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Being Hated: Stranger or Familiar?

University of Sydney, Australia

Like all emotions, hate is comprised of a number of interacting, sometimes contradictory, feelings. This article looks at hate as a form of affect that is tied to the collective sense of estrangement that exists between insider and outsider groups. This link between hatred and estrangement is closely connected to the assumption that the perpetrators of 'real' hate crime are predominantly strangers to the victim. By drawing upon the results of a study into racial and homophobic harassment recorded by the London Metropolitan Police Service, the article questions the stranger-danger image of hate crime and explores the significance of location to the ways in which victims and perpetrators of harassment know each other. It suggests that the spatial ambiguity embodied by estrangement - physical proximity coupled with emotional distance - injects an ambivalence into the victim-perpetrator relationship that has implications for the definition of all hate crime.

Key Words: estrangement • hate crime • hatred • homophobic harassment • racial harassment • stranger danger

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