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Perpetrators of mass violence are commonly regarded as evil. Their violent nature is believed to make them commit heinous crimes as members of state agencies, insurgencies, terrorist organizations, or racist and supremacist groups. Upon close examination, however, perpetrators are contradictory human beings who often lead unsettlingly ordinary and uneventful lives. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground research with perpetrators of genocide, mass violence, and enforced disappearances in Cambodia and Argentina, Antonius Robben and Alex Hinton explore how researchers go about not just interviewing and writing about perpetrators, but also processing their own emotions and considering how the personal and interpersonal impact of this sort of research informs the texts that emerge from them.
Through interlinked ethnographic essays, methodological and theoretical reflections, and dialogues between the two authors, this thought-provoking book conveys practical wisdom for the benefit of other researchers who face ruthless perpetrators and experience turbulent emotions when listening to perpetrators and their victims. Perpetrators rarely regard themselves as such, and fieldwork with perpetrators makes for situations freighted with emotion. Research with perpetrators is a difficult but important part of understanding the causes of and creating solutions to mass violence, and Robben and Hinton use their expertise to provide insightful lessons on the epistemological, ethical, and emotional challenges of ethnographic fieldwork in the wake of atrocity.
Show morePerpetrators of mass violence are commonly regarded as evil. Their violent nature is believed to make them commit heinous crimes as members of state agencies, insurgencies, terrorist organizations, or racist and supremacist groups. Upon close examination, however, perpetrators are contradictory human beings who often lead unsettlingly ordinary and uneventful lives. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground research with perpetrators of genocide, mass violence, and enforced disappearances in Cambodia and Argentina, Antonius Robben and Alex Hinton explore how researchers go about not just interviewing and writing about perpetrators, but also processing their own emotions and considering how the personal and interpersonal impact of this sort of research informs the texts that emerge from them.
Through interlinked ethnographic essays, methodological and theoretical reflections, and dialogues between the two authors, this thought-provoking book conveys practical wisdom for the benefit of other researchers who face ruthless perpetrators and experience turbulent emotions when listening to perpetrators and their victims. Perpetrators rarely regard themselves as such, and fieldwork with perpetrators makes for situations freighted with emotion. Research with perpetrators is a difficult but important part of understanding the causes of and creating solutions to mass violence, and Robben and Hinton use their expertise to provide insightful lessons on the epistemological, ethical, and emotional challenges of ethnographic fieldwork in the wake of atrocity.
Show moreIntroduction: Approaching Perpetrator Research
1. Spectacular Perpetrators
2. Seductive Perpetrators
Interlude: The Perpetrator and the Witness
Interlude: "They Were No More. None of Them. They Had Become
Disappeared."
3. The Night Stalkers
4. Ruin
Interlude: For the Sake of the Fatherland
Interlude: Interrogation: Comrade Duch's Abecedarian
5. Nearing the Paradox
6. Curation
Conclusion: Six Guideposts for Perpetrator Research
Antonius C.G.M. Robben is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He is the author of Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning, and Accountability (2018) and Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina (2005).Alexander Laban Hinton is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University and UNESCO Chair in Genocide Prevention. He is the recipient of the American Anthropological Association's 2022 Anthropology in Media Award for his work raising awareness of genocide and human rights. He is the author of The Justice Facade: Trials of Transition in Cambodia (2018) and Man or Monster? The Trial of a Khmer Rouge Torturer (2016).
"In Robben and Hinton's 'encounter with humanity's dark side' the
perpetrator researcher and the evildoer become inextricably
intertwined. Researchers' intimate fieldwork contact with
perpetrators of mass atrocity sullies them, they feel dirty. And,
yet, it reveals complex and contradictory human beings that
unsettle facile assumptions about their monstrosity. How do
researchers incorporate cognitive and affective empathy to
understand the 'priming' that make atrocities possible, while
condemning those acts? Perpetrators establishes the craft for doing
so."—Leigh Payne, Oxford University
"Written as a sustained conversation between two foundational
figures in the field of perpetrator studies, this book offers a
rich exploration of the individuals who operate the machinery of
mass murder. The authors combine profound insights into universal
phenomena, while demonstrating the importance of understanding
local specificities and moral economies. This unsettling book
charts a future research agenda for those who seek to understand
the disturbing, unholy mixture of humanity among those who engage
in lethal violence."—Kimberly Theidon, Tufts University
"Perpetrators[:] Encountering Humanity's Dark Side provides a
therapeutic and rewarding read for anthropologists and social
scientists who have come into contact with agents of violence
through their research, as well as for those who expect to do
so."—Sergen Bahceci, Anthropology Book Forum
"The book offers a curative reading: healing and, at the same time,
crafting together pieces to be displayed in search of meaning. A
necessary and exceptional book not only for anthropologists
researching genocide and mass violence but also for a broader
audience interested on how to approach and write about
violence."—Corina Tulbure, Conflict and Society
"Robben and Hinton set out to at once impart insights they acquired
through decades of ethnographical research into genocide and mass
violence, which they call phronesis following the ancient Greeks,
and to do so in experimental and thought-provoking ways.
Perpetrators is more of a guide than a 'how-to' manual, and yet it
manages to provide the reader with practical and suggestive ideas
for conducting ethnographic research and writing in a way that
avoids the rigidity imposed by academia."—Stevan Bozanich,
H-Genocide
"In writing this book, Robben and Hinton provide a comprehensive
and original contribution to the scholarly research on perpetrators
of mass violence.... This is a must-read book. Highly
recommended."—A. Kolin, CHOICE
"The most important feature of the book in my view is that it is
thought-provoking and makes you engage with the topic and really
gives an idea of what it is like to do research on perpetrators,
and Robben and Hinton have to be applauded for that."—Alette
Smeulers, Global Responsibility to Protect
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