History As It Happens

Origins of 'Ethnic Cleansing'

Episode Summary

Episode guest: Martin Shaw

Episode Notes

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As some Israeli government ministers call for the "voluntary migration" of all Palestinians from Gaza, the term ethnic cleansing is back in the news. Before the 1990s, international institutions and mainstream political figures seldom used the term. Then came the Serb atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia, and ethnic cleansing gained wide acceptance.

What does it mean? Does it have a legal grounding? Or is it a euphemism for genocide? Our guest is sociologist Martin Shaw, a leading genocide scholar and professor emeritus of International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex.

Further reading:

The Genocide that Changed the World by Martin Shaw (Journal of Genocide Research)