Ethnocide is the extermination or destruction of ethnic identities. Some substitute cultural genocide for ethnocide, and other argue the distinction between ethnicity and culture. Cultural genocide and ethnocide have been used in different contexts.
Origin of the word
Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who coined genocide in 1943 as the union of "the Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing)", also suggested ethnocide as an alternative form representing the same concept, using the Greek ethnos (nation) in place of genos.
Notions of ethnocide
UNESCO
In UNESCO's "Declaration of San Jose": In the Declaration of San José, UNESCO also addresses and works to define ethnocide. UNESCO defines the term as follows:
Robert Jaulin
The French ethnologist Robert Jaulin (1928-1996) proposed a redefinition of the concept of ethnocide in 1970, to refer not the means but the ends that define ethnocide.
Barry Sautman
Barry Victor Sautman is a professor with the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.<blockquote>The "intent that underlies ethnocide is not the same intent as the intent of cultural genocide, for the same reason that it is not tied to physical or biological destruction of a group. The intent is therefore typically aimed at forced assimilation and not on population decimation. Thus the intent that underlies ethnocide is an intentional act resulting in cultural death"</blockquote>
Contemporary examples
The destruction by Azerbaijan of thousands of medieval Armenian Churches, khachkars and gravestones in Nakhchivan and elsewhere – and Azerbaijan's denial that these sites have ever existed – has been cited as an example of cultural genocide or ethnocide.
See also
- Cultural genocide
- Ethnodevelopment
- Forced assimilation
- Language death
- Linguistic discrimination (includes Linguicide)
- Policide
- Gaza genocide
- Rwandan genocide
References
External links
- Stein, Stuart D, Ethnocide
- Ethnocide by Barbara Lukunka in the encyclopedia of mass violence