No. 12 (2013): Anthropologie historique des violences de masse

Coordinated by Ilan Lew and Daniel Bonnard. Edited by (for Émulations) Ghaliya Djelloul and Grégoire Lits.

A hundred years after WW1 broke – an event that will represent for most historians the lasting escalation and intensification of war – this issue focuses on the international armed conflict of the 20^th century, considering them as a prime case study to analyze the core inclination of the human nature to give in to hatred and mutual killings. This issue brings together humanities research carried out by young researchers in France, Germany, and Switzerland, most of them associated with study centers involved in the renewal of collective violence as a research subject.

The articles tackle the issue of mass violence in various contexts, in the form of case studies that contributes to the preciseness and tangibility of this issue’s focus. These articles all have in common the adoption of a transdisciplinary perspective, and a common leaning towards anthropological questions.

This issue’s content can be divided into three mains approaches: a third of the contributions analyzes the symbolic significance of wartime violent practices, another third studies how space is transformed and appropriated during or after the cleansings of populations, while the last third focuses on the persistence of a moral dimension given to mass murder, specifically analyzing past violent perpetrators accounts and the relationships between civilians and ex-servicemen.

The recensions and an interview that complete this issue shed light on the multiplicity of national and international research customs that shaped its content.

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