Genocide law depends on reified bounded groups that postmodern theory unsettles

Evidence

Post-structuralist and postmodern scholarship regarding the notions of “group,” “nation,” “ethnicity,” “race,” gender, and sexuality that are used in defining and bounding populations would seem to have equally serious implications for studies of genocide and efforts to prosecute violations. Lemkin (1944:79) sought to embed the notion of a bounded and clearly defined group deeply in the term itself through use of the Greek genos (race, tribe). Indeed, one of the arguments that bolstered efforts to exclude “political groups” from the UN Convention was that “racial or national groups” - being distinct, stable, bounded communities — could provide a scientific and objective basis for defining genocide (see Kuper, 1981:25). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 265

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to criminal-law/prosecution reading on how legal definitions fabricate stable categories, and to Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities. — connects to: Postmodern theory’s identity fluidity opposes any group-based rights politics — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 907
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does genocide prosecution actually require primordialist definitions, or can it work with constructivist ones in practice?