Examining the Contours of Hate: A Critical Hate Studies Analysis

This chapter examines the contours of hate within neoliberal capitalism from a critical hate studies perspective which sheds light on the breadth of hate harms that are both everyday and extreme. Drawing on two distinct case studies with Gypsies and Travellers and trans people the chapter evidences the harms of hate that imbue these communities’ lived experience. The chapter also addresses the transitory nature of culture and community within marginalized communities as they negotiate the social world according to the norms of neoliberal capitalism: traversing multiple and intersectional identities in order to be recognized. A great deal of this negotiation requires negation of identity. The mobility that Gypsies and Travellers and trans people use to navigate neoliberalism, as well as their use of particular places, provides victims of hate with a sense of safety or escape, whereas in reality it exacerbates ontological insecurity and thus the harms of hate.