‘In countries like that…’ moral boundaries and implicatory denial in response to human rights appeals

Abstract

This paper discusses audiences' responses to information about human rights violations, with a focus on the use of the trope ‘in countries like that’ to describe countries where atrocities are committed. The paper presents a discursive analysis of how this trope is used to make sense of atrocities, to draw symbolic moral boundaries and to justify a passive and self-distancing response to human rights issues. By placing countries where human rights are violated beyond the boundary of moral responsibility, accounts containing this trope perform a denial operation for the purpose of exonerating audiences from intervening. It is suggested that this operation of moral exclusion interferes with audiences' empathy and compassion by distancing audiences from the victims of atrocities. The insights from the analysis of this type of human rights practice are relevant to human rights practitioners and sociologists alike.

Keywords:

• moral boundaries
• human rights appeals
• distancing
• denial
• moral responsibility
• audience studies

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the financial support given to the project on which this paper is based, and to Stan Cohen and Frances Flanagan for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

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I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the financial support provided to this project.

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