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Torture and the borders of humanity
Author(s) -
Sironi Francçoise,
Branche Raphaeëlle
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
international social science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.237
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1468-2451
pISSN - 0020-8701
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2451.00408
Subject(s) - torture , humanity , sociology , criminology , set (abstract data type) , interrogation , law , psychology , epistemology , environmental ethics , social psychology , political science , human rights , philosophy , computer science , programming language
When the history of the group violently crosses the path of the history of the individual, that process calls for an interdisciplinary examination. Such interdisciplinarity turns out to yield undeniable benefits for the study of the deliberate injuring of one human being by another. In this article, a psychologist and a historian set out to tackle some of the questions raised by one extreme kind of violence, torture. What are its aims? What underlies its methods, and what are its mechanisms, once we look below the surface? Who are the torturers, and how are they made? What escape is there from torture ‐not just from the victim's point of view, but the torturer's as well? Testimony, case studies from clinical practice and research work are offered in support of their suggestions.