Ideologies of moral exclusion: A critical discursive reframing of depersonalization, delegitimization and dehumanization

This article was published in the serial, British Journal of Social Psychology [© British Psychological Society]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/014466607X186894This paper focuses on some of the issues that arise when one treats notions such as depersonalization, delegitimization and dehumanization as social practices. It emphasizes the importance of: (a) understanding depersonalizing, delegitimizing and dehumanizing constructions as embedded in descriptions of located spatial activities and moral standings in the world and (b) invoking and building a socio-moral order linked to notions of lesser humanity or non-humanity, (spatial) transgression and abjection. These concerns are illustrated by taking talk on Romanies as a case in point from interviews with Romanian middle-class professionals. It is argued that a focus on description rather than explanation might be more effective in understanding the dynamics of ideologies of moral exclusion