Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book offers an in-depth analysis of the symbolic meanings associated with the spectacular forms of torture, mutilation, and murder that perpetrators commit during genocides. Informed by oral historical research with survivors, perpetrators, and eyewitnesses to the genocides in Bosnia (1992–1995), Indonesia (1965–1966), and Rwanda (1994), the book examines four interrelated forms of symbolic violence:</jats:p> <jats:p>Often framed in popular culture as senseless acts of cruelty, the cases of torture, mutilation, and murder analyzed in this book reveal the power associated with perpetrators’ intentional use of symbolic violence to undermine victim groups’ social vitality. In addition to destroying members of the target group physically, symbolic violence destroys their social vitality by destroying key facets of their social identity, such as their cultural heritage, social norms, communal knowledge, and religious beliefs. Symbolic violence therefore renders survivors vulnerable to social death by causing ongoing physical, emotional, and spiritual injuries. Where these forms of heritage, ageist, sexual, gendered, and spiritual violence have been perpetrated, genuine post-genocide social repair and reconciliation is likely to be especially challenging to achieve.</jats:p>