Victim abolitionism

• In Event: Victimological futures: Exploring new approaches to victimisation and justice

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic work exploring processes of victim recognition within a UK police force, this presentation explores the limitations of ‘victim’ as a conceptual category. It examines the status of ‘victim’ as precarious, time-limited, incorporeal and dichotomised with the category ‘offender’, and argues that these characteristics cause further suffering to those who have already been harmed. Engaging with abolitionist and queer theories, this presentation will then explore alternatives to the category ‘victim’ that move beyond restrictive and binary classifications of harm.

Author

• Hannah Marshall, University of Warwick, UK