Introduction: Questions, Theory, Darfur, Data

This chapter introduces a vital issue in the fight against grave human rights violations: how fields and actors in the Global North represent—that is, acknowledge and frame—mass violence in the Global South. Core theoretical orientations are the sociology of knowledge and collective representations, field theory, as well as debates between globalization theorists and opponents who take nation-level conditions seriously. The case of Darfur is introduced by contrasting conflicting representations, even within the academic literature, of this first event of mass violence in the twenty-first century (books by sociologist-criminologists John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond, political scientist Mahmood Mamdani, and historian-anthropologist Alex de Waal, with journalist Julie Flint). Data are introduced, especially the Darfur Media Data Set, based on content analysis of some 3,400 articles from fourteen prominent newspapers in eight countries, as well as in-depth interviews with Africa correspondents and experts from NGOs and foreign ministries. Countries include the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The organization of the book is laid out.