Some remarks on the label, field, and heuristics of Perpetrator Research

Abstract

Perpetrator Research has been around for some time. It has many merits. This is in no way meant patronizingly but with genuine appreciation. This text does not intend to praise, criticise or historicise the diverse approaches that labelled themselves or were labelled as research on those individuals that played diverse, often extremely violent parts in the context of collective violence. The following pages are a reaction to the institutionalisation of perpetrator research – especially manifest in the launch of JPR. As part of this development, the design of conceptual frames that theorise collective violence, seems to be a step in the wrong direction.

Keywords

• perpetrator studies, genocide studies, mass violence