Journal article

Collective Responsibility for Oppression

Published in Social Theory and Practice

Abstract

Many contemporary forms of oppression are not primarily the result of formally organized collective action nor are they an unintended outcome of a combination of individual actions. This raises the question of collective responsibility. I argue that we can only determine who is responsible for oppression if we understand oppression as a matter of social practices that create obstacles for social change. This social practice view of oppression enables two insights: First, that there is an unproblematic sense in which groups can bear irreducible collective responsibility for oppression. Second, that there are derived forms of individual responsibility for members of dominant groups.

Publication details

Date of publication
03 Aug 2017
Volume
43
Issue
3
Pages
473-501

Bibliometrics

OpenAlex

View record
Citation count
27
Collected 2026-08-22
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
3.33
Collected 2026-08-22
Citation percentile
93.9%
Percentile among comparable publications of the same age and field.

About FWCI: Field-Weighted Citation Impact compares citations received with the number expected for a work of the same type, year, and subfield. A value of 1.0 represents the world average.

Google Scholar

View record
Citation count
51
Collected 2026-08-16