Colonial and modern genocide: explanations and categories

Comparative and systematic analyses of genocide are rare. This article addresses theoretical questions of this most severe form of conflict. Its purpose is threefold. First, to outline factors whose conjuncture appears to be significant for a genocidal outcome in two colonial cases of genocide: Aborigines in Queensland, 1840-1897, and Hereros in South West Africa, 1884-1906. The second is to demonstrate that understanding genocides of colonialism is vital for understanding genocides more generally. The third is to show that differences between the two colonial cases suggest that colonial genocide is not a convincing category and to suggest that distinction between state and societal genocides is more useful.