Standing By and Doing Nothing about Genocide in Sudan and Canada

The purpose of this research is to understand how riverain Sudanese stand by to genocide targeting peoples of Sudan’s peripheries, and how non-Indigenous Canadians stand by to genocide targeting Indigenous peoples in Canada. Influenced by Indigenous relational approaches to research, this study was designed collaboratively with scholars and activists targeted by genocide in both contexts. Employing constructivist grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2008) I have conducted in-depth interviews with 44 riverain Sudanese and 18 non-Indigenous Canadians complicit in genocide. Genocides such as these destroy social figurations (Elias, 1978), the value-laden networks of relationships that define us. Reflecting this I uncovered two grounded theories of standing by to genocide, one for riverain Sudanese and one for non-Indigenous Canadians, with four relational dimensions in common: 1. relationships with place and their failure to connect across vast distances with those targeted by genocide; 2. relationships within their communities, and the colonial nature of relations between those complicit and those targeted by genocide; 3. a mesh of colonial ideas originating in Britain — capitalism, liberal values, the nation state, “modern” bureaucratized institutions, formal education, and race — that legitimize genocidal relationships in both contexts; and 4. Resulting from these relational networks a habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) that predisposes rather than prevents riverain Sudanese and non-Indigenous Canadians from standing up. Kinship relations in Sudan facilitate the colonizing riverain figuration monopolizing power at the centre, relegating peoples targeted by genocide to the peripheries. Riverain Sudanese both connect with and “other” peoples targeted in ways that facilitate doing nothing about genocide. Non-Indigenous Canadians have instead engineered themselves in a binary relationship, distant from, in contrast, and superior to Indigenous peoples in Canada. Their standing by is facilitated by the few and often poor relationships they have with Indigenous people and their denial of racism and domination. In both contexts the disposition of standing by can be explained along dimensions of (in)action, knowledge, feeling, and motivation. This theory suggests that even modest changes could transform these networks of genocidal relationships in ways that would facilitate riverain Sudanese and non-Indigenous Canadians standing up.

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