According to Marvin Xia, genocide cannot be fully understood by looking at human suffering alone. His research argues that violence against animals and the land is not a side effect of genocide, but a central part of how collective destruction unfolds.
Xia is an instructor in the U of M’s department of sociology and criminology and holds two doctoral degrees — one in anthropology from Peking University and the other in sociology from the U of M. His research examines how settler colonialism, systemic oppression and genocide shape both human societies and the environments they inhabit.
“My long-term research interests are primarily focused on the complex dynamics of conflicts between state and ethnic minorities,” Xia said. He placed particular emphasis on Indigenous peoples, whose experiences of colonial violence often extend beyond direct harm to humans and into the destruction of animals, land and social relations.
Xia’s second PhD dissertation is a comparative study of mass animal deaths that occurred alongside genocides targeting human groups. He examined three cases — the slaughter of Tutsi cattle during the Rwandan genocide, the mass death of yaks during the collectivization of Tibetan nomads and the widespread killing of buffalo during the genocide against Indigenous peoples of North America.
“I try to find out why so many cattle were killed in the three events,” Xia explained, “and challenge the Western perspective that views animals as human property and natural resources.”
Rather than treating animals as passive losses, Xia’s research argues that cattle, yaks and buffalo held social, cultural and spiritual roles within their respective communities. Their destruction represented not only economic harm, but a collapse of collective life. In many of the societies he studied, animals functioned as members of the community rather than objects owned by humans.
“A major takeaway from this research is that to truly understand the suffering of victimized groups, we need to explore their own beliefs and knowledge systems,” Xia said. Concepts such as destruction or collectivity, he argued, cannot be imposed from outside cultural frameworks without losing their meaning.
Xia’s academic path was shaped by political realities as much as intellectual interest. His first doctoral research in China focused on conflicts between ethnic minorities and pre-communist Chinese governments, particularly involving Tibetans in southwest China. Studying contemporary minority issues under the current political system proved nearly impossible.
During fieldwork in Sichuan province, Xia witnessed the aftermath of Tibetan self-immolation protests that began in 2009. Later, mass internment and re-education camps in Xinjiang targeting Uyghur Muslims further reinforced the urgency of studying ethnic minority oppression. “China’s ethnic minority issues are very important,” Xia said. “However, people cannot [study them] within China.”
Strict censorship and surveillance limited access to information, leading Xia to relocate to Canada to continue his research. At the U of M, he shifted his focus toward genocide studies, using comparative and interdisciplinary methods that were not possible in his previous academic environment.
Xia described his work as contributing to the decolonization of genocide studies. His findings suggest that Western definitions of genocide, which focus primarily on human victims, overlook how collective destruction often includes animals and ecosystems that are integral to social life. In many non-Western societies, he argued, collectivity is not limited to humans alone.
“This suggests that ‘genos’ (collectivity) can have various implications and is not necessarily exclusive to humankind,” Xia said. Generally, this opens space for broader interpretations of violence, loss and survival.
Looking ahead, Xia plans to publish his dissertation with the aim of reshaping how scholars think about animal killing in genocidal contexts. Ultimately, Xia hopes his research encourages scholars and readers alike to reconsider fundamental questions such as, “What constitutes a group? And what constitutes destruction?”
For students entering the field, he advised stepping outside dominant academic frameworks and engaging with Indigenous and non-Western knowledge systems. “Students should strive to reflect on the habitual frameworks of thought in their lives,” he included.