Abstract

This bibliographic research contends with the idea that broadening the use of the term ‘genocide’ cheapens its meaning. It examines the theoretical development of genocide as a structurally embedded force in society, paying attention to how researchers and theorists increasingly draw more upon Raphael Lemkin’s and Indigenous scholarships, with an emphasis on settler colonialism and necropolitics. It highlights literature that embody the critical origins of genocide as a concept in both theory and law, with the goal of demonstrating that genocide means more than intending to physically destroy en masse. The following review can allow readers to determine whether genocide must be passionately safeguarded and gatekept lest it loses its meaning, or whether those very safeguarding and gatekeeping are what causes genocide to conceptually and theoretically lose meaning to begin with.