Ken MacLean
Professor, IDCE
Professor, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
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Professor Ken MacLean holds a joint appointment with IDCE and the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology (University of Michigan 2005), a M.S. in Environment Justice (School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan 2004), and a B.A. in Anthropology (Princeton University, 1990). Before coming to Clark University, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Comparative and International Studies (Emory University, 2005-2007). Funding for his research has come from the Fulbright-Hays Program, The Wenner-Gren Foundation, and The Mellon Foundation, among other sources.
MacLean has more than twenty-five years of experience working with NGOs, including Fortify Rights as a Senior Advisor, on issues related to human rights violations, conflict-induced displacement, state-sponsored violence, extractive industries, and territorial disputes across South East Asia.
His recent book, Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2022),explores the many ways in which human rights “facts” are produced rather than found. With Myanmar as his case study, MacLean examines the fact-finding practices of a human rights group, two cross-border humanitarian agencies, an international law clinic, and a global NGO-led campaign. Foregrounding fact-finding, in critical yet constructive ways, prompts long overdue conversations about the possibilities and limits of human rights documentation as a mode of truth-seeking. Such conversations are particularly urgent in an era when the perpetrators of large-scale human rights violations exploit misinformation, weaponize disinformation, and employ outright falsehoods, including deep fakes, to undermine the credibility of those who document abuses and demand that they be held accountable for them in the court of public opinion and in courts of law. To respond to such attacks, MacLean compels practitioners and scholars alike to be more transparent about how human rights “fact” production works, why it is important, and when its use should prompt concern.
The book is now short-listed by ICAS (International Convention of Asian Scholars) for its 2023 Best Book Prize in the Social Sciences.
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2005
- M.S. in Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2004
- M.A. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1998
- B.A. in Anthropology, Princeton University, 1990
Affiliated Department(s)
- IDCE
- Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
- Holocaust and Genocide Studies, International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE), Center for Gender, Race, and Area Studies (CGRAS)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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The G-Word: A Podcast on Genocide
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2023
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Interactive Digital Platforms, Human Rights Fact Production, and the International Criminal Court
Published in Journal of Human Rights Practice
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2023
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Vol. 15
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Issue #1
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Published by University of Toronto Press
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2023
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Human Rights ‘Fact’ Production and Why It Matters: Myanmar as a Case in Point
November
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2022
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Genocide by Attrition: The Role of Identity Documents in the Holocaust and the Genocides of Rwanda and Myanmar
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2022
Fortify Rights
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“Nowhere is Safe”: The Myanmar Military’s Crimes Against Humanity in the Wake of the Coup d’état
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2022
Fortify Rights
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Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights Production and Myanmar
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2022
University of California Press
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Published by Routledge
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2021
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Historicizing the Archive: Revisiting the Mechanics of Mass Murder in Indonesia (1965-1966)
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2020
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Vol. 176
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Commentary: International Humanitarian Law and Corporate Accountability in a Conflict Zone
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2018
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Published by University of Pennsylvania Press
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2018
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Famine Crimes: Military Operations, Forced Migration, and Chronic Hunger in Eastern Burma/Myanmar (2006-2008)
IDCE Occasional Paper Series
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2018
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The Rohingya Crisis and the Practices of Erasure
Published in Journal of Genocide Research
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2018
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Vol. 21
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Issue #3
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Humanitarian Mine Action in Myanmar and the Mismanagement of Risk
Published in Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology
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2017
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Vol. 74
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Danger Underfoot: Humanitarian Mine Action in Myanmar
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2017
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Vol. 7
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Published in TRaNS: Trans-Regional and-National Studies of Southeast Asia
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2016
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Vol. 1
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Issue #2
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History Reformatted: Vietnam's Great Famine (1944-1945) in Archival Form
Published in Southeast Asian Studies
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2016
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Vol. 5
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Issue #2
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Counter-Accounting with Invisible Data: The Struggle for Transparency in Myanmar's Energy Sector
Published in Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR)
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2014
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Vol. 37
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Issue #1
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Risk Management and the Business of Financial (Non-)Disclosure in Myanmar
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2014
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Published by Brill
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2014
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Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity: Vietnam
Chapter: The Enterprising CadrePublished by University of Hawai'i Press
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2013
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'A Biography Not' General Tran Do: His Dissident Writings, Elite Politics, and Death in Retrospect
Published in The Journal of Vietnamese Studes
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2013
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Vol. 8
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Issue #1
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The Government of Mistrust: Illegibility and Bureaucratic Power in Socialist Vietnam
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2013
University of Wisconsin Press
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Lawfare and Impunity in Burma since the 2000 Ban on Forced Labor
Published in Asian Studies Review
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2012
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Vol. 36
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Issue #June
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Enacting Anti-Corruption: The Reconfiguration of Audit Regimes in Contemporary Vietnam
Published in Positions: Asia critique
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2012
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Vol. 36
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Issue #June
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Published by Routledge
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2012
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Published by Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
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2010
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Published in The Journal of Vietnamese Studies
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2010
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Vol. 5
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Issue #2
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Taking Southeast Asia to Market: Commodities, Nature, and People in a Neoliberal Age
Chapter: Sovereignty after the Entrepreneurial Turn: Mosaics of Control, Commodified Spaces, and Regulated Violence in Contemporary BurmaPublished by Cornell University Press
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2008
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Published in History and Anthropology
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2008
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Vol. 19
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Issue #3
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Published in Comparative Studies in Society and History
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2008
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Vol. 50
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Issue #4
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Published by Australia National University
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2007
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Manifes Socialism: The Labor of Representation in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1956-1959)
Published in The Journal of Vietnamese Studies
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2007
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Vol. 2
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Issue #1
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Reconfiguring the Debte on Engagement: Burma and the Changing Politics of Aid
Published in Critical Asian Studies
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2004
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Vol. 36
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Issue #3
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Capitalizing on Conflict: Logging and Mining in Burma's Ceasefire Zones
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2003
EarthRights International and Karen Environmental and Social Action Network
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More of the Same: Forced Labor Continues in Burma (October 2000-September 2001)
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2001
EarthRights International
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Awards & Grants
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Best Book in the Social Sciences - Short List
International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS)
2023
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