Famines as mass atrocities: Reconsidering Violence, Memory and Justice in Relation to Hunger

Research results

In recent years, the number of people suffering from hunger has dramatically increased and famines have returned as a global calamity. Historically, the casualties from mass-starvation are staggering. Yet, the loss caused by hunger tends to be treated differently than deaths inflicted by war and other more direct and spectacular forms of violence, which are often followed by processes of justice and memorialization. The research project sought to contribute to a scholarly and policy endeavor to (re)frame famines as violence and thereby find ways to address the suffering and perpetration of hunger in the past in ways which help prevent such tragedies in the future.

The project aimed to analyze the attempts and possibilities to pursue remembrance and justice after famines.

Below we summarize some of the main research results. They are based on the study of hunger crises in Cabo Verde, Cambodia, China, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor/Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, Finland, India, Iran, Ireland, Lebanon, Nigeria, Rwanda Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Ukraine.

How can we understand the type of violence that famines involve? How is hunger violence understood, represented or made invisible?

Famines are typically understood as “natural” disasters caused by poor weather. Often, famine victims are invisible in global and national public discourse, which predominantly focus on spectacular and immediate crises of war and terrorism. When visible, famine victims tend to be represented as women and children, and as miserable “others” lacking agency. Hunger is suffered in marginalized spaces and distant geographies and perceived to be either outside violence or a byproduct of violence. This risks making hunger seem less urgent than other problems.

The project analyzed famines as a type of violence that takes many forms, given the multiple causes and dynamics of famines. Partly, famine violence is direct, as when starving people are forced to give away their few resources or when blockades are imposed to starve people. Famine violence can also be structural and relate to prevailing poverty, lack of healthcare and lacking capacity for humanitarian intervention. We also use the concept “slow violence” to show how harm is caused through long processes; the slow weakening of human bodies or long-term climate change causing extreme weather followed by food insecurity.  

What possibilities and obstacles are there to holding those responsible for famine violence accountable?

The transitional justice processes that many famine-affected countries have initiated after mass-violence offer a potential to also investigate culpability for mass-starvation. However, most do not investigate starvation crimes. Those who do have failed to prosecute perpetrators. One reason is the difficulty to find evidence and to establish responsibility for famine deaths. Another is that those responsible for mass-hunger often maintain powerful positions.  

To what extent, under what conditions and how are famines publicly commemorated? And, conversely, when, how and why is the memory of famines silenced?

Famines are more likely to be publicly commemorated by states when powerholders find them useful e.g. to contrast the current success of the country with a miserable past, to stress the culpability of an external enemy, to build national identity or to invoke in oppositional politics –  or when activists encourage commemoration. Where state-led commemoration is absent, famines are still publicly remembered through local initiatives. Monuments, exhibitions, artwork, commemorative events and historical walks are examples of activities by state and non-state actors. We found that state actors sometimes deliberately repress famine memory to hide their own culpability, avoid shame and pursue more glorious narratives of the nation’s past. Survivors and their descendants may also choose to keep silent about famine experiences that are painful and disgraceful.

What actors and initiatives pursue remembrance and justice for hunger deaths? What are their motivations and what challenges do they face?

We found a range of initiatives to preserve the memory of hunger crises, such as formal heritage-recognition processes, artistic work, collections of oral history, poetry and literature. Memory also lives on in names and proverbs, while social media is an important space for memorialization and calls for justice. Often, committed individuals play an important role, e.g. survivors or their descendants, historians, artists and political activists. They carry out research, establish commemorative rituals and memorials, document oral history, produce exhibitions, poetry, songs, paintings or literature. They are motivated by a strong interest in heritage, their own family history, an urge for rectification for victims, or links to current conflicts and struggles, such as the war in Ukraine, the global pandemic or ongoing hunger.    

Recommended readings

If you want to read more about processes of accountability, memorialization – or forgetting – after famines, we have put together some recommendations below. There is much more out there, but these are works that we find particularly worthwhile reading. In addition to this, we of course also recommend the articles in our special issue (see above).