Perpetrators, victims, and bystanders

Ottoman soldiers (perpetrators) june Armenian civilians (victims) through Harput (Kharpert) to a prison in nearby Mezireh (Elazığ), April 1915, during the Armenian genocide.[1] Bystanders can also be seen in the photograph.
In this photograph showing the deportation of Jews from Kitzingen, Jewish victims are shown with local non-Jewish bystanders and policemen (perpetrators).
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In genocide studies, perpetrators, victims, and bystanders is an evolving typology for classifying the participants and observers of a genocide. The typology was first proposed by Raul Hilberg in the 1992 book Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: Jewish Catastrophe 1933–1945.[2][3] Anthropologist Alexander Hinton credits work on this theory with sparking widespread public intolerance of mass violence, calling it a "proliferation of a post-cold war human rights regime that demanded action in response to atrocity and accountability for culprits.".[4] The triad is also used in studying the psychology of genocide.[5][6][7] It has become a key element of scholarship on genocide, with subsequent researchers refining the concept and applying it to new fields.

Initial analyses of atrocities such as the Holocaust discussed these events simply as violence by perpetrators against victims. Scholars added the category of "bystander" to include people who impact, and are impacted by, mass violence but who are not clearly perpetrators or victims.[8] Even with this added complexity, most genocide research focuses on perpetrators, in part because evidence of their behavior is most accessible to scholars.[9] While research about bystanders' role in violence dates to the mid twentieth century,[10] research about their role in genocide is more recent.[11] Just as emerging research has added complexity to the triad as a whole, it continues to recognize nuance in each of the three roles. 

Some researchers are expanding the triad and the situations to which the concept applies. For example, Jan Gross proposed that helpers and beneficiaries be added to the classification.[3] The template of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders is also being applied to cyberbullying and sexual assault on college campuses.[12] Studies of the Bystander effect and Bystander intervention have significant overlap with the study of the perpetrators, victims, and bystanders triad.

  1. ^ Sindelar, Daisy (23 April 2015). "1915: The Crumbling of an Empire, and the Massacre That Ensued". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Archived from the original on 29 May 2024.
  2. ^ Hilberg, Raul (1993). Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-099507-2.
  3. ^ a b "What is left of Hilberg's triad 'Perpetrators-Victims-Bystanders?'". jhi.pl. Jewish Historical Institute. 25 April 2013. Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
  4. ^ Hinton, Alexander (2012). "Violence". In Fassin, Didier (ed.). A Companion to Moral Anthropology. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 506. ISBN 978-1-118-29062-0.
  5. ^ Vollhardt, Johanna Ray; Bilewicz, Michal (March 2013). "After the Genocide: Psychological Perspectives on Victim, Bystander, and Perpetrator Groups". Journal of Social Issues. 69 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1111/josi.12000.
  6. ^ Staub, Ervin (June 1993). "The psychology of bystanders, perpetrators, and heroic helpers". International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 17 (3): 315–341. doi:10.1016/0147-1767(93)90037-9.
  7. ^ Bar-On, Dan (1 June 2001). "The Bystander in Relation to the Victim and the Perpetrator: Today and During the Holocaust". Social Justice Research. 14 (2): 125–148. doi:10.1023/A:1012836918635. ISSN 1573-6725. S2CID 141171190.
  8. ^ Donà 2018.
  9. ^ Ehrenreich & Cole 2005, p. 224.
  10. ^ Fenton, Rachel A.; Mott, Helen L. (2017). "The Bystander Approach to Violence Prevention: Considerations for implementation in Europe". Psychology of Violence. 7 (3): 450–458. doi:10.1037/vio0000104. hdl:10871/30678. ISSN 2152-081X.
  11. ^ Donà 2018, p. 3.
  12. ^ Moretti, Constanza; Herkovits, Damián (30 April 2021). "Victims, perpetrators, and bystanders: a meta-ethnography of roles in cyberbullying". Cadernos de Saúde Pública. 37: e00097120. doi:10.1590/0102-311x00097120. ISSN 0102-311X. PMID 33950087.