Let’s dive into two heavyweight critiques of the “mythic human” framework: Sarah Ahmed’s critique of how social norms produce the “human,” and meta‑humanism’s challenge to it—and why both matter for genocide studies.

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1. Sarah Ahmed: Language, Fear & the Construction of the Human

Ahmed’s work doesn’t talk about genocide directly, but it’s vital for understanding how we create categories like the "mythic human":

• She shows that language then carves a boundary: the “human” who belongs versus the “sub‑human” who must be contained or expelled. This symbolic violence lays the groundwork for physical violence: genocide begins in how we talk, fear, and other them.

Ahmed’s critique reminds us: genocide isn’t just about killing bodies—it’s about constructing categories that make those bodies “killable.”

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2. Meta‑Humanism: Beyond the Mythic Human

Meta‑humanism (or Metahumanism), as theorized by Jaime del Val, directly attacks the idea of a stable, superior “human” and offers a radically different ontology metabody.eu+2metabody.eu+2metabody.eu+2:

• Rejects human supremacy and the idea of an unchanging, rational “mythic human” tied to colonial, male, neurotypical norms.

• Proposes a relational, fluid ontology: life as movement, hybrid bodies, perpetual mutation—a direct push against systems that freeze identities into fixed categories.

• Encourages ontology-ethics: moving away from hierarchies to openness, plurality, and bodily diversity.

In genocide terms, meta‑humanism dismantles the very conceptual architecture that allows one group to declare another “less than human.” It doesn't just challenge the category; it calls for entirely re-imagining identity.

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3. Why These Matter Together

When Ahmed shows how language erects boundaries of belonging and meta‑humanism demolishes those boundaries altogether, you get a potent toolkit:

• Ahmed helps diagnose how societies manufacture “us vs. them” .

• Meta‑humanism offers what comes after that boundary—a vision for plural worlds no longer ruled by rigid hierarchies.

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4. What You Might Do

To deepen your critique:

• Use Ahmed to trace a moment in history (e.g., Nazi propaganda, Rwandan radio) and show how language produced a sub‑human category.

• Then pull in meta‑humanism as a counter‑vision: “If we reject the fixity of the ‘human,’ what do we become instead?”

That way, your essay could move from diagnosis (“this is how genocide begins”) to counter‑vision (“this is how we undo it”).

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Summary:

• Ahmed: reveals the discursive construction of human‑ness and how it excludes others, which primes society for violence metabody.eu.

• Meta‑humanism: dismantles the category itself with a philosophy rooted in relations, fluidity, and plurality pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov+13metabody.eu+13metabody.eu+13.