ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an epistemological account of genocide denialism. It first introduces a distinction between (individual) denial and denialism as a collective achievement. It then elaborates on the relationships between denial, denialism, and ignorance. It does so by drawing on (a) agential and structural conceptions of ignorance and (b) insights from vice epistemology. This allows the establishment of an account of genocide denialism as an “epistemology of ignorance” that contributes to the development of epistemic vices on behalf of those in positions of dominant privilege. This renders their epistemic agency dysfunctional. The chapter aims to show how this account manifests in the Turkish institutional context, offering an argument of genocide denialism as rationalizing and normalizing the governing norms and expectations of Turkism (i.e., ethno-racial nationalism).
