Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper builds a framework for analyzing the concept of genocide as it is produced and reproduced in our everyday lives, parallel with the changing meanings of state sovereignty (internal and external), wars and culture effected by globalization and human rights regimes. The paper also shows that these effects are binary in nature, changing the state system as well as the discourses and beliefs of the world community. One instance of this is the construction of “cultural identity exclaves” which are conceptualized as a “collectivity” beyond ethnic, national, or other ties within a single society but as a global community against state actions to bypass their “legitimacy crisis” (Castells-2004). I argue that this collectivity, increasingly living in the state of exception, is faced with extermination and destruction literally as well as socially, economically, and mentally. Analyzing social networks, disseminating both true and false information, would yield empirical findings about such polarization and initiation of hate and hate speech towards the marginalized groups. Networked environments have the potential to enhance our knowledge about any given “regime of truth” to establish the relations with the status quo powers and ordinary people living in the exclaves of everyday life to prevent genocides and/or genocidal acts.