The Context, Content, and Claims of Humiliation in Response to Collective Victimhood

This chapter examines the role of humiliation in experiences of collective victimization. Humiliation is conceptualized as a self-conscious emotion that is distinct from shame, anger, and embarrassment. Humiliation is experienced when dehumanizing and devaluing treatment occurs that is appraised as illegitimate. The chapter discusses the paradox in the literature on humiliation, whereby both action (e.g., cycles of violence) and suppression of action (e.g., demobilization of resistance) have been observed as an outcome of humiliation. Drawing on research on the experience of Dalits in the Hindu caste system, a conceptualization of humiliation is presented that is relational, victim centered, and focused on agency and power relations. Humiliation is conceptualized as a claim, which involves both the appraisal of certain acts of victimization as humiliating, and the political act of communicating resentment to the perpetrator. Overall, humiliation can be used to mobilize or demobilize resistance to oppression.