Citation

Salter M, McGuire K. J. Interpers. Violence 2015; 30(10): 1782-1802.

Affiliation

University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886260514548582

PMID

25287408

Abstract

The field of hate crime research addresses the presence, sources, and impact of particular types of expressions of prejudice, often perceived as particularly damaging and hurtful forms of interpersonal abuse and violence. There is the reflexive question of the possibilities of researchers themselves ever being able to adopt a truly "unprejudiced" approach to the presence of such damaging prejudices. Can this goal be realized without a researcher necessarily losing an experientially grounded understanding of what these meanings, values and purposes have come to mean, and how they are themselves interpretively reconstituted anew, including within the lived experience of victims, witnesses, police, prosecutors, judges, and victim support workers? A possible philosophically informed approach to the dilemmas posed by this topic is offered by Husserl's phenomenology (the movement founded by Husserl that concentrates on the detailed description of conscious experience, without recourse to explanation, metaphysical assumptions, and traditional philosophical questions -- a method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness.). This study critically explores the possibilities, reflective stages, and theoretical limitations of a sympathetically reconstructed Husserlian approach to hate crime. It argues that despite its manifest tensions, gaps, ambiguities, and internal contradictions, aspects of the Husserlian philosophical approach directed toward the different levels of experienced hate crime still retain the potential to both challenge and advance our understanding of this topic.

Language: en