What’s in a word? Victims on ‘victim’
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758018755154 |
| Author | Stephanie Fohring |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
What’s in a word?
Victims on ‘victim’
Stephanie Fohring
Edinburgh Napier University, UK
Abstract
Identifying as a victim of crime is a complex process involving both social and personal motivations.
This paper utilises data gathered from victims of crime to examine how their thoughts, feelings and
reactions to the victim label are influenced by societal stigma, and how this influence is mediated by
personal beliefs and cognitive processes. It does this firstly by examining participants’ thoughts and
reactions to the word ‘victim’, where findings indicate a distinct disconnect between how an
incident of crime is labelled and how a victim identifies themselves, suggesting an acknowledgement
of the incident as wrong and illegal, but denial of victimhood. Secondly, key themes considered by
participants to be characteristic of victimhood are identified. These include weakness as a core
characteristic of victims, the fluidity of the state of victimhood and the importance of effective
coping versus suffering.
Keywords
Victims, identity, labelling, stigma
Introduction
When presenting research at conferences or, on occasion, when teaching students, there is an
exercise I like to do in order to demonstrate the stigma of the word ‘victim’ in our modern Western
society. The exercise is simple: go online, and find a definition and/or list of synonyms to the word
‘victim’. The results are not particularly surprising, but very telling; examples include casualty,
sufferer, fatality, scapegoat and sacrifice, prey, hunted and quarry, to name but a few. This simple
exercise is a powerful example of the negative connotations the word conjures, and, in turn, why
one might be powerfully motivated to avoid being labelled in this manner.
Moving from synonyms to definitions, despite debate in the wider academic community (see
Hope, 2007), the World Society of Victimology still defines victims as
Corresponding author:
Stephanie Fohring, Edinburgh Napier University, ENU Sighthill Campus, Sighthill Court, EH11 4BN, Edinburgh, UK.
Email: s.fohring@napier.ac.uk
International Review of Victimology
2018, Vol. 24(2) 151–164
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758018755154
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