Conference: On Collective Violence. Actions, Roles, Perceptions.

In recent years and since the micro turn within conflict studies, research on individuals within violent conflict has been increasing. Here perpetrators, bystanders and victims, rescuers, witnesses, mediators, peacekeepers and so forth have been the analytical categories applied to the plethora of actors who can be found in societies experiencing violent conflict. These concepts are mutually constituent of each other, with a victim only being one as such because of the acts of perpetration against it. Likewise a bystander also only becomes a bystander through the action of others. And by extension, the positioning of self and others as perpetrator, bystander or victims frequently becomes an action in itself, during or in the aftermath of collective violence. These conceptual dependencies become more nuanced when engaging empirically with the genesis and dynamics of collective violence, delving into the competing and sometimes contradictory actions which individuals engage in. The capo in a concentration camp who is both victim and perpetrator, bureaucrats who are neither really bystander nor wholly perpetrator, people who save victims of violence but in turn profit economically from their misfortunes, such as human traffickers. It remains unclear using the typologies and definitions prevalent in the literature until now how these actors and their actions can be classified, understood and explained. This becomes even more complicated when the construction of various types of actions and their significance is studied and the actors themselves have their say or the framing and narrating of actors or their actions is politically charged, as is currently the case with the debate on “smugglers” along the EU’s external borders. While empirical and conceptual dealings with the topic have progressed, there are still many nuances of action in collective violence to be discussed.