Recognized nationally and internationally for its high quality research, the Genocide Studies Centre is a unique institution in Latin America. Its comparative studies of genocidal social practices form the basis of university courses in Europe, the USA, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. Since 2003, these studies have been cited regularly in investigations and trials for human rights violations in Argentina.
To develop Genocide Studies in Argentina both through in-house research projects and institutional agreements to promote research, teaching and extramural studies.
To train genocide specialists by seconding graduate and postgraduate trainees to ongoing projects.
To teach undergraduate and postgraduate programs at UNTREF and other universities, as well as providing extension programs in the form of seminars, conferences and workshops.
To publish relevant Argentine, Latin American and international research in the Center’s Revista de Estudios sobre Genocidio.
To challenge ethnocentric prejudices that influence international research and understanding of genocidal social practices
Ongoing Research Projects: 2007-2009 Academic Schedule
A Comparative Analysis of Genocidal Social Practices. Part I: The Southern Cone of Latin America
Director: Dr. Daniel Feierstein
This project examines the various legal, historical and sociological approaches to narrating and / or explaining acts of repression committed in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in the nineteen seventies and eighties. It focuses on how these different discourses are constructed and, in turn, construct “collective memories”. It explores similarities and differences among these discourses and also their current political impact as manifested in what we have called the “symbolic enactments” of genocidal social practices.
"S'iz gut" - Language and Combat: Yiddish in Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust
Director: Débora Perla Sneh
Words can be powerful weapons and resisting extermination is also a struggle over meaning. This project studies the role of language in Jewish resistance to Nazi policies of cultural, psychological and physical extermination. The general aim of this project is to examine the use of discourse to extend and support resistance. The specific objective is to study the different ways Yiddish was used, especially in Nazi-occupied Poland, an environment which facilitated a simultaneous blossoming of Yiddish culture and the construction of the six extermination camps specifically intended to implement the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”, as the Nazis called their plans for the systematic murder of all European Jews.
Representations of the dictatorship and attitudes to politics among young people born in the Tres de Febrero district since the restoration of democracy.
Director: Elias Guillermo Levy
Much has been written about the military dictatorship and its consequences for society as a whole. Indeed, the impact of that period on the present could be measured on any number of different dimensions. This study focuses on the symbolic level of realization - more exactly, that of present-day representations of the dictatorship.
Young people born after the restoration of democracy obviously know about this period only through political and media discourse and school education. Yet, despite a proliferation of contradictory discourses, little is known about how these shape young people’s perceptions.
Tres de Febrero is an industrial district whose economy depends largely on small and medium sized metal works. Originally part of a program of import substitution, this industry was seriously affected by the military dictatorship. Through in-depth interviews with school children whose families have lived in the area for at least two generations, we are constructing a “map of representations” to explain how these young people have processed a past they did not experience directly but have been told about. The purpose is to understand how these images of the past connect to current values, ideas and positions.
The Ukrainian Famine of 1932: a planned genocide?
Director: Prof. Jorge Wozniak
The purpose of this research is to understand how the political-economic goals of the Soviet state led to the Holodomor - the Great Famine - of 1932-33. It will examine the process of central planning, agricultural collectivization and rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It will also contrast different interpretations of the famine with evidence from recently declassified documents in order to clarify a process described by some historians as genocide.
Political Theology and Messianism
PhD student: Emmanuel Taub
The theme of this doctoral research project is messianism as a political problem. The project examines Jewish, classical and modern sources in an attempt to rethink the concept of power politics from the point of view of the Jewish messianic ideal. In Jewish political theology, moral law (the good in man consecrated by God's commandments) is part and parcel of politics. Over the past decade political philosophy has reformulated many theoretical issues problems in politics as theological-political problems. The general aim of this research is to deepen our understanding of history and present-day politics from a Jewish perspective.
The Research Team at the Center for Genocide Studies
Director: Daniel Feierstein: Doctor of Social Sciences, Full Professor, Researcher at CONICET. 2nd Vice President of IAGS (International Association of Genocide Scholars), 2009-2011. Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Genocide Studies and Prevention.
Researchers:
Elias Guillermo Levy: B.A. in Sociology, M.A. in Political Economy. Acting Assistant Professor.
Dr. Mario Ranalletti: Ph.D. in History. Full Professor.
Deborah Perla Sneh: B.A. in Psychology and B.A. in Fine Arts. Acting Professor.
Jorge Wozniak, B.A. in History. Acting Assistant Professor.
Research Assistants:
Pamela Morales: B.A. in Political Science. CONICET Doctoral Scholarship.
Emmanuel Taub: Master of Cultural Diversity. CONICET Doctoral Scholarship.
Ana Jemio, Bachelors in Sociology. CONICET Doctoral Fellowship.
Fellows based at the Center:
Eva Camelli, UBA Doctoral Fellow.
Lior Zylberman, UBA Doctoral Fellow.
International Conferences on Genocide Studies
The Genocide Studies Center organized the First and Second InternationalMeetings on Genocidal Social Practices in 2003 and 2007. These first meetings were each attended by 200 internationally acclaimed researchers and specialists from universities around the world. Held every four years, the next meeting will take place in 2011. The Centre also organizes numerous meetings at a regional and national level to discuss issues related to genocidal social practices.
The Centre has signed agreements with similar facilities at Rutgers University, University of Pretoria, and University of the Republic of Uruguay, FLACSO-Uruguay, City University of New York and Bayreuth University. Many more agreements are currently being negotiated with universities in Australia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the U.S and the U.K.
The “Genocide Studies” Collection
In a joint project with the Program for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Prometeo Publishing and National University of Tres de Febrero (EDUNTREF), are developing a collection of books on genocide, whose schedule is as follows :
Published titles:
Raphael Lemkin; El dominio del Eje en la Europa ocupada.
Daniel Feierstein (ed.); Terrorismo de Estado y Genocidio en América Latina.
Dominick La Capra; Historia y memoria después de Auschwitz.
Ben Kiernan; El régimen de Pol Pot. Raza, poder y genocidio en Camboya bajo el Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979.
Gabriel Périès y David Servennay; Una guerra negra. Investigaciones sobre el genocidio ruandés
Forthcoming titles:
Frank Chalk y Kurt Jonassohn; Historia y sociología del genocidio. Análisis y estudio de casos.
Lev Grinberg; Política y violencia en Israel/Palestina
The Genocide Studies Journal is a biannual publication aiming to develop and disseminate studies on genocide, particularly in Latin America. While Genocide Studies has existed as an independent discipline for over thirty years, this is the first academic journal to publish in Spanish the most relevant work from academic journals around the world, as well as the work of Latin American scholars on the specific nature of genocide in this part of the world.
Researchers from all areas of the Social Sciences devoted to the study of genocide processes and repressive practices anywhere in the world are welcome to contribute to this new publication.
Director
Dr. Daniel Feierstein dfeierstein@untref.edu.ar
Editores Asistentes
Mg. Emmanuel Taub etaub@untref.edu.ar
Mr. Tomás Borovinsky tborovinsky@untref.edu.ar
Editorial Board
Adam Jones (Yale University, EE.UU.)
Carlos Figueroa Ibarra (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, México)
Frank Chalk (Concordia University, Montreal, Canadá)
Helen Fein (Harvard University, EE.UU.)
Herbert Hirsch (Virginia Commonwealth University, EE.UU.)
Henry Huttenbach (City University of New York, EE.UU.)
Israel Charny (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Jacques Semelin (Comite National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, Francia)
Judit Bokser-Liwerant (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México)
Juergen Zimmerer (Sheffield University, Gran Bretaña)
Luis Roniger (Wake Forest University, EE.UU.)
Marcia Esparza (City University of New York, EE.UU.)
María Luiza Tucci Carneiro (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brasil)
Martin Mennecke (Danish Institute for International Studies, Dinamarca)
Raúl Eugenio Zaffaroni (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)
