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The Power of Stereotypes and Enemy Images: The Case of the Chechen Wars

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Majority Cultures and the Everyday Politics of Ethnic Difference

Abstract

This is a story about enemy images in war. It is a well-established fact that people at war tend to dehumanize or demonize their opponents in order to be able to cope with the knowledge that they are actually killing and maiming people. By denigrating their adversaries they rationalize their actions and can even argue that what they are doing is useful to humanity, or at least to their own community. I will show how this dynamic has played itself out in the case of the protracted wars over Chechnya.

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© 2008 Bo Petersson

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Petersson, B. (2008). The Power of Stereotypes and Enemy Images: The Case of the Chechen Wars. In: Petersson, B., Tyler, K. (eds) Majority Cultures and the Everyday Politics of Ethnic Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582644_9

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