Injustice and indignity in the threshold of materiality

Abstract

This article considers the role of dignity in the context of procedural fairness and the threshold of materiality. The author argues that dignity and indignation operate as social contingencies with expressive and constitutive consequences. The author particularly analyses the use of dignity as a justification for procedural fairness, and the ways in which a socio-political concept of dignity facilitates contestation of the law. Finally, the author explains how the threshold of materiality has conversely diminished such contestation by diminishing indignation.