Racial Discourse Research Articles

‘Where are Asian Americans?’: exploring racialized discourses toward Asian Americans through critical ethnographic child-parent research

ABSTRACT This study employs critical ethnographic child–parent research to examine Korean American children’s lived experiences related to anti-Asian racism, looking closely at children’s ordinary interactions in their everyday lives at home. Children’s conversations at home were audio – and video-recorded and artifacts created by children and from school were collected. While children as co-researchers actively participated in the research, they shared their perspectives on race and anti-Asian racism, noticing the invisibility and stereotypes of Asian Americans. The children’s counterstories from child–parent research reveal that racialized discourses toward Asians and Asian Americans are not discussed at school even though children experience them. This study opens more conversations to understand and navigate Asian American children’s perspectives on race and racism and methodological insights for racially minoritized parent research with children.

At the intersection of the model minority myth and antiblackness: From Asian American triangulation to recommendations for solidarity.

Asian Americans are situated in a triangulated role in a black-white racial hierarchy designed to legitimize white supremacy (Kim, 1999). However, little is known about the lived experiences of Asian American triangulation and even less so in the context of anti-Asian racism. The present study was initially designed to examine anti-Asian racism at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in a sociopolitical climate described as a "racial reckoning," our study evolved to capture the process of racial triangulation and the interplay of anti-Asian racism and antiblackness. Based on the online responses of 201 Asian Americans (from over 32 U.S. states), four themes emerged to showcase the ways in which Asian Americans suffered from and recapitulated racial oppression: (a) anti-Asian racism is overlooked in the black-white racial discourse, (b) anti-Asian racism is not taken seriously, (c) anti-Asian racism is also perpetrated by people of color (POC), and (d) anti-Asian racism is deprioritized in the presence of anti-Black racism. Regarding participant recommendations to combat anti-Asian racism, our second research question focused on areas of convergence with dismantling anti-Black racism. Two key themes emerged: (a) foster Asian American pan-ethnic solidarity and (b) build and strengthen cross-racial coalitions (POC solidarity and White allyship). Altogether, our study descriptively captured the process of racial triangulation to showcase the manifestation and recapitulation of anti-Asian racism and antiblackness. While Asian Americans suffered as victims and perpetrators of racial oppression, they also recognized the need to dismantle white supremacy with racial solidarity, coalition-building, and advocacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Afro-diasporan racial discourse in Germany

This paper investigates the racial discourse in the Afro-diaspora group in Germany. It uses the ‘discourse-historical approach’ – a strand of Critical Discourse Analysis – for the three-dimensional analysis of language biographical data of 67 African migrants in Germany. The study provides African migrants’ accounts of racism, identifies four discursive strategies, and then examines the semantics of a counter-racialisation term developed to cope with racism. The study finds Afro-diaspora racial discourse as a site for confronting the racism problem, legitimising the race idea, and contingent on migrants’ access to material resources in Germany. Furthermore, the term ‘fake-oyinbo’ indicates an ability to use simple linguistic terms in an intended way of racial categorisation within race relations thinking. The paper concludes that Afro-diasporans’ racial discourse is a ‘grassroots’ minority discourse revealing a counter-racialisation linguistic action while explaining and justifying the condition of the ordinary black minority.

Unpacking Western Anticolonialism: Jagi-Jagi and the Second Spanish Republic, 1931–6

This article explores the appropriation of anticolonial language by the Basque radical newsletter and organization Jagi-Jagi (Arise-Arise). Although Jagi-Jagi initially emerged under the doctrine of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) in 1932, the newsletter and organization offered a more radical form of nationalism than the official party, which during the Second Spanish Republic sought the approval of a Basque Statue of Autonomy. One of the most visible features of J agi-Jagi's radicalism was its anticolonialism, a facet that scholars have previously failed to explore. Jagi-Jagi constantly equated the situation of the Basque Country to that of other colonies and condemned both internal and international colonialism. This article explores both the national and international dimensions of Jagi-Jagi's anticolonialism and considers the motives behind such anticolonial claims. It also analyses the set of complex and often-contradictory ideas that existed within Jagi-Jagi's discourses on race and claims that they responded to the different uses of Basque anticolonialism. The case study of Jagi-Jagi and its racial discourse serve to elucidate the complexities of western anticolonialism.

Constructing ‘Otherness’ in the neighbourhood: que(e)rying older adults' experiences of and talk about socio-cultural change

Abstract Drawing from 108 qualitative interviews with 38 participants from an ethnographic study investigating older adults' experiences of inclusion and exclusion in two increasingly socio-economically diverse neighbourhoods, this paper employs a queer approach to identify how older adults construct and narrate socio-cultural change in the neighbourhood, as well as complicate simplistic binary understandings of older adults invoked in ageing-in-place literature. Drawing on neoliberal, heteronormative and racialised discourses, older adult participants engaged in practices of ‘Othering’ to narrate who did and did not belong in the neighbourhood. Participants referenced three primary non-residents when narrating change in their neighbourhoods: the homeless resident, the temporary resident and the racialised resident. Participants generally ‘Othered’ these three types of ‘residents’ as non-(re)productive, i.e. as not contributing to the social fabric of the neighbourhood in normatively valued ways. However, even as participants engaged in practices of ‘Othering’, a form of exercising power, it was evident that some ‘Othered’ figures disproportionately affected older adults' sense of belonging to their neighbourhoods. We found that shifting socio-cultural dynamics related to class, race and age, especially as they relate to the temporary resident, posed the biggest challenges to older adults' feelings of belonging, and relationships, to place. Our findings indicate that an inundation of moneyed people and unconventional living arrangements can inadvertently threaten older adults' social spaces and networks, as well as further bound their possibilities for meeting the neoliberal and heteronormative expectations of ‘successful ageing’ by working against older adults' continued social participation and connectedness. In turn, this paper considers the ways in which older adults are exclusionary and excluded subjects.

DNA Ancestry Testing and Racial Discourse in Higher Education: How the (Re)Biologization of Race (Un)Settles Monoracialism for Graduate Students

The recent proliferation of DNA testing in both popular culture and higher education calls to question whether such testing reifies race as a biological construct and, in particular, whether or not it disrupts or reinforces monoracial categorizations. Graduate students, who are often at a point in their educational journeys to further question and critique commonly held ideas, provide a unique lens through which to investigate discourses surrounding DNA testing. In this qualitative study, we analyze data from four focus groups with 22 racially diverse U.S. graduate students who had recently completed an ancestry test. We identify two specific discourses that graduate student participants engaged in, including (a) a biological race discourse and (b) an agentic choice discourse. Together, these discourses produced distinct unsettled subjectivities for Black and White participants. Our findings suggest the need to more critically consider the usage of DNA ancestry testing in and out of higher education and to provide further nuance around the validity of these tests as they relate to the social construction of race.

The Representation of Racism and Social Invisibility in Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019)

The discourse of racism that has been per se attached to colored people is now linked to a wider circle, including whites. The essence of my article is to examine the “new racism” communicated by the Joker film by revisiting theories about modern racism. I will mainly rely on Michel Foucault’s state racism and internal racism explored in his lectures, Society Must Be Defended (1976) and his Abnormal Lectures at the College de France (1974-1975). Postmodernism proves that the notion of racism has transcended skin-color differences into distinctive forms of institutionalized discrimination. The fact that this discrimination is governmental, made the discourse of racism more complex. It has even been internalized into the mass population as the new mainstream model. This mainstream model excludes all “abnormals,” which could be the mentally ill, disabled people and criminals, or anyone who does not function properly in the capitalist society. The analysis of the film reveals that people with mitigating circumstances like disabled and clowns are otherized and ostracized on the accounts of their difference, thereby entering a pro tanto social invisibility
 

The absence of language: A critical race discourse analysis of Ontario's child welfare legislation and the impacts on Black families

BackgroundThe research pertaining to racial disparities for Black families in child welfare is relatively limited in Canada. Recent research reveals that the overrepresentation of Black families in Canadian child welfare systems typically begins at the reporting or investigation stage and continues throughout the child welfare service and decision-making continuum. This research is occurring against the backdrop of increasing public acknowledgement of Canada's historic anti-Black policy-making and institutional relationships to Black communities. Though there is increased awareness about anti-Black racism, there has been limited exploration of the connection between anti-Black racism in child welfare legislation and how this policy generates disparities for Black families in both child welfare involvement and outcomes – this paper seeks to fill this gap in knowledge. ObjectiveThe objective of this paper is to explore the entrenchment of anti-Black racism within the child welfare system by critically assessing the language and absence of language within the guiding legislative and implementation policies. MethodsUtilizing a critical race discourse analysis method, this study explores the entrenchment of anti-Black racism within the Ontario child welfare system by critically assessing the language and absence of language within the guiding legislative policies that shape practice for Black children, youth, and families. ResultsThe findings revealed that though the legislation does not explicitly address anti-Black racism, there were instances where the legislation indicated that race and culture may be considered in responding to children and families. The lack of specificity, particularly in the Duty to Report, has the potential to contribute to disparate reporting and decision-making for Black families. ConclusionsPolicy makers should acknowledge the history of anti-Black racism that informed the development of the legislation in Ontario and move towards tackling systemic injustices that disproportionately affect Black families. More explicit language will shape future policies and practices to ensure that the impact of anti-Black racism is considered across the child welfare continuum.

A Comprehensive Pragma-Discoursal Analytic Structure of Racism


 
 
 
 The current paper attempts to exhaustively investigate and analyse 'Racism' from a pragma-discoursal perspective. Racism is defined as a statement on 'Race' and 'Racial Prejudice' as,'' arranging groups hierarchically in terms of psychological and cultural characteristics that are immutable and innate.'' (U.N OHCHR: 2005:4).
 
 
 
 
 Racism is based on colour, social, religious, cultural or linguistic reasons within society. However, this issue has not fully considered in linguistic studies in general and a pragma-discoursal investigational analysis .To bridge this gap, the present work tries to scrutinize the racist discourse pragmatically, concentrating on the pragma-discoursal notions and their relevant strategies that construct the pragma-discoursal structure of racism. Thus, this paper tries to answer major questions including: 1- why racist discourse devices are employed in mass media? Are there any discoursal a pragmatic devices that are used to actualize an d show racism? To answer such questions, the present study hypothesizes that

The British in Arabia: the Genealogy of a Romantic Discourse and the Colonial (De)construction of Palestine

Abstract: The Romanticization of Arabia and of the noble Arab in the British imagination has long been apparent, exemplified by figures such as Richard Burton and T. E. Lawrence. However, the Romantic origins of British discourses on Arabia have never been fully explored. Tracing the evolution of the Romantic symbols of the ‘Arab’ and ‘Arabia’ in Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley and their entanglement in racial discourses of the later nineteenth century, this paper describes the mechanics of the discursive construction of the region, arguing that the morphology of the British colonization of the Arabian Peninsula is grounded in Romantic symbolism.

CONSTRUCTION OF HYBRID IDENTITY: A CRITICAL STUDY OF HANIF KUREISHI'S THE BUDHA OF SUBURBIA

This research article analyses the authorial perspective and self-reflection in Hanif Kureishi's first novel, The Buddha of Suburbia. The dominant discourses of ethnicity, race, class, and gender are examined in terms of their effects on the categories of subjectivity and identity. The analysis focuses on the novel's protagonist, Karim Amir, tracing his life journey and showing how his self-perception is shaped by forces beyond his control but is malleable thanks to his extraordinary skill of mimicry. Karim mimics white English mainstream society consciously as a way to find his place in society and unconsciously as a political gesture against the forces of colonialism, neocolonialism, and capitalism. Drawing on the work of theorists like Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart, Fanon and others, we see that Karim and his relatives are complex hybrids who question the assumptions underlying Cartesian concepts of identity and subjectivity. Keywords: subjectivity, identity, hybridity, mimicry, colonialism, neocolonialism, capitalism

Revisiting Kenny G (Colloquy)

From fusion jazz, to quiet storm, to neo-soul and lo-fi hip hop, jazz has often been used as a marker of authenticity in contemporary Black popular genres. Given his disproportionate popularity, the class-ing, racialization, and gendering of Kenny G in popular culture has become, in effect, the lens through which we evaluate all forms of crossover jazz. Ultimately, critiques that focus on Kenny G as a means to dismiss such musics are rooted in racialized discourses of authenticity that ignore the long tradition of crossover projects that characterize Black popular musics broadly.

Intertextual Outlawry: Robin Hood and Race in We Need to Talk About Kevin

Abstract This article investigates the presence of Robin Hood as a key figure in Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need to Talk About Kevin and its film adaptation, directed by Lynne Ramsay. I argue that the film emphasizes Kevin’s ‘whiteness’ in the way that it adapts the Robin Hood material from Shriver’s novel, embellishing his role in the story and complicating his affiliation with the teenage killer by tapping into Robin Hood’s status in popular visual culture; in so doing, the film critiques America’s ‘copycat’ appropriation of a similar strategy used by earlier nationalist writers in Britain. In the scene that depicts a Robin Hood children’s book, Ramsay superimposes multiple Robin Hood texts into one, polyphonically performing the Bakhtinian concept of dialogism. Therefore, despite the fact that Kevin appropriates Robin Hood for his own evil ends, Ramsay dialogically inserts multiple voicings from the Robin Hood tradition to speak against a hegemonic backdrop of white masculinity (mis)informed by racist discourses affirming Anglo-Saxonist ideas of white heritage.

“They were mostly sitting back and staying quiet”: a critical race discourse analysis of racial voyeurism in cross-racial intergroup dialogues

ABSTRACT This study utilises a critical race discourse analysis to understand how cross-racial intergroup dialogue (IGD) participants perceive racial voyeurism, a form of racism within their dialogue course. IGD is a face-to-face, co-facilitated interaction between two or more groups within a social identity-based conflict where participants form intergroup relationships, reflect critically and interpersonally, and build intergroup alliances. The discursive statements of participants analysed through critical race discourse analyses reveals how racism penetrates the IGD through race-evasiveness and the normalisation of Whiteness.

Sassy and Strong: Intersections of Race, Attractional Orientation, and Gender Expression Within Music Education

The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to explore how intersecting discourses of race, attractional orientation, and gender expression have influenced Rashaad Calaham’s experiences as a Black, openly gay, gender-fluid middle school choir director. Rather than hiding his attractional orientation and gender expression, he leans into these characteristics, describing himself as “sassy and effeminate,” thereby challenging notions of compulsory heteroattraction, gender binaries, and whiteness in music education. He posits that being open with students is a vital component for establishing trust within his classroom, which he asserts is the foundation of good teaching. Black joy, Black Queer joy, and Queer Crit perspectives serve as theoretical lenses through which his story is discussed.

The others’ others: When taking our natives seriously is not enough

Since Malinowski, taking the natives seriously has been a core issue for ethnographers, as this principle encloses two terms nurturing much theoretical debate in sociocultural anthropology: ‘native’ and ‘point of view’. Yet, this entails a parallel issue: aside from taking one’s natives seriously, have anthropologists been taking other anthropologists’ natives equally seriously? The discipline came to take for granted the legitimacy of Others constituted by discourses of race, sex, class, ethnicity and colonialism. However, anthropology seems to continuously marginalize groups – from children and speakers of ‘invented’ languages to UFO witnesses – whose practices are routinely mocked or dismissed as foolish. This article analyzes certain anthropologists and their ethnographies of unsanctioned interlocutors who were cast aside by scholarship. I argue that ‘taking seriously’ must be not only an experiment that builds rapport between individual anthropologists and natives, but also one that makes room for the natives’ viewpoints to flow within the discipline.

Using racial discourse communities to audit personalization algorithms

Abstract Personalization algorithms are the information undercurrent of the digital age. They learn users’ behaviors and tailor content to individual interests and predicted tastes. These algorithms, in turn, categorize and represent these users back to society—culturally, politically, and racially. Researchers audit personalization algorithms to critique the ways bias is perpetuated within these systems. Yet, research examining the relationship between personalization algorithms and racial bias has not yet contended with the complexities of conceptualizing race. This article argues for the use of racialized discourse communities within algorithm audits, providing a way to audit algorithms that accounts for both the historical and cultural influences of race and its measurement online.

Anti-Black sentiments in Chinese Weibo discourse: a critical discourse historical analysis

ABSTRACT Diplomatic ties have deepened between China and Africa. However, unlike the friendly rhetoric at the State level, racist issues at the individual and societal levels, which are under-researched, are becoming increasingly salient in the Chinese context. Analysing 2766 posts and 13 477 comments from Weibo, this study deploys the 2021 Shadeed Abdulmateen murder case in Ningbo to investigate the online racial discourse that Chinese Weibo users construct around Black people. While thematic analysis shows that racism in China comprises a complex combination of anti-Black, anti-government, and anti-social class attitudes, critical discourse analysis identifies the discursive strategies used to construct the dichotomy between “positive Chinese” and “negative Black people". Specifically, the argumentation strategy justifies exclusionary practices against Black people in China, whereas the predicational strategy criminalises the Black community. Moreover, the nomination strategy discursively represents Black people as foreign threats and animals. Lastly, this study also reveals the orthographic manoeuvrings contrived by Weibo users to avoid censorship of racist language use on Weibo.

The everydayness of spectacle violence under the Islamic Republic: ‘Fire at will’

On 17 June 2017, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, called on pro-regime vigilantes to ‘fire at will’ or to act on their own discretion in putting the state’s Islamic teaching into practice without the need to consult either their superiors or the relevant authorities. Our article argues that, since 1979, the policy of ‘firing at will’ has been the defining feature of the Islamic Republic’s model of governance and corresponds to the spirit of its constitution. Inspired by the scholarship on disciplinary policies, this article seeks to contextualize the ‘firing at will’ policy within the ethno-religious and racial discourse embodied in and warranted by the Islamic Republic’s constitution. Finally, by discussing the state’s violent treatment of Kurdish kolbers (cross-border laborers), we will show how the Iranian state’s internal colonial policies have engendered a state of exception and normalized the daily spectacle of violence in Eastern Kurdistan.

Talking about inequities: A comparative analysis of COVID-19 narratives in the UK, US, and Brazil

Disproportionate mortality and morbidity burdens of the COVID-19 pandemic and coinciding media coverage of public acts of violence perpetrated against people of color in 2020 precipitated reckonings with structural inequities in global, national, and local contexts. This cross-country comparative analysis aims to describe how people voice and make sense race, racism, and privilege in their experiences with COVID-19 infection in the United States, United Kingdom, and Brazil. Anchored by continuous reflection on our individual and collective positionality, we conducted an inductive comparative analysis conceptually situated in intersectionality and critical race theory. Countries used a shared qualitative methodology to collect and analyze 166 narratives of people with experience of COVID-19 infection from 2020 to 2023. We selected 19 cases that illustrate cross-national differences in peoples’ acknowledgment and narration of structural privilege and disadvantage in their observations of COVID-19 in their countries and in their personal experiences. People in the US had the most fluency with voicing race directly. In Brazil, while some respondents (especially younger people) demonstrated high racial consciousness, others struggled to identify and talk about racial relationships. In the UK, people voiced racial identifications, though often within white norms of politeness and an accompanying sense of discomfort. The findings overall illustrate moments the interview becomes or does not become a space for voicing social categories and systemic underpinnings of difference in COVID-19 infections and healthcare experiences. We reflect on cross-country differences in historical and contemporary racialized discourse and elaborate on implications of focusing on voicing in qualitative research.