Displacing Intent: Understanding Contemporary Cartographies of Genocide

Keywords: Genocide, International Law, Legal Geography, Cartography
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Contemporary geospatial mapping initiatives have been recently deployed to conclude that certain patterns of mass violence constitute genocide. Focusing on Forensic Architecture’s recent “A Cartography of Genocide”, I argue that this spatial attention to mass violence intervenes in the politics of genocide by displacing the centrality of “genocidal intent.” Standard legal determinations hold that mass violence only constitutes “genocide” in so far as perpetrators had specific “intent” to destroy protected groups. Contemporary cartographic initiatives, on the other hand, shift the central focus away from legal intent, implicitly positing that genocide ought to be more directly thought of as sustained efforts to destroy the conditions necessary for life. This displacement parallels contemporary concerns within genocide studies about to what extent legal considerations of “intent” ought to guide scholarly inquiry on genocide.