Beyond Prejudice: Dehumanization as an Ideological Epistemology of Inequality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/2026.1.10Keywords:
dehumanization, structural inequality, ideological epistemology, stigma and hierarchy, diversity regimesAbstract
This article reconceptualizes dehumanization as an ideological epistemology of inequality, a modular grammar through which social hierarchies appear moral, natural, and inevitable. It argues that structural inequality produces the dehumanizing ideologies required for its own legitimation: these belief systems transform domination into moral order. By tracing how such ideologies become institutionalized, the article shifts the analysis from individual prejudice to the structural organization of belief. It concludes that overcoming inequality requires dismantling the epistemological frameworks that make dehumanization intelligible and justifiable.
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