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University of California Press

Crimes in Archival Form

Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar

by Ken MacLean (Author)
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Mar 2022
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9780520385412
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations; 2 maps; 2 tables

About the Book

Crimes in Archival Form explores the many ways in which human rights "facts" are produced rather than found. Using Myanmar as his case study, Ken MacLean examines the fact-finding practices of a human rights group, two cross-border humanitarian agencies, an international law clinic, and a global NGO-led campaign. Foregrounding fact-finding, in critical yet constructive ways, prompts long overdue conversations about the possibilities and limits of human rights documentation as a mode of truth-seeking. Such conversations are particularly urgent in an era when the perpetrators of large-scale human rights violations exploit misinformation, weaponize disinformation, and employ outright falsehoods, including deepfakes, to undermine the credibility of those who document abuses and demand accountability in the court of public opinion and in courts of law. MacLean compels practitioners and scholars alike to be more transparent about how human rights "fact" production works, why it is important, and when its use should prompt concern.

About the Author

Ken MacLean is a Professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University. He has more than two decades of experience researching state-sponsored violence, human rights violations, and conflict-induced displacement in Myanmar.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments and Dedication
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Terminology

Introduction

1. Pacifying Bodies
   Histories of Preemptive Violence
2. Enslaving Bodies
   Verbatim in Replicated Form
3. Starving Bodies
   Visual Economies of Enumeration
4. Killing Bodies
   Narrativity Transcribed
5. Investigating Bodies
   The Recursive Logic of Citations
   Conclusion
   Epilogue
   
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"Original, insightful, unconventional, unique, critical, and revealing, Crimes in Archival Form offers a firsthand account and a thorough reassessment of facts-production in the field of human rights. It is rich in context and significant in its policy and theoretical implications. A timely and impactful book that will appeal to a broad audience, including scholars, policy makers, and activists who work on human rights, research methodology, and Myanmar."—Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, author of Everyday Economic Survival in Myanmar

"Crimes in Archival Form is a landmark study of how state violence is documented under protracted military dictatorship and a welcome corrective to overstated critiques of the global human rights project. Ken MacLean offers a close and nuanced look at how facts about atrocities are produced, and why it matters. At once critical and empathetic, this is engaged social science at its best."—Nick Cheesman, author of Opposing the Rule of Law: How Myanmar's Courts Make Law and Order

Awards

  • ICAS Book Prize Shortlist (Best Book in the Social Sciences) 2023 2023, International Convention of Asia Scholars
  • ISA Human Rights Best Book Award Honorable Mention 2023, International Studies Association