The Dictionary of Human Geography

racialized terms that are impregnated with a
eurocentrismthat identifieseuropewith a
privileged sense ofcivilization.
In fact, genocide has a troubling relation-
ship to Europe’s history and to the modern
world more generally. Some commentators
have seen the Holocaust as at once starkly
modern and a hideous deformation of the pro-
ject ofmodernity, but others have insisted on
its intimate connections with European mod-
ernity (Bauman, 2000b). Taking into account
other genocidal regimes, Rummel (1994) esti-
mated that during the twentieth century six
times more people – 169 million – were killed
by their own governments in what he called
democideor ‘murder by government’ than were
killed in war, and Levene (2000) has explored
the logics ofstateand intra-stateviolencein
other directions to try to account for the twen-
tieth century as ‘the century of genocide’.
Although the term ‘genocide’ is modern,
however, and a host of other ‘-cides’ – politi-
cide, ‘terracide’ or ‘the erasure of space’
(Tyner, 2008) andurbicideamong them –
have been proposed to identify other sup-
posedly modern horrors, like its hideous kin
ethnic cleansing, the practice of genocide
has a much longer history. Many scholars
have extended the term backwards in time
(see, most comprehensively, Kiernan, 2007)
and drawn attention to the role of genocide in
thebiopoliticsofcolonialismandimperial-
ism. Thus Wolfe (2006) describes a ‘logic of
elimination’ that includes ‘the summary liquid-
ation of indigenous people’ and the calculated
destruction of their ways of life by settler colo-
nialisms, and Davis (2001) identifies a global
series of ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’.
The attribution of the term, past or present,
is always highly charged because it combines
juridical, political and analytical inflections
(see Jones, 2006, pp. 15–22). Its origins lie in
internationallaw: following Lemkin’s cam-
paign, the United Nations adopted the Con-
vention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide in 1948, but it was
almost fifty years before prosecutions for
genocide were brought before International
Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia
(for crimes since 1991) and Ruanda (for
crimes in 1994). The long interval can be
explained partly by the protracted process of
ratification, but partly by the implications of
the term itself: ‘It aims to sound the alarm and
oblige action’ (Stein, 2005, p. 190). In fact,
Stein argues that the initial reluctance to des-
ignate clusters of mass killings as genocide has
since yielded to the application of the term to

so-called ‘new wars’ (seewar) and other con-

temporary conflicts ‘in which large-scale

cleansings, killings and brutalities occur. ..

Whereas previously the problem was one of

apparent singularity, currently it is that of

near universality.’ This is something of an

overstatement, as the controversy over the cri-

sis in Darfur revealed (Straus, 2005; de Waal,

2005; Totten and Markusen, 2006), but it

is clear that the attempt to ring-fence the

Holocaust – as both paradigmatic and singu-

lar, what Wolfe (2006, p. 402) calls ‘the

non-paradigmaticparadigmthat, being the in-

dispensable example, can never merely exem-

plify’ – has given way to a determination to

analyse the logics and practices of extermin-

ation and atrocity, and to understand how ‘or-

dinary people’ could have taken part in state

and para-state programmes of mass murder.

human rightsorganizations are vocal in their

investigations (see, for example, http://www.

genocidewatch.org) and there is now an inter-

national network of genocide scholars (see

http://www.inogs.com). Geographical analysis

has included the use of satellite photography

and remote sensing techniques to identify

mass graves (cf. Parks, 2001); studies of the

destruction ofplaceandlandscapeto eradi-

cate any trace or evenmemoryof the targeted

group’s presence; and comparative studies of

contemporary genocides (Wood, 2001). dg

Suggested reading

Jones (2006); Wood (2001).

genre de vie A French expression meaning

‘mode of life’, used by Paul Vidal de la Blache,

doyen of Frenchregional geographyat the

turn of the twentieth century, to describe the

range of possible livelihoods developed by

geographically bounded, socially distinctive,

mainly ruralcommunities. It was used along-

side the related concepts of milieu (the

geographical environment that provides a

community with its resources) andcirculation

(the communications linking different com-

munities) to make sense of traditionalpeasant

societies that seemed destined to be replaced

by modern, deracinated urban–industrial soci-

eties in both the developed and the developing

worlds. mjh

Suggested reading

Buttimer (1971); Vidal de la Blache (1911).

gentrification Middle-class settlement in

renovated or redeveloped properties in older,

inner-city districts formerly occupied by a

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GENTRIFICATION