ABSTRACT

Victimology has shown a remarkable growth in the past few decades, mimicking the rising stature of the plight of victims in policy and practice (e.g. Groenhuijsen, 2014). This chapter offers a compelling and sometimes fascinating showcase of what a cultural victimology could look like. It describes the wide variety in manners in which culture – loosely grouped under ritual, art and media – interacts with, defines, includes and excludes concepts, understandings and interpretations of victimhood, by those suffering themselves, but by wider society as well. At the most general level, victimology is in urgent need of examining and re-evaluating the manner in which it approaches research into the experience of victimization. As a victimologist, following on from colleagues mostly working in various areas of cultural studies, it perhaps falls on to consider the importance of such a cultural victimology for developments in research, policy and practice concerning victims.