Unequal victims - Recognition in the aftermath of mass violence. Germany, Rwanda and Cambodia in Comparison

• Applicant: Dr. Christina Ullrich
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2014 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 261785475

Germany, Rwanda and Cambodia, as diachronic and different as these three individual cases of genocidal violence may be, their post-war development bears one central similarity: The people who were persecuted were not automatically regarded as victims. Rather, victimhood in each situational context was and is ascribed or denied to groups on both an international and inter-societal level by a large number of players. This ascription is accompanied by the recognition of groups of victims in transition phases as a discursive, dynamic event which represents the central subject of this project. In particular, it should be investigated as to how and under what conditions the ascription and denial of victimhood, in an intentional, discursive context, is effected by players on both the international and inter-societal levels. Which triggering, dynamising, retardant or even obstructing factors can be determined? What mechanisms lead to the recognition of groups of victims? And finally: Which interpretative force, power to act and role are victim groups themselves actually entitled to in terms of their recognition within transitional justice processes? A diachronic, international comparison of the strongly juristically influenced rehabilitation processes is methodically selected in the case of Germany, Rwanda and Cambodia. These three examples, each of which represents developmental phases of a process of juridification in the 20th and 21st centuries in dealing with genocidal crimes and their victims, provoke the leading hypothesis for this project, that since 1945, judicial attribution and the related global perception of victimhood in the question of recognition, plays an increasingly dominant though not completely hegemonial role. Linked to this, we must ask the question as to how legal-normative and societal recognition of victimhood, victim-perpetrator dichotomies, interpretation of the past and narrative interact with one another. The planned project takes up research developments from various disciplines and research contexts in order to answer the questions at hand and to make assertions regarding the mechanisms and dynamics of victim recognition after genocidal mass violence. The resultant complexity of the intention can be made manageable through targeted focussing on the comparable perspectives, through in-depth analyses of selected groups of victims and through defined questionnaires for the relevant case examples. Finally, the project claims to expand victim research, which up till now has been predominantly jurisprudentially and socialistically inclined, to include a decidedly historically scientific perspective and to give it historical grounding that will lead to new findings.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants