How does cultural genocide differ from physical genocide in terms of identity?

Cultural genocide targets the erasure of a group's cultural identity, while physical genocide aims to eliminate the group's physical existence.

Cultural genocide, also known as ethnocide, is a term used to describe the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political, military, religious, ideological, ethnical, or racial reasons. It is a form of violence that targets the symbols, practices, and institutions that make up a group's identity. This can include the destruction of historical sites, prohibition of language, suppression of religious practices, and the forced assimilation of a group into a dominant culture. The goal is not necessarily to kill the members of the group, but to erase their collective identity and history.

Physical genocide, on the other hand, is the intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part. The United Nations Genocide Convention defines it as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. This includes killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

In terms of identity, cultural genocide seeks to erase a group's cultural identity, while physical genocide seeks to erase the group's physical existence. Both forms of genocide can have devastating effects on a group's identity, but they do so in different ways. Cultural genocide attacks the intangible aspects of identity, such as language, religion, and traditions, while physical genocide attacks the tangible aspects of identity, such as the physical existence of the group's members. Both forms of genocide aim to erase a group's identity, but they do so through different means and with different targets.