The destruction of worlds: Language-games and the active concept of genocide
LE3 .A278 2014
2014
Whitehall, Geoffrey
Acadia University
Bachelor of Arts
Honours
Politics
The word ‘genocide’ has described a multiplicity of events since coined. The word attaches to such moments in history as the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. However, what happens when the term is used to describe an event not originally considered genocide, such as in the case the residential school system in Canada? In this thesis, I show that the word genocide has had a shifting meaning since its inception into our lexicon. To understand what is meant by genocide we need not look for a stable definition, but instead, we ought to look at how it is used and in what context it is used. This thesis borrows heavily from Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language from Philosophical Investigations to explore the intangibility of a stable definition of genocide. Finally, I will consider how we might discuss genocide in light of the word’s shifting meaning.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1150
