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This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of the University of Minnesota. Learn more at the TOME website, available at openmonographs.org.
How do victims and perpetrators generate conflicting knowledge about genocide? Using a sociology of knowledge approach, Savelsberg answers this question for the Armenian genocide committed in the context of the First World War. Focusing on Armenians and Turks, he examines strategies of silencing, denial, and acknowledgment in everyday interaction, public rituals, law, and politics. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic accounts, documents, and eyewitness testimony, Savelsberg illuminates the social processes that drive dueling versions of history. He reveals counterproductive consequences of denial in an age of human rights hegemony, with implications for populist disinformation campaigns against overwhelming evidence.
"In 2021, as we witness the denial of racism, life-threatening viruses, and systemic violence, Savelsberg’s analysis of the epistemic debates surrounding the Armenian Genocide shows us a pathway forward where social actors mobilize against those in power to create new public repertoires of knowledge."
"Knowing about Genocide impressively manages to pin down the sociology of Armenian genocide knowledge while simultaneously overflowing its specificity. . . . The book is best suited for students or scholars in the fields of memory studies, sociology, genocide studies, anthropology, and history who seek to contextualize the ways in which memory of the past is processed and honed in service of contemporary ethnic and national interests."
"Knowing About Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles helps readers make sense of…complexity. . . .enormously relevant for these times."
"Empirically robust. . . .Savelsberg has initiated what should become a very powerful line of research."
"Knowing About Genocide is a smart, well-researched, and eloquently written study in the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of memory."
"In Knowing About Genocide, Savelsberg manages to skillfully navigate the readers through the sociology of knowledge about the Armenian genocide while familiarizing the less knowledgeable persons with the essential historiography and the evolution of our knowledge about the events, directly related to the battle between their recognition and denial."
"Savelsberg richly draws on and helps further develop constructs and perspectives from
the sociology of knowledge, offering a compelling sociological framework. . . to understand knowledge accumulation through the case study of the Armenian genocide."
Joachim J. Savelsberg is Professor of Sociology and Law and holder of the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur.