Susan Opotow, Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is a social psychologist and a social justice scholar. Her theoretical and empirical work on moral exclusion is at the intersection of conflict, justice, and identity. It examines how people come to see others as outside the scope of justice and therefore as invisible, nonentities, or as eligible targets of discrimination, exploitation, and harm. Her research examines the dynamics of moral exclusion in ordinary contexts such as schools, environmental and public policy conflicts as well as in more extreme and violent exclusionary contexts such as deadly wars characterized by hatred, human rights violations, and impunity. Current work also examines the trajectory of inclusionary change in the post-war period. She was issue editor of the Journal of Social Issues on “Moral Exclusion and Injustice” and “Green Justice,” Social Justice Research on “Affirmative Acton and Social Justice,” and co-edited a book, Identity and the natural environment: The psychological significance of nature (MIT Press). She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Society for General Psychology. She is associate editor of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology and president elect of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. |
