The Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood

Throughout the world, many continue to experience collective violence and its long-lasting consequences. This book examines the social psychological processes involved in experiences of collective victimization and oppression, as well as the consequences of these experiences for individuals and for relations within and between groups. In twenty chapters, authors explore questions such as: How are experiences of collective victimization passed down and understood? How do people cope with and make sense of these experiences? Who is included and excluded from the category of ＂victims,＂ and what are the psychological consequences of such denial versus acknowledgment of collective victimization? And finally, what are the ethics of researching collective victimization, especially when these experiences are recent or politically contested?

The authors examine these questions and others across a range of different contexts of collective violence in different parts of the world, including ethnic and religious conflicts, the aftermath of genocides, post-Apartheid, consequences of settler colonialism, racism, the caste system, and national histories of victimization.

Johanna Ray Vollhardt is Associate Professor of Psychology at Clark University, where she directs the Social Psychology Ph.D. program. At Clark, she is also affiliated with the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Peace Studies program, and the Center for Gender, Area, and Race Studies.
She has served on the governing council and as Vice President of the International Society of Political Psychology. She is a co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Social and Political Psychology.