Description
How do dehumanizing narratives and practices exacerbate vulnerabilities and inequalities during global crises, and what implications do these have for human dignity and social justice in contemporary global politics? Drawing on multidisciplinary literature on dehumanization, this article posits that dehumanizing narratives and practices exacerbate vulnerabilities and inequalities during such crises; therefore, comprehending these discourses and practices is vital for developing thorough scholarly analyses and political interventions that uphold human dignity and promote global social justice. This article maintains that dehumanization must be taken seriously as an analytic concept in International Relations, and this concept can be useful to understand the causes and consequences of 21st century global crises that systematically deprive other human individuals their sense of dignity. The article probes that argument using three illustrative case studies—the Refugee Crisis in Europe, the post-9/11 War on Terror, and the post-COVID-19 crisis in Gaza/Palestine.
