Abstrakte Identiteter – Konkret Vold - DIIS

Abstract
This thesis examines group participation in mass violence. Outbreaks of mass violence have
plagued human history since the dawn of time. A disconcerting element of mass violence is the
scale of the participation. Why do so many normal people participate in mass violence against their
neighbors? In order to examine group participation in mass violence, this thesis employs a
discursive approach to the formation of collective identity, to uncover how the relation between a
collective identity Self and a constituting Other constructs mass violence as necessary. Based on a
post-structuralist conception of Self-Other-relations as the condition of possibility of action, the
thesis constructs a theoretical model to analyze mass violence, which focuses on the antagonistic,
temporal and spatial dimensions of Self-Other-relations. Employing this model to analyze Self-
Other-relations enables researchers to determine whether the relationship between population
groups makes mass violence possible by constructing either fear of the Other, need for revenge
against the Other, or dehumanization of the Other in present spatial and temporal terms. In order to
test the model's explanatory power, the thesis analyzes relations between the Hutu and Tutsi in the
1994 Rwanda genocide, and protestant-unionists and catholic-republicans in the Northern Irish
conflict in 1972. The analysis finds that in Rwanda, mass violence was made possible by
constructing both the Rwandan civil war and attempts to negotiate a cease-fire as a threat towards
Hutu freedom and survival. Furthermore, Tutsi were constructed as age-old oppressors, incapable of
change, and responsible for perpetrating atrocities and dominating the Hutu for more than 400
years. In Northern Ireland, mass violence was not made possible by the relation between collective
identities, as neither population group were constructed in ways that lead to mass violence. Instead
the population groups were constructed as each others' less-than-radical Other: still different, and
prone to conflict, but not in ways that lead to mass violence.
The thesis concludes that research on mass violence should pay careful attention to how a collective
identity Self relates to another population group in ways that rule out peaceful action by
equivalating the identity of the Other with feared or hated objects, which results in the fear of, need
for revenge against, or dehumanization of the Other.