Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (California, 2002), Genocide: An Anthropological Reader (2002), and Biocultural Approaches to the Emotions (1999).