ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand violence as action and perpetrators as actors who perpetrate by developing a typology of action in genocide. The typology can be used as an analytical tool for categorising any action within genocide and is founded on two dimensions: the impact this action has on the genocide and its proximity to the killing. These two dimensions create a 14-field typology that encompasses, but differentiates in more detail, the traditional categories of perpetrators, rescuers and bystanders. Drawing on anecdotal examples from various cases, the chapter shows how such a typological approach to genocidal action can allow us to better understand complex actors who act in different ways at different times, as well as to better differentiate between various actions in the grey zones between the traditional categories.
