Document Type
Journal Article
Publisher
QLD University of Technology
Faculty
Faculty of Education and Arts
School
School of Communications and Arts / Centre for Research in Entertainment, Arts, Technology, Education and Communications
RAS ID
18027
Funders
Australian Research Council
Grant Number
ARC Number : DP0559707
Abstract
The human capacity to marginalise and discriminate against others on the basis of innate and constructed characteristics is evident from the long history of discrimination against people whose existence is ‘illegitimate’, defined as being outside the law. What is inside or outside the law depends upon the context under consideration. For example, in societies such as ancient Greece and the antebellum United States, where slavery was legal, people who were constructed as ‘slaves’ could legitimately be treated very differently from ‘citizens’: free people who benefit from a range of human rights (Northup). The discernment of what is legitimate from that which is illegitimate is thus implicated within the law but extends into the wider experience of community life and is evident within the civil structures through which society is organised and regulated.
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Comments
Green, L. R., & Aly, A. (2014). Bastard immigrants: Asylum seekers who arrive by boat and the illegitimate fear of the other. M/C Journal, 17(5), 1. Available here