The Shaming State - Sara Salman

The Shaming State – Sara Salman

Sara Salman’s research focuses on the relationship between state and citizen in western democracies. In her book The Shaming State, Sara examines the erosion of social rights and the political use of shame against people in need (the book focuses on the United States).

She argues that the administration of shame through inadequate and humiliating forms of assistance impacts people’s sense of moral worth and efficacy, often with disastrous effects on social solidarity and social connections.

She notes that the decline of social solidarity in neoliberal western regimes is directly linked to the loss of material and symbolic security that comes with the humiliating unraveling of social rights.

Sara’s work has implication for Aotearoa New Zealand. In exploring the Covid-19 government response, Sara highlights the distinctions of deservingness that were articulated along race and ethnic identity as well as social class. She ties socially destructive forms of discontent to government neglect and erosion of social trust, seen in anti-mandate protest, and warns against the tendency to see ourselves as an ‘innocent’ nation where social problems are imported from elsewhere.

Sara Salman is Senior Lecturer of Criminology VUW. She is Research Associate and Inaugural Scholar in Residence at He Whenua Taurikura National Centre of Research Excellence. Her research examines structural and political violence. She has written on gender and crime, terrorism, representations of crime in the media, and social solidarity in Aotearoa.

The session will be chaired by Max Rashbrooke who researches and writers on democracy and economic inequality.

You can read Sara Salman's recent article for Newsroom here: https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/23/shaming-the-poor-doesnt-work-its-also-cruel/