By Yeşim Yaprak Yıldız. It is widely thought that confessions from perpetrators of state violence promote accountability, reconciliation, and justice. Performing Public Confessions offers a challenge to this view through a critical examination of perpetrators’ narratives, analyzing them as performances that shape public perceptions of state violence and responsibility. With a focus on Turkey, this book…

By Başak Can. Forensic Fantasies explores the role of medical documentation and evidence in uncovering human rights violations. Anthropologist Başak Can examines how progressive doctors, medical institutions, and state forces in Turkey use forensic methods to detect, erase, reveal, and transform violence exerted against populations deemed to be enemies of the state. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork…

By Olivera Simić. In 2001, Biljana Plavšić made history: she became the only female political leader ever prosecuted for mass atrocities. She was the one woman among 161 indictees at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia—and the first since Nuremberg to be convicted by an international court. Charged with genocide and crimes against humanity,…

Edited by Robert M. Ehrenreich, Jane E. Klinger, Gabriel H. Pizzorno, and Caroline Sturdy Colls. The vast majority of people throughout history have left few written traces. That is especially the case for those who were brutally forced from their homes, stripped of their possessions, and swiftly imprisoned, enslaved, or murdered. Objects of Atrocity: Material Culture and the Challenges of Difficult…

By Vladimir Solonari. Uniformed Murderers investigates the causes, logistics, motivations, and legal awareness of the Romanian servicemen―both military and gendarmerie―who massacred or otherwise caused the death of more than three thousand Jews, Roma, and others in 1941 and 1942. Vladimir Solonari addresses and revises the framework that Romanian decision makers largely followed in the footsteps of their…

By Mark A. Drumbl and Barbora Holá. Informers are generally reviled. After all, ‘snitches get stitches.’ Informers who report to repressive regimes are particularly disdained. While informers may themselves be victims enlisted by the state, their actions cause other individuals to suffer significant harm. Informers, then, are central to the proliferation of endemic human rights…

By Damien Scalia. This book critically examines the practice of international criminal justice based on the experience of war criminals who have been tried for their crimes. Presenting the perspectives of those commonly referred to as ‘genocidaires’, ‘war criminals’ or ‘criminals against humanity’, this book presents their experience of international criminal justice, and its impact…

By Christopher P. Davey. The Banyamulenge Soldier offers a critical analysis of combatant experiences from within the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and subsequent armed groups through the interpretation of Banyamulenge soldier narratives. Banyamulenge young men joined the RPF and acted as foot soldiers in the RPF’s fight against the genocidaire in 1994 and later conflicts, becoming…

By Amir Idris. The purpose of this book is to understand how and why ‘liberators’ of South Sudan have become perpetrators of ethnically driven violence. How and why did violence happen immediately after independence in South Sudan? South Sudan slid into civil war in December 2013, just two years after winning its hard-won independence. A…

By Eleonora Natale. Perpetrators within? provides the first ethnographic account of the experiences of military families of the Argentine dictatorship (1976-83). At the crossover of multiple disciplines, this groundbreaking study brings advancements in the fields of military and conflict studies, Latin American history, transitional justice and ethnographic methods. The military juntas that seized power in…