International Review of Victimology

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 0269-7580

Issue Number

No. 30-2, May 2024

Latest documents

‘I lost over 700 tubers of yam but am glad I am still alive’: Implications of victimhood and displacement on conflict management – Insights from displaced farmers in North Central Nigeria
This study investigates the victimisation and challenges faced by the displaced agricultural community in North-Central Nigeria. The study argues that the significant loss and suffering experienced within this victimisation context contribute to the emergence of post-displacement stressors and act as catalysts for further acts of violence. A sample of 42 participant was selected using a combination of convenience sampling, snowball sampling, and purposeful sampling techniques. The participant were chosen from Daudu camps 1 and 2 (Mbawa), the Gbajimba internally displaced person (IDP) camp (Nzorov), and the Naka IDP camp (Ikyaghev). Data collection involved 8 focus group discussions with victims and 42 in-depth interviews with primary, secondary, and reintegrated victims, as well as representatives of herders. In addition, 14 key informant interviews were conducted with personnel from active non-governmental organisations (NGOs), IDP camp officials, State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) officials, police and army personnel, the head of a local vigilante group, and traditional district heads. Qualitative data analysis was performed thematically using NVIVO 12 Plus, a qualitative data analysis software. The findings highlight that food insecurity emerges as the primary challenge faced by the displaced population. Other challenges include poor living conditions, inadequate healthcare, a lack of employment opportunities, a high number of out-of-school children, emotional difficulties, and water and sanitation problems. Returnees face challenges in reconstructing damaged properties, establishing water sources, and ensuring adequate security. Most participant rely on support from SEMA, humanitarian NGOs, and donations from private individuals and groups. Based on the research results, the study proposes relevant policies for the government and other agencies involved in assisting displaced populations. It emphasises the need for the government to engage with individuals and groups to provide long-term assistance for victims’ rehabilitation, reintegration, and recovery.
Less than ideal victims: Understanding barriers to Queer men’s recognition of male-perpetrated intimate partner violence through Christie’s ‘Ideal Victim’ framework
Queer men who experience Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) from male romantic partners have long struggled to recognise that they are being abused or to identify themselves as victims. I argue that Nils Christie’s framework of the Ideal Victim can help us to understand the cultural and social dynamics which work to prevent these men from identifying their experiences as forms of victimisation. This paper uses data gathered from interviews with Queer male victims of male-perpetrated IPV to investigate this potential relationship, attempting to find out how the men understood their experiences of violence and abuse in relation to wider cultural norms and images of victimisation. This analysis reveals two key themes. First, within the men’s accounts, the images of the Ideal Victim and Offender are heavily gendered and because of this, the men struggled to relate their own experiences of victimisation to what they perceive to be the heavily feminised figure of the Ideal Victim. Second, within the men’s account, there was a ‘Public Story’ of IPV in which relationship abuse had to be physical, frequent, and all-consuming to be taken seriously. This ‘Public Story’ constrained the men’s ability to understand their partner’s actions as IPV and made them doubt the validity and legitimacy of their own experiences in which emotional manipulation and psychological abuse were often more frequent and devastating than physical assault. From these findings, I argue that there is an urgent need to confront the Public Story of IPV and its related Ideal Victim to craft more inclusive public narratives of relationship abuse in which Queer male victims can find legitimacy and support for their experiences.
To deny or dismantle? Responding to victims of targeted hostility in higher education
With the increasing diversification of higher education, the volume of targeted hostility that students are subjected to on the basis of their identities or perceived ‘differences’ has increased. Typically overlooked within conventional studies of hate crime, incidents of targeted victimisation within higher education are likely to mirror, if not exceed levels exhibited within broader society. Nonetheless, with an absence of robust research evidence exploring this phenomenon, institutions’ responses are often varied, ineffective, or absent. Through a mixed-methods approach involving a survey of 565 student respondents and 39 follow-up interviews undertaken at a UK-based university, this article discusses the nature, impact, and support needs of victims of targeted hostility within higher education. The article unpacks the commonalities and distinctions between victimisation encountered within a campus environment as compared with wider society. Drawing from this study’s research evidence, we argue that while the nature of victimisation within universities holds significant parallels to equivalent encounters within wider society, there are specific challenges within higher education, which can amplify the risk, fear, and impacts of targeted hostility. These challenges require responses within higher education, which acknowledge and prioritise evidence-based, victim-led interventions for prevention, reporting, and support.
Lessons from insiders: Embracing subjectivity as objectivity in victimology
Due to the prevalence of victimization in society, it is likely that many victimologists have been victimized or will be in their lifetimes. This poses a challenge for the field of victimology as traditional, positivist conceptions of ‘good science’ require researchers to be outsiders relative to populations they study. This paper asks: What are the epistemological and practical implications of victimological research conducted by researchers who have firsthand experiences of victimization? What lessons can be retained by other victimologists and researchers in general? How can these epistemological considerations be applied in practice? To answer these questions, I examine the meanings of insider and outsider status and the implications for objectivity and subjectivity as per positivist and standpoint epistemologies. I present the case of victimologists who have been victimized as well as the advantages and disadvantages of this form of insider research. I deconstruct insider–outsider, subjectivity–objectivity dualisms as they pertain to victimologists, concluding that all victimologists can be subjective whether they are technically insiders or not. In closing, I discuss how all victimologists can embrace their own and their participants’ subjectivity as a resource for objectivity by examining location, emotions and bodies, and ethics throughout the research process.
Book review: Social Media Victimization: Theories and Impacts of Cyberpunishment
Book review: The Participation of Victims in International Criminal Proceedings: An Expressivist Justice Model
Book review: Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism
Constructions of migrant victims of labor exploitation in Nordic court cases
The aim of this article is to explore how courts produce certain representations of victims of labor exploitation in the Nordic context based on court judgments from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. To achieve this, we analyze and compare criminal court judgments focused on the exploitation of migrant workers by asking: How are ‘victims’ of labor exploitation represented in Nordic court judgments? What is left unproblematic and silenced? In each country, we have identified criminal court cases that have legally examined aspects of the exploitation of migrant workers, in total, 91 court judgments. Drawing on Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach, we can show that the representations of victims apparent in the court judgments involve a legal construction of vulnerability that is reserved for the most marginalized migrant workers. The narrow representation silences the broader socio-economic context in which migrant workers exist. Our results also indicate that the threshold for being defined as a victim of labor exploitation is lower in some of the Nordic countries and higher in others. Thus, while there is a normative consensus that the exploitation of migrant workers should be prosecuted, in practice, the court judgments reflect substantial differences in the legal interpretations applied across the Nordic countries.
Human trafficking for labour exploitation: The survivors’ perspective
Despite being the second most prevalent form of human trafficking, human trafficking for labour exploitation remains a victimisation process that has received little scholarly attention. This qualitative study, based on data from in-depth interviews with labour trafficking survivors in Spain, seeks to apprehend how they experienced that situation while giving them a voice and adopting a survivor-centric approach to the phenomenon. To this end, it first analyses from their perspective the process of their enslavement, as well as the feelings it engendered: from recruitment, to transfer, to exploitation, including the objective circumstances and means used. It then analyses the essential aspects of the process leading to their liberation, examining how the situation was ended, the type of assistance received and desired, and the recourse they had to a criminal law response. It concludes with a series of proposals for how labour trafficking should be institutionally addressed in view of the survivors’ suggestions.
Acts of contrition: Forgiveness and effective intergroup apologies for historical institutional abuse
This article examines some of the complexities of the apology–forgiveness nexus within the context of intergroup apologies by church and state for historical institutional abuse (HIA). Drawing on primary research conducted in Ireland, North and South, including the voices of a sample of victims/survivors, it argues that effective intergroup apologies for HIA and the extent to which they might elicit forgiveness among victimized communities are impacted by a range of factors including (1) leader apologies and the ‘normative dilution effect’; (2) the lack of emotion and remorse; and (3) in the case of church apologies in particular, the use of religious rhetoric and ritual. The analysis ultimately suggests that while ‘pure’ forgiveness may not be possible in this specific context, effective intergroup apologies for HIA, delivered in a collective, public context, which have the potential to promote forgiveness among victims/survivors, are those which closely approximate the relational dimensions of private, interpersonal apologies. This entails demonstrating emotion; humility; proximity to historical wrongdoing; connectivity with victims/survivors; and the commitment to non-recurrence.