This article examines tweets about state violence targeting student protesters at the University of Cauca in December 2018. Its objective is accounting for the role of dehumanization of actors in legitimizing and delegitimizing state violence. It analyzes 8421 tweets to unravel specific mechanisms of dehumanization based on following sub-categories: (a) animalization, (b) classism, (c) racism, (d) religious discrimination, (e) sanitation, (f) sexism, (g) wishing for or celebrating injuries, and h) other. It shows how dehumanization a) attributes lack of rationality, morality, or agency to social actors; (b) trivializes their lives; and (c) defines them as sources of contamination. After arguing that dehumanizing discourse makes it extremely difficult to establish dialogue and promote nonviolence, it suggests future research on possible ways of re-humanization of dehumanized actors.
AgambenG. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University Press.
3.
AhmedS. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh University Press.
4.
AhmedW.BathP. A.DemartiniG. (2017). Using twitter as a data source: An overview of ethical, legal, and methodological challenges. In WoodfieldK. (Ed.), The ethics of online research (advances in research ethics and integrity (pp. 79–107). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-601820180000002004
5.
AlexanderJ. C. (2006). The civil sphere. Oxford University Press.
6.
AngermullerJ.MaingueneauD.WodakR. (2014). The discourse studies reader: Main currents in theory and analysis. John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.184
7.
Bar-TalD. (1989). Delegitimization: The extreme case of stereotyping and prejudice. In Bar-TalD.GraumannC. F.KruglanskiA. W.StroebeW. (Eds.), Stereotyping and prejudice: Changing conceptions (pp. 169–182). Springer.
8.
BeyribeyT. (2020). Medico-political metaphors of counter-terrorism: The case of Turkey. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 13(3), 418–440. https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2020.1791388
BustamanteP.JashnaniG.StoudtB. G. (2019). Cumulative dehumanization in everyday policing: The psychological, affective, and material consequences of discretionary arrests. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 19(1), 305–348. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12187
11.
ButlerJ. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.
12.
ButlerJ. (2009). Frames of war: When is life grievable?Verso.
13.
Castelao-HuertaI. (2021). Efectos Problemáticos de la Neoliberalización de las Universidades Públicas en Colombia. Unipluriversidad, 21(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.unipluri.21.1.03
14.
ChenM.FlowerdewJ. (2019). Discriminatory discursive strategies in online comments on YouTube videos on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement by Mainland and Hong Kong Chinese. Discourse and Society, 30(6), 549–572. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926519870046
15.
ChengT. (2021). Social media, socialization, and pursuing legitimation of police violence. Criminology, 59(3), 391–418. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12277
16.
ChristieD. J.NoorN. M. (2017). Humanising and dehumanising the other: Ethnic conflict in Malaysia. In SeedatM.SufflaS.ChristieD. J. (Eds.), Enlarging the scope of peace psychology: African and world-regional contributions (pp. 109–157). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45289-0_7
17.
Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la, C.Y La N.R. (2022). Hay futuro si hay verdad: Hallazgos y recomendaciones de la Comisión de la Verdad de Colombia.
18.
Cortés IbáñezE. A. (2014). Feminización y subalternización del otro enemigo. Construcción y destrucción de corporalidades en contextos de conflicto armado y violencia extrema. Colombia Internacional, 80, 57–82. https://doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint80.2014.03.
19.
DalsklevM.KunstJ. R. (2015). The effect of disgust-eliciting media portrayals on outgroup dehumanization and support of deportation in a norwegian sample. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 47, 28–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.03.028.
20.
DinizE.CastroP.BousfieldA.Figueira BernardesS. (2020). Classism and dehumanization in chronic pain: A qualitative study of nurses’ inferences about women of different socio-economic status. British Journal of Health Psychology, 25(1), 152–170. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12399
21.
EngelsF. (2010). The origin of the family, private property and the state. Penguin Books.
22.
EssedP. (2020). Humiliation, dehumanization and the quest for dignity: Researching beyond racism. In SolomosJ. (Ed.), Routledge international handbook of contemporary racisms (pp. 442–455). Routledge.
23.
FiskeS. T. (2021). How status and interdependence explain different forms of dehumanization. In KronfeldnerM. (Ed.), The routledge handbook of dehumanization (pp. 245–259). Routledge.
24.
FoucaultM. (1978). The history of sexuality: an introduction. Random House.
25.
FoucaultM. (1992). El orden del discurso. Tusquets Editores.
26.
FoucaultM. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collége de France, 1978-79. Palgrave Macmillan.
27.
GaltungJ. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. PRIO.
28.
GregoryT. (2016). Dismembering the dead: Violence, vulnerability and the body in war. European Journal of International Relations, 22(4), 944–965. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066115618244
29.
HaslamN.LoughnanS.KashimaY.BainP. (2008). Attributing and denying humanness to others. European Review of Social Psychology, 19(1), 55–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280801981645
30.
HeteyR. C.EberhardtJ. L. (2014). Cops and criminals: The interplay of mechanistic and animalistic dehumanization in the criminal justice system. In BainP. G.VaesJ.LeyensJ.-P. (Eds.), Humanness and dehumanization (pp. 155–174). Psychology Press.
31.
HobbesT. (1998). Leviathan. Oxford University Press.
32.
HoltzP.WagnerW. (2009). Essentialism and attribution of monstrosity in racist discourse: Right-wing internet postings about Africans and Jews. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 19(6), 411–425. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.1005
HundW. D. (2021). Dehumanization and social death as fundamentals of racism. In KronfeldnerM. (Ed.), The routledge handbook of dehumanization (pp. 231–244). Routledge.
KantI. (1991). The metaphysics of morals. Cambridge University Press.
37.
KleinmanS.EzzellM. B.FrostA. C. (2009). Reclaiming Critical Analysis: The Social Harms of “Bitch”. Sociological Analysis, 3(1), 47–68.
38.
KuntsmanA. (2010). Online memories, digital conflicts and the cybertouch of war. Digital Icons: Studies in Russian Eurasian and Central European New Media, 4, 1–12.
39.
KuntsmanA.SteinR. L. (2015). Digital militarism: Israel’s occupation in the social media age. Stanford University Press.
40.
Latzko-TothG.BonneauC.MilletteM. (2022). Small data, thick data: Data thickening strategies for social media research. In Quan-HaaseA.SloanL. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media research methods (pp. 157–172). SAGE.
41.
León-PortillaM. (2010). El indio vivo visto por los frailes en el siglo XVI. Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 41, 281–295.
MacheryE. (2021). Dehumanization and the loss of moral standing. In KronfeldnerM. (Ed.), The routledge handbook of dehumanization (pp. 145–158). Routledge.
45.
Matamoros-FernándezA. (2017). Platformed racism: The mediation and circulation of an Australian race-based controversy on twitter, facebook and YouTube. Information, Communication and Society, 20(6), 930–946. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1293130
46.
MemmiA. (2000). Racism. University of Minnesota Press.
47.
Methot-JonesT.BookA.GauthierN. Y. (2019). Less than human: Psychopathy, dehumanization, and sexist and violent attitudes towards women. Personality and Individual Differences, 149, 250–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.06.002.
48.
MikkolaM. (2016). The wrong of injustice: Dehumanization and its role in feminist philosophy. Oxford University Press.
49.
MorrisK. L.GoldenbergJ.BoydP. (2018). Women as animals, women as objects: Evidence for two forms of objectification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(9), 1302–1314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218765739
50.
Owusu-BempahA. (2017). Race and policing in historical context: Dehumanization and the policing of Black people in the 21st century. Theoretical Criminology, 21(1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480616677493
51.
Pabón SuárezI. C. (2015). Limpieza social” en bogotá: La construcción del indeseable. Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
52.
PacilliM. G.PagliaroS.LoughnanS.GramazioS.SpaccatiniF.BaldryA. C. (2017). Sexualization reduces helping intentions towards female victims of intimate partner violence through mediation of moral patiency. The British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(2), 293–313. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12169
SaffordF.PalaciosM. (2001). Colombia: Fragmented land, Divided Society. Oxford University Press.
55.
SaidE. W. (2003). Orientalism. Penguin Books.
56.
SalmenA.DhontK. (2021). Hostile and benevolent sexism: The differential roles of human supremacy beliefs, women’s connection to nature, and the dehumanization of women. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 24(7), 1053–1076. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220920713
SiaperaE. (2019). Online misogyny as witch hunt: Primitive accumulation in the age of techno-capitalismGender hate online (pp. 21–43). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96226-9_2
61.
SivakumaranS. (2007). Sexual violence against men in armed conflict. European Journal of International Law, 18(2), 253–276. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chm013
62.
SobierajS. (2018). Bitch, slut, skank, cunt: Patterned resistance to women’s visibility in digital publics. Information, Communication and Society, 21(11), 1700–1714. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1348535
63.
SpeltiniG.PassiniS. (2014). Cleanliness/dirtiness, purity/impurity as social and psychological issues. Culture and Psychology, 20(2), 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X14526895
64.
SteuterE.WillsD. (2008). At war with metaphor: Media, propaganda, and racism in the war on terror. Rowman and Littlefield.
65.
StuurmanS. (2021). Dehumanization before the columbian exchange. In KronfeldnerM. (Ed.), The routledge handbook of dehumanization (pp. 39–51). Routledge.
66.
TaylorK. (2007). Disgust is a factor in extreme prejudice. The British Journal of Social Psychology, 46(Pt 3), 597–617. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466606X156546
67.
TiplerC. N.RuscherJ. B. (2014). Agency’s role in dehumanization: Non-human metaphors of out-groups. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(5), 214–228. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12100
Uribe MallarinoC. (2008). Estratificación social en bogotá: De la política pública a la dinámica de la segregación social. Universitas Humanística, 65, 139–171.
70.
van DijkT. A. (2001). Multidisciplinary cda: A plea for diversity. In WodakR.MeyerM. (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 95–120). SAGE.
71.
van DijkT. A. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. In TannenD.HamiltonH. E.SchiffrinD. (Eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 466–485). John Wiley and Sons.
VikiG. T.AbramsD. (2003). Infra-humanization: Ambivalent sexism and the attribution of primary and secondary emotions to women. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39(5), 492–499. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00031-3
74.
VolpatoC.AndrighettoL.BaldissarriC. (2017). Perceptions of low-status workers and the maintenance of the social class status quo. Journal of Social Issues, 73(1), 192–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12211
75.
WalbyK.LippertR. (2012). Spatial regulation, dispersal, and the aesthetics of the city: Conservation officer policing of homeless people in ottawa, Canada. Antipode, 44(3), 1015–1033. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00923.x
76.
WalzerA. S.CzoppA. M. (2011). Able but unintelligent: Including positively stereotyped black subgroups in the stereotype content model. The Journal of Social Psychology, 151(5), 527–530. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2010.503250
77.
WilliamsM. L.BurnapP.SloanL. (2017). Towards an ethical framework for publishing twitter data in social research: Taking into account users’ views, online context and algorithmic estimation. Sociology, 51(6), 1149–1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038517708140
ZavattaroS. M.EntressR.TylerJ.SadiqA.-A. (2021). When deaths are dehumanized: Deathcare during COVID-19 as a public value failure. Administration and Society, 53(9), 009539972110231–009539972111462. https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211023185
80.
ZurbriggenE. L. (2008). Sexualized torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison: Feminist psychological analyses. Feminism and Psychology, 18(3), 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353508092083
