Denying the other: The forms of dehumanization

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE
Author/s Chiara Volpato
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/2
Language Italian Pages 18 P. 311-328 File size 275 KB
DOI 10.3280/PU2013-002012
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Dehumanization is one of the main strategies to delegitimize the other, to exclude him/her from the circle of those who are considered human, justifying measures of extreme cruelty. There are animalistic and mechanistic forms of dehumanization, which it may also take the form of demonization, biologization, objectification, and invisibility. After a brief review of the psycho-social studies on dehumanization, the present work focuses on the dehumanization of Jews in the Fascist propaganda through the analysis of images that appeared in La Difesa della Razza ("The Defense of the Race"), an Italian magazine published from August 1938 to June 1943 with the aim to convey racist and anti-Semitic ideas to the Italian population.

Keywords: Dehumanization, racism, anti-Semitism, objectification, propaganda

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Chiara Volpato, Negare l’altro. La deumanizzazione e le sue forme in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 2/2013, pp 311-328, DOI: 10.3280/PU2013-002012