Assaulting 'diversity as such': The ontology of dehumanisation in mass violence

Dehumanization is one of the most commonly invoked factors in analyses of mass atrocities with many scholars focussing on its crucial role in enabling perpetrators to inflict violence on their victims. However, while its application is widespread, its relevance is often assumed a priori, with claims regarding its empirical relevance often asserted rather than argued for. Not only does its meaning, nature, and function remain amorphous, current scholarship also lacks a general conceptualization of the basic features that bind the manifold appearances of dehumanization together. It is this paucity of sustained reflection and particularly the lack of conceptual clarity that the present article seeks to address. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, it aims to deliver a more thorough-going appraisal of the nature of dehumanization as a fundamental violation of plurality to conceptually consolidate and ground its meaning and bind together its diverse manifestations across cases of mass violence.