Documentation & Denial: The Fight to Expose Mass Atrocities

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• 批准号: ES/V003291/1
• 负责人: Kate Cronin-Furman
• 金额: $ 30.73万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV003291%2F1
• 关键词: Documentation; Denial; Fight; Expose; Mass

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya poured across the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh in late 2017, fleeing death at the hands of Myanmar's military. But even as humanitarian workers described the abuses the refugees had suffered as "among the worst we've ever seen", Myanmar's government dismissed all allegations as "fabricated news". Myanmar's denials on the world stage were accompanied at home by the prosecution and imprisonment of journalists investigating the military, and even more ominously, by targeted killings of Rohingya carrying smartphones that could be used to document massacres. Mass atrocities are a devastatingly common feature of the international system. But although it is clear that perpetrators exploit the international community's reluctance to intervene, we do not have a clear understanding of the role that strategic contestation over information plays in facilitating the commission of atrocities and encouraging international inaction. This project's aim is to develop an account of how mass atrocities become public knowledge by examining victims' efforts to expose abuses and powerful perpetrators' attempts to conceal them. The project will analyze the micro-dynamics of contestation between victims and perpetrators over evidence of atrocities. To build a full account of how these struggles play out, it will: 1. perform content analysis of perpetrators' denials of atrocities and conduct semi-structured interviews of Western foreign policy officials in order to develop an understanding of how atrocity perpetrators use rhetoric to protect themselves from international interference;2. employ a deeply embedded approach to field research with Sri Lankan Tamil and Burmese Rohingya activists on the ground and in the diaspora in order to construct a picture of how victims document atrocities; and3. conduct a network analysis of advocacy communities in the two case studies in order to map and analyze the pathways by which evidence of atrocities travels to international audiences.This project will contribute meaningfully to academic literatures on human rights activism, repressive state behavior, and international cooperation and the obstacles thereto, but it will also intervene in policy debates on preventing and punishing mass atrocities and offer practical guidance to activists all over the world fighting to end atrocities. The findings of this research have the potential to benefit some of the most vulnerable populations in the world's most fragile and conflict-affected states by improving the chances that mass atrocities are prevented and punished.

2017 年底，数十万罗兴亚人涌入缅甸和孟加拉国之间的边境，逃离缅甸军方手中的死亡。但即使人道主义工作者将难民遭受的虐待描述为“我们所见过的最严重的虐待之一”，缅甸政府仍将所有指控斥为“捏造的新闻”。缅甸在世界舞台上予以否认的同时，在国内也对调查军方的记者进行了起诉和监禁，更不祥的是，还对携带可用于记录屠杀的智能手机的罗兴亚人进行了有针对性的杀害。大规模暴行是国际体系的一个毁灭性的共同特征。但是，尽管肇事者显然利用了国际社会不愿干预的心理，但我们对信息的战略争夺在促进实施暴行和鼓励国际不采取行动方面所发挥的作用并没有清晰的认识。该项目的目的是通过研究受害者揭露虐待行为的努力和强大的肇事者试图隐瞒这些行为，来阐述大规模暴行如何成为公众知识。该项目将分析受害者和施暴者之间关于暴行证据的争论的微观动态。为了全面了解这些斗争的结果，它将：1.对肇事者否认暴行进行内容分析，并对西方外交政策官员进行半结构化采访，以了解暴行肇事者如何利用言辞来保护自己免受国际干涉；2.采用根深蒂固的方法，对当地和侨民中的斯里兰卡泰米尔人和缅甸罗兴亚活动人士进行实地研究，以构建受害者如何记录暴行的图景；和3。对两个案例研究中的倡导团体进行网络分析，以绘制和分析暴行证据传播给国际受众的途径。该项目将为关于人权活动、镇压性国家行为、国际合作及其障碍的学术文献作出有意义的贡献，但它也将介入有关预防和惩罚大规模暴行的政策辩论，并为世界各地为结束暴行而奋斗的活动人士提供实用指导 暴行。这项研究的结果有可能通过提高预防和惩罚大规模暴行的机会，使世界上最脆弱和受冲突影响国家的一些最弱势群体受益。