The nature of prejudice: society, discrimination and moral exclusion

Abstract

This is a book about the diversity and intensity of prejudices against Romani people in a liberal, progressive, democratic, enlarged Europe. This is a book about a European dilemma - how to reconcile the European creed of law, justice and freedom for all, with social and political practices that exclude, debase, degrade, Romani people. This book proposes a critical reframing of understanding prejudice and racism in society: a shift from prejudice as antipathy to prejudice as harm inflicted by indignity. Although social psychology has perhaps the most respected and the most successful tradition of scientific analysis of social issues and social problems, the investigation of prejudices that stem from the societal transformation, diminution or denial of moral worth of human beings (and the various conditions and contexts that create and promote it) remains a marginal concern. Insights from dynamic and influential intellectual currents in social sciences can reinvigorate and reorient a renewed social psychology of racism. By opening intellectual dialogues with kindred fields social psychologists can create broader foundations for the exploration of the various, active, paradoxes lodged at the heart of the social expression of prejudice in liberal democracies.