Genocide studies

Genocide studies is an academic field of study that researches genocide. Genocide became a field of study in the mid-1940s with the work of Raphael Lemkin, who coined genocide and started genocide research, and its primary subjects were the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the primary subject matter of genocide studies, starting off as a side field of Holocaust studies, and the field received an extra impetus in the 1990s, when the Bosnian genocide and Rwandan genocide occurred. It is a complex field which lacks consensus on definition principles.

The field emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, as social science began to consider the phenomenon of genocide. Due to the Bosnian genocide, Rwandan genocide, and the Kosovo crisis, genocide studies exploded in the 1990s. In contrast to earlier researchers who assumed that liberal and democratic societies were less likely to commit genocide, revisionists associated with the International Network of Genocide Scholars considered how Western ideas led to genocide. The genocides of indigenous peoples as part of European colonialism were initially not recognized as genocide. Patrick Wolfe spelled out the genocidal logic of settler projects in places like the Americas and Australia. Nevertheless, most genocide research focuses on twentieth-century genocides, while many other cases are understudied. Many genocide scholars are concerned both with objective study of the topic, and helping prevent future genocides.