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How do victims and perpetrators generate conflicting knowledge about genocide? Using a sociology of knowledge approach, Savelsberg answers this question for the Armenian genocide committed in the context of the First World War. Focusing on Armenians and Turks, he examines strategies of silencing, denial, and acknowledgment in everyday interaction, public rituals, law, and politics. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic accounts, documents, and eyewitness testimony, Savelsberg illuminates the social processes that drive dueling versions of history. He reveals counterproductive consequences of denial in an age of human rights hegemony, with implications for populist disinformation campaigns against overwhelming evidence.
Open Access
Knowing about Genocide Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles
About the Book
Reviews
"This pioneering sociology of knowledge of the Armenian genocide is critical for understanding the background to Turkish denial as the final stage of genocide. Savelsberg’s epistemic study is a warning against a revived shade of an Orwellian order, with its 'alternative realities' and 'post-truths.'"—Dr. Claire Mouradian, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
"Knowledge denial is a deadly phenomenon and an urgent problem. Confronting the Armenian genocide, Joachim Savelsberg illuminates how mass harm has been negated or acknowledged, through painstaking research, unrivaled expertise, and ethical commitment."—Lois Presser, author of Inside Story: How Narratives Drive Mass Harm
"Savelsberg has done a brilliant job in this very unique work that for the first time analyzes the Armenian genocide from the vantage point of knowledge construction. He aptly brings in the standpoints of Armenians and Turks on the one side and analyzes the layering of knowledge through interaction to sedimentation and finally to rituals. A must-read for all interested in collective violence, social movements, and sociology of knowledge."—Fatma Müge Göçek, author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789–2009
Media
Author Joachim Savelsberg explains his unique approach to researching genocide