The social frameworks of evil. Notes for the study of genocide perpetrators

Abstract

This article is framed in an investigation about the sociological debates about genocide, focalizing in this stage in the study of perpetrators. A controversial actor in the investigations on the subject, the first approximations to the figure of the perpetrator during Nuremberg Trials between 1945 and 1946, tended to associate and expose the perpetrators from explanations that placed them under parameters of abnormality and sadism, attributing them the demonic characteristics at the same time. In the 1960s, there was a substantial shift from the Adolph Eichmann Trial, responsible for the Nazi Final Solution, as well as in the field of experimental psychology. In this way, and despite the debates and controversies that generated at the time, the pioneering work of Hannah Arendt (2005) and the experiments developed by Stanley Milgram (1969) allowed a substantial change in the analysis of the perpetrators, is the understanding of their “normal” character one of their fundamental contributions. Relegated in successive decades, recently there has been a growing interest in the study of this figure, due in part to the reiteration of cases of genocide and other types of mass violence; and various investigations have been carried out both in the field of psychology and sociology. In the course of our research, we have thought about the notion of social frameworks of evil to understand how ordinary people can become genocidal. In that way, this article has two objectives; on the one hand, we intend to explore and present some of the different perspectives that have analyzed this figure; on the other hand, through the understanding of genocide as a social activity we try to consider the possible contributions that Alfred Schutz’s theory can make to the analysis of this problem. Although the Austrian sociologist did not write on the subject, we believe that his writings can contribute to the sociological understanding of genocide.