The rhetorical techniques by which governments deny, justify, and qualify alleged instances of torture have been well documented. Sociologists, however, have neglected the social contexts in which officials confront allegations of torture, as well as officials' use of evidence to strengthen their own or weaken competing claims about torture. Relying on findings from a qualitative content analysis of seven Senate Armed Services Committee hearings held in 2004 on “detainee abuse” at Abu Ghraib prison, this article examines the processes by which hearing participants portrayed the violence there as an isolated incident. Building on James A. Holstein and Jaber F. Gubrium's (2003) “constructionist analytics,” I examine the textual mediation of claims-making in the hearings, focusing on the interplay between textual realities of detainee abuse and the interpretive uses to which hearing participants put these realities. I show that developments in the textual environment of the hearings, particularly the development of a textually mediated vantage on events that “really occurred” throughout Afghanistan and Iraq, provided hearing participants with rich interpretive materials to downplay and rationalize instances of abuse that occurred in places other than Abu Ghraib prison. These findings suggest that official denial is sustained by diverse claims-making activities, including the production of a textual reality of human rights violations. The findings also extend the purview of social problems theory to account for the role of texts in the construction of social problems.
Published quarterly for the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Social Problems tackles the most difficult of contemporary society's issues and brings to the fore influential sociological findings and theories enabling readers to gain a better understanding of the complex social environment. Areas covered by the journal include: conflict and social action; crime and juvenile delinquency; drinking, drugs, and addiction; health policy and services; race and ethnicity; and sexual behavior and politics. One of the most respected and widely read professional journals in today's social sciences, Social Problems presents accessible, relevant, and innovative articles that maintain critical perspectives of the highest quality.
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Social Problems
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