Abstract: Civilian casualty counts are products of specific methods, epistemologies, standards of proofs, and definitions. This article analyzes how the US military and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan assess civilian casualties. These counts are based on different and contestable concepts of who counts as a civilian, what counts as conflict violence, and what counts of evidence of civilian casualties. We illustrate this argument with four examples: the distinction between direct and indirect deaths, the boundary between civilians and non-civilians, the boundary between conflict violence and criminal violence, and hierarchies in the visibility of civilians.
This content is restricted to site members. If you are an existing user, please login. New users may click here to subscribe.
Current Issue
The latest issue of Humanity is out! Its special dossier interrogates recent humanitarian laws on the protection of healthcare workers, with essays examining various histories of attacks on healthcare in the long twentieth century. The issue also includes essays on a new politics of care as an alternative political framework to that of human rights; Carl Schmitt’s tenets of international law; and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s racial and cultural ideas on political economy.
View entire issue >
Save
Save
Save
📘'Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights and Decolonial Ethics' is now available for pre-order!
❕Grab your copy and save 30% OFF using the code NEW30 at checkout : https://edin.ac/3JIcRne
@HumanityJ
Login Status
If you are not a subscriber, you can sign up now.