Social death is the condition of people not accepted as fully human by wider society. It refers to when someone is treated as if they are dead or non-existent.[1] It is used by sociologists such as Orlando Patterson and Zygmunt Bauman, and historians of slavery and the Holocaust to describe the part played by governmental and social segregation in that process.[2][3] Social death is defined by "three aspects: a loss of social identity, a loss of social connectedness and losses associated with disintegration of the body."[4]
Examples of social death are:
- Racial and gender exclusion, persecution, slavery, and apartheid.[5][6][7]
- Governments can exclude individuals or groups from society. Examples: Protestant minority groups in early modern Europe; ostracism in Ancient Athens; Dalits in India; criminals; prostitutes, outlaws[8][9]
- Institutionalization and segregation of those labeled with a mental illness.
- Change in the identity of an individual. This was a major theme during the Renaissance.
- ^ Borgstrom, Erica (20 October 2016). "Social Death". QJM: An International Journal of Medicine. 110 (1): 5–7. doi:10.1093/qjmed/hcw183. PMID 27770051.
- ^ Claudia Card, Genocide and Social Death, Hypatia, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter 2003)
- ^ BRODBER, ERNA (December 2012). "History and Social Death". Caribbean Quarterly. 58 (4): 111–115. doi:10.1080/00086495.2012.11672459. S2CID 159886790.
- ^ Králová, Jana (3 July 2015). "What is social death?". Contemporary Social Science. 10 (3): 235–248. doi:10.1080/21582041.2015.1114407.
- ^ Family and Psycho-Social Dimensions of Death and Dying in African Americans, Key Topics on End-of-Life Care for African Americans, Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life and the Initiative to Improve Palliative Care for African Americans
- ^ John Edwin Mason, Social Death and Resurrection: Slavery and Emancipation in South Africa, ISBN 0-8139-2178-3
- ^ Patterson 2000.
- ^ Jaap W. Ouwerkerk, et al., Avoiding the Social Death Penalty: Threat of Ostracism and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas, The 7th Annual Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology: The Social Outcast: Ostracism, Social Exclusion, Rejection, & Bullying, Mar. 16-18, 2004 (Alternate link)
- ^ Matelita Ragogo, Social Death Part of AIDS Tragedy, Says HIV-Positive Advocate, Agence France Presse, Sept. 9, 2002