The humanities and mathematics departments gave the second of two projects to tackle genocide studies to increase awareness and prevention efforts.
A colloquium was on Jan. 23 inside the David Eisler Center. “A Data-based Operational Definition of Genocide” is a presentation that combines the use of data analytics and history to find similarities between genocides throughout the past and use those similarities to spot the signs of genocide before it happens.
Mathematics professor Dr. Victor Piercey discussed how different perspectives, whether from a victim, perpetrator, witness or otherwise, have a common ground when experiencing genocide first-hand.
“What we’re finding is that a lot of genocidal events have a lot in common in the lived experiences of people who experience genocide in one way or another and we think that can help us to improve how we define genocide, which in turn will lead to better prevention efforts,” Piercey said. “The enforcement is difficult because we as in terms of our world order is very much based on sovereignty, so it’s hard to find the will to intervene in another country, but its definition is an even more fundamental problem.”
During the presentation, Piercey talked about the two projects conducted in their search for an operational definition of genocide, the Shoah Database Analysis and the Edinburgh-Brown Guidelines.
The Shoah Database Analysis uses testimonies from genocide survivors. Using this research, the humanities and mathematics departments formed keywords relating to the violence that comes before genocide. These keywords are found in interview questions and answers from genocide survivors, which can piece together a pattern.
The Edinburgh-Brown guidelines described the entities of genocide as well as the intent, target groups, the role of coercive control and the process behind the existential threat.
Piercey explained how using data science, genocide similarities could be found based on the length of time of a conflict or the number killed in a mass atrocity.
“For what it’s worth, data science is largely thought of as the intersection between mathematics statistics, computer science and then some area of application that we call a domain area,” Piercey said. “So in this case, genocide studies.”
Prevention efforts went back to the Early Warning Project, a system designed to acknowledge and assess mass atrocities in countries all over the world. The presentation showed that crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, are smaller indicators before genocide begins.
Examples of historical genocides include the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, Guatemala and plenty more. The challenges were finding similarities between these genocides, what led to them and what people experienced during them to understand how to stop them from happening.
History professor Dr. Tracy Busch talked about the importance of being aware of situations that could potentially lead to genocide.
Busch later discussed how the mathematics and humanities departments support each other and what each of them does.
“I think if you can just raise awareness, like noticing what’s happening before it actually happens, then you’re in a better position to defend human rights, right before people lose their human rights,” Busch said. “If you could maintain that level of you know civil society where there’s free press and open information, you can kind of see the factors that can lead to this othering right? The language that’s used to dehumanize other people that upstreaming part of it is really, really important.”
Social work senior Yvette Muhoza shared her thoughts about the presentation.
“I think it’s amazing that they’re doing this research because there is a lot of stuff that they want to prevent and people they want to talk to, to see how it affected them, whether it’s like the victims, the perpetrators and all that,” Muhoza said. “What I took from this is that they care and they do want to do more research and they want to know what they can do to help the victims that experience the genocides and just I thought it was really cool.”
Busch plans to have a panel discussing genocide and memory on Zoom on March 4 to bring further awareness.