Translocalisation of values, relationality and offence

Abstract

This paper explores the connection between offence and morality in segments of an hour-long life-story interview with two Latin American migrants in London, in which the participants recount interpersonal conflictive moments with co-ethnics.It shows that causing and taking offence is largely about the translocalisation of values to a new space where social and moral orders become unstable as the organisation of the social group is contingent on new socioeconomic realities. This, in turn, may generate conflicting understandings of what constitutes “right” or “wrong” ways of acting.It maintains that in order to understand the valence and reverberations of the offensive actions reported and gauge whose moral grounds can be legitimately validated and by whom, the wider relational context in which the offender and offended parties’ relationship is embedded and the place which it occupies within societal structures should be considered.