The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

64 modernity’s edges
The Ache case underscores the importance of careful documentation of cases and
the judicious use of the charge of genocide. Although emotional appeals for better
treatment of indigenous peoples are undoubtedly important, they should be backed
up with carefully detailed field research, eyewitness testimonies, and analyses of a
wide variety of data if they are to be credible and serve the interests of the people
affected (Totten 1991; Hill and Hurtado 1995:476–80; Hitchcock and Twedt 1997).
With regard to “the decimation of native peoples in the new continents and states
settled by Europeans,” Fein (1990:79) argues that demographic studies seldom disentangle
the relative importance and interaction of the causes of decline in the number
of native peoples, a point also made by Hill and Hurtado (1995:168–69, 476–80).
As Fein (1990:79) further notes, there are several causes of such decline, including (a)
diseases imported by settlers to which the local population lack immunity; (b) land
usurpation and destruction of the indigenous economy; (c) deculturation and demoralization
of indigenous group, and alcoholism; (d) wars; and (e) slaughter by the
colonists. Today, as Fein points out, we are apt to label the second and third causes
as ethnocide and the fifth as genocide (ibid.:79). Fein herself uses what she describes
as a “sociological” definition of genocide: “Genocide is sustained purposeful action
by a perpetrator to physically destroy a collectivity directly or indirectly, through interdiction
of the biological and social reproduction of group members, sustained regardless
of the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim” (ibid.:24). One of
the advantages of this definition is that it includes the sustained destruction of nonviolent
political groups and social classes, something that few others do.
Fein developed a typology of genocide made up of the following four categories:
(a) developmental genocide, in which the perpetrator intentionally or unintentionally
harms the victims as a result of colonization or economic exploitation; (b)
despotic genocide, in which the perpetrator’s aim is to rid his domain of any opposition
(actual, potential, or imagined) to his rule; (c) retributive genocide, in which
the perpetrator responds to a challenge to the structure of domination when two
peoples, nations, ethnic groups, tribes, or religious collectives are locked into an
ethnically stratified order in a plural society; and (d) ideological genocide, whose
causes “are the hegemonic myths identifying the victims as outside the sanctioned
universe of obligation or myths based on religion [that] exclude the victim from
the sanctified universe of salvation and obligation” (Fein 1984:11, 18). In the case
of developmental genocides, Fein addresses both intentional and unintentional consequences.
This differs from the United Nations Convention, which addresses only
intentional consequences.
It is important to note that the forms of genocide seen among indigenous peoples
are diverse and spring from different roots. Smith (1987) sees genocide as a
product of war and development. He also notes (ibid. 23) that the Indians of Peru,
Paraguay, and Brazil were “destroyed out of cold calculation of gain, and, in some
cases, sadistic pleasure rather than as the result of a political or economic crisis.”
Indigenous peoples are often seen as different from the people in power in society
or, in some cases, as competitors.