The Ethics of Representing Perpetrators in Documentaries on Genocide
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The Ethics of Representing Perpetrators in Documentaries on Genocide. / Koch, Julian Johannes Immanuel.
In: European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2023, p. 1-19.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Ethics of Representing Perpetrators in Documentaries on Genocide
AU - Koch, Julian Johannes Immanuel
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Current discourse on the representation of genocide claims that we are experiencing ‘the shift from the era of the witness to the era of the perpetrator’. This raises ethical concerns over why and how documentaries engage with perpetrators. Based on an assessment of 203 documentaries on seven genocides, my article makes three kinds of contribution in addressing these concerns: (1) It discusses the ethics of representing perpetrators in archival footage, reenactments or interviews in a wider corpus than those covered in recent discussions. (2) It uncovers a broad range of ethical reasons for why documentary filmmakers engage with perpetrators, rather than seeking to establish a singular ethical ground for this engagement. This approach can do better justice to the varying cultural, historical and political contexts of the respective genocides, the different production contexts and target audiences of the documentaries, and the different styles and types of documentaries that inform the ethics of perpetrator representation. (3) It introduces two broad categories of perpetrator representation in documentaries that conceptualize the ethical purposes of this engagement differently.
AB - Current discourse on the representation of genocide claims that we are experiencing ‘the shift from the era of the witness to the era of the perpetrator’. This raises ethical concerns over why and how documentaries engage with perpetrators. Based on an assessment of 203 documentaries on seven genocides, my article makes three kinds of contribution in addressing these concerns: (1) It discusses the ethics of representing perpetrators in archival footage, reenactments or interviews in a wider corpus than those covered in recent discussions. (2) It uncovers a broad range of ethical reasons for why documentary filmmakers engage with perpetrators, rather than seeking to establish a singular ethical ground for this engagement. This approach can do better justice to the varying cultural, historical and political contexts of the respective genocides, the different production contexts and target audiences of the documentaries, and the different styles and types of documentaries that inform the ethics of perpetrator representation. (3) It introduces two broad categories of perpetrator representation in documentaries that conceptualize the ethical purposes of this engagement differently.
U2 - 10.2139/ssrn.4612448
DO - 10.2139/ssrn.4612448
M3 - Journal article
SP - 1
EP - 19
JO - European Journal of Cultural Studies
JF - European Journal of Cultural Studies
SN - 1367-5494
ER -
ID: 381064669