Variations in Vulnerability to Victimization: Identifying Individual and Community Factors

伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校的艾米·凯特·贝利群体间冲突通常植根于对某种社会价值利益的竞争。社区层面的理论预测，当一个群体威胁到另一个群体的地位、权威或物质资源时，冲突就会增加。这可能表明，被选为受害者的人将是那些特征对现行社会安排构成最大威胁的人--那些最成功的人。然而，对历史上的私刑和当代的偏见犯罪的研究告诉我们，社会经济地位较低、明显的社会关系较少的人被选为受害者，但也告诉我们，遭受更多和更少严重袭击的人往往彼此不同。这项研究将有助于解决解释冲突产生的理论和解释受害者选择及其受害严重程度的理论之间的紧张关系。它将纳入群体间冲突的社会、政策和经济背景；受害的严重性；以及受害者本身的相对和绝对特征。一旦一个人被选为群体间暴力的潜在目标，它将使研究人员能够确定个体特征如何与受害本身以及攻击的严重性相关，从而扩大对受害者特征作用的理解。虽然私刑在很大程度上是一种历史做法，但基于性别、可感知的性身份、种族/民族、宗教信仰和经济地位的受害行为继续困扰着全球各地的社会。这个项目将帮助我们以多种方式重塑对受害动态的理解。这位研究人员将利用历史人口普查记录，在50年(1882-1930)的时间里，在南方的十个州找到那些受到私刑威胁但没有被杀的人。这些预期受害者及其家庭中所有其他人的记录将与被私刑处死的人以及他们所在社区的非受害者成员的现有数据合并。比较这些群体将使研究人员能够确定使个人面临不同程度受害风险的特征。调查员还将结合县级的社会、人口、经济和政治数据，以确定哪些社区因素使地位高的人和低地位的人受到伤害的风险增加。数据，包括一个数据库和每个案例的研究笔记和历史文件，将通过公共网站分发。广泛影响这个项目将促进培训和学习，将城市、公立大学的研究生和本科生纳入研究的进行、陈述和出版。量化分析将有助于我们更好地理解当代偏见犯罪和种族冲突，确定预测受害及其严重性的特征，以及将特定特征的个人置于危险境地的背景因素。最后，该网站的互动部分开发和实施了一种新的模式，将更广泛的公众参与纳入社会科学数据的收集，使公众能够进行他们自己的档案研究，并为我们的数据的发展作出贡献。这个公开的网站将允许学者、业余研究人员和系谱学家获取有关私刑和预期受害者的信息，并帮助提高数据的质量。

SES-1338616Amy Kate BaileyUniversity of Illinois at ChicagoIntergroup conflict is typically rooted in competition for some sort of socially valued good. Community-level theories predict that conflict increases when one group threatens the status, authority, or material resources of the other group. That might suggest that the individuals selected as victims would be those whose characteristics pose the greatest threat to prevailing social arrangements -- those who are the most successful. Research on both historical lynching and contemporary bias crimes, however, tells us that it is people who have lower socioeconomic status, fewer apparent social ties, who are chosen as victims, but also tells us that people victimized by more and less severe attacks often differ from each other. This study will help to resolve this tension between theories that explain the emergence of conflict and those that explain both the selection of victims and the severity of their victimization. It will incorporate the social, policy, and economic context of intergroup conflict; the severity of victimization; and the relative and absolute characteristics of victims themselves. It will expand understanding of the role of victim characteristics by allowing the researcher to identify how individual traits are related to victimization itself as well as the severity of attack, once a person has been selected as a potential target of intergroup violence. While lynching is largely an historic practice, victimization based on gender, perceived sexual identity, race/ethnicity, religious adherence, and economic status continues to plague societies around the globe. This project will help reframe our understanding of the dynamics of victimization in multiple ways. The researcher will use historical census records to locate individuals who were threatened with lynching, but not killed, in ten Southern states across a span of 50 years (1882 - 1930). Records for these intended victims, and all other people in their households, will be merged with existing data on people who were lynched, as well as on nonvictim members of their communities. Comparing these groups will allow the researcher to identify the characteristics that put individuals at risk of various levels of victimization. The investigator will also incorporate county-level social, demographic, economic, and political data to determine which community factors placed high and low status people at elevated risk of victimization. Data, including a database and "case files" with research notes and historical documents for each case, will be distributed via a public web site.Broader ImpactThis project will promote training and learning by incorporating graduate and undergraduate students at an urban, public university in the conduct, presentation, and publication of research. The quantitative analyses, identifying the characteristics that predicted victimization and its severity, as well as the contextual factors that put individuals with particular characteristics at risk, will help us better understand contemporary bias crime and ethnic conflict. Finally, the interactive elements of the website develops and implements a new model of incorporating broader public participation in the collection of social scientific data, allowing members of the public to conduct their own archival research and contribute to the development of our data. The publicly-available website will allow academics, amateur researchers, and genealogists to access information on lynched and intended victims, and help improve the quality of the data.