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Cheliotis on Bauman on Physical Exclusion & Domination

By Lawrence Solum

Leonidas K. Cheliotis (Queen Mary University of London, School of Law) has posted The Sociospatial Mechanics of Domination: Transcending the 'Exclusion/Inclusion' Dualism (Law & Critique: The International Journal of Critical Legal Thought, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This article takes issue with Zygmunt Bauman?s thesis that physical exclusion depends on the hindrance of cognitive associations, emotional quandaries, and moral inhibitions, hence victims and their lot remain out of sight. It is counterargued that conscious engagement in directly physical forms of exclusionary behaviour is possible insofar as victims are known in ways that provoke emotional disdain and moralise violence. Such knowledge consists in the relegation of others to the status of morally lesser human beings, and is produced via prior symbolic mediations. To the extent that mediations operate according to the power differentials they both reflect and help to sustain, there is a need to shift analytical attention from exclusion to the ?meta-category? of domination.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on March 05, 2010 (boomark / email).