Cover not available
Article published In:
Public Debates on Immigration
Edited by Andreas Musolff
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 5:2] 2017
► pp. 205–226

Conditional support for territorial migrations in Serbian national discourse

| Stetson University, USA

After more than a decade of Serbia’s investment in the EU integration, its citizens are still imagining their national identities from the externally assigned position of ‘flawed’ Europeans. To respond to this subject position in the context of ongoing migration trends in Europe, these individuals engage in identity politics that both celebrate elements of otherness, and also locate them in the country’s own internal and Eastern Others. This study uses critical discourse analysis to examine the ideological effects of these negotiations in response to the 2010/2011 asylum-seeking crisis, when a number of Serbian citizens applied for asylum in several EU countries, which defined this as an abuse of Schengen system. The analysis of more than 1,000 online comments shows that newsreaders offer conditional support for asylum seekers to (re)inscribe preferred social hierarchies. Represented simultaneously as suffering citizens and immoral internal other, asylum seekers serve as the strategic means by which ethnic discrimination becomes an invisible element of everyday nationalism.

Keywords: asylum seeking, national identity, ideological dilemma, nested orientalism, critical discourse analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context
  • 3.‘Us’ and ‘them’ in national discourses
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1Data and procedure
    • 4.2Theoretical framework
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Asylum seekers live in no man’s land
    • 5.2Asylum seekers are internal ethnic others
    • 5.3Asylum seekers are benefactors of reversed hierarchies
  • 6.Summary of main findings and closing remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.5.2.03pet
References
Antaki, Charles, Susan Candor, and Mark Levine
1996 “Social Identities in Talk: Speakers’ own Orientations.” British Journal of Social Psychology 351:473–492. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakić-Hayden, Milica
1995 “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia.” Slavic Review 54(4):917–931. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beogradski Centar za Ljudska Prava
2011 Ljudska Prava u Srbiji. Retrieved from [URL]
Billig, Michael, Susan Candor, Derek Edwards, Mike Gane, David Middleton, and Alan Radley
1988 Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Colombo, Monica, and Azzurra Senatore
2005 “The Discursive Construction of Community Identity.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 151:48–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Čolović, Ivan
2000 Politika Simbola. Beograd: XX Vek.Google Scholar
De Cillia, Rudolf, Martin Reisigl, and Ruth Wodak
1999 “The Discursive Construction of National Identities.” Discourse and Society 101:149–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Djerić, Gordana
2003 “Svakodnevne Diskursivne Prakse o “Osobinama Naroda” i Važnosti Nacionalnog Identiteta.” In Politika i svakodnevni Zivot: Srbija 1999–2002, edited by Zagorka Golubović, Ivana Spasić and Đorđe Pavićević, 175–211. Belgrade, Serbia: Institut za filozofiju i drustvenu teoriju.Google Scholar
Drew, Paul
1998 “Complaints about Transgressions and Misconduct.” Research on Language & Social Interaction 31(3–4):295–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Džihana, Amer, and Zala Volčić
2011 Mediji i Nacionalne Ideologije: Analiza Izvestaja o Sudjenjima za Ratne Zlocine u Bivsoj Jugoslaviji. Sarajevo: Media Center.Google Scholar
Erjavec, Karmen, and Zala Volčić
2007 “The Kosovo Battle: Media’s Recontextualization of the Serbian Nationalistic Discourses.” Press/Politics, 121:67–86.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1992 Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman and Wodak, Ruth
1997 “Critical Discourse Analysis”. In Discourse as Social Action, edited by Teun van Dijk, 258–284. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Goldsworthy, Vesna
2002 “Invention and In(ter)vention: The Rhetoric of Balkanization.” In Balkan as a Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation, edited by Dušan I. Bjelić and Obrad Savić, 1–22. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, Simon
2010 “ ‘It’s not Racist to Impose Limits on Immigration’: Constructing the Boundaries of Racism in the Asylum and Immigration Debate.” Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines 4(1):1–17.Google Scholar
Goodman, Simon, and Susan A. Speer
2007 “Category Use in the Construction of Asylum Seekers.” Critical Discourse Studies 4(2):165–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Graan, Andrew
2010 “On the Politics of Imidž: European Integration and the Trials of Recognition in Postconflict Macedonia.” Slavic Review 691:835–858. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haldrup, Michael, Lasse Koefoed, and Kirsten Simonsen
2006 “Practical Orientalism: Bodies, Everyday Life and the Construction of Otherness.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 88 (2): 173–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, Stuart
1993 “Culture, Community, Nation.” Cultural Studies 71:349–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herzfeld, Michael
2004 Kulturna Intimnost [Cultural intimacy] (S. Glisic, Trans.). Belgrade: XX Vek.Google Scholar
Howard, Robert G.
2008 “The Vernacular Web of Participatory Media.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 251:490–513. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Korićanac, Irena, Vladimir Petronijević, and Danica Ćirić
2013 “ Tražioci Azila iz Srbije: Migracije, Siromaštvo i Rizici od Trgovine Ljudima .” Retrieved from Grupa 484 website: [URL]
Lamerichs, Joyce, and Hedwig FM Te Molder
2003 “Computer-mediated Communication: From a Cognitive to a Discursive Model.” New Media & Society 5(4):451–473. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marcoccia, Michel
2004 “On-line Polylogues: Conversation Structure and Participation Framework in Internet Newsgroups.” Journal of Pragmatics 36(1):115–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matić, Jovanka
2004 “Problems Facing Quality Press Development in Serbia.” In Quality Press in Southeast Europe, edited by Orlin Spassov, pp. 254–276. Sofia: SOEMZ Sofia: SOEMZ.Google Scholar
Moulinou, Iphigenia
2014 “Striving to Make the Difference: Linguistic Devices of Moral Indignation.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 2(1):74–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pavlov, Tanja
2011 “The Motivation for Migration of Highly Qualified People in Serbia.” In Mobility and Emigration of Professionals: Personal and Social Gains and Losses, edited by Nada Povlovna and Tanja Pavlov, 149-163. Belgrade: Group 484.Google Scholar
Penev, Goran, and Jelena Predojevic-Despic
2012 “Prostorni Aspekti Emigracije iz Srbije: Tri ‘Vruce’ Emigracione Zone.” Stanovnistvo 21:35–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita
1986 “Extreme Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimizing Claims.” Human Studies 9(2–3):219–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richardson, John E.
2007 Analyzing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simić, Marina
2010 “Locating Cosmopolitanism: Practicing Popular Culture in Post-Socialist Serbia.” Der Donauraum 50(3–4):345–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tileagă, Cristian
2005 “Accounting for Extreme Prejudice and Legitimating Blame in Talk About the Romanies.” Discourse & Society 161:603–624. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Ideologies of Moral Exclusion: A Critical Discursive Framing of Depersonalization, Delegitimization and Dehumanization.” British Journal of Social Psychology 46(4):717–737. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Todorova, Maria
2006 Imagnirani Balkan [Imagining the Balkans] (trans. D. Starčević and A. Bajazetov-Vučen). Belgrade: XX Vek.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A.
1997 “Political Discourse and Racism: Describing Others in Western Parliaments.” The Language and Politics of Exclusion: Others in Discourse 21:31–64.Google Scholar
2000 “Ideologies, Racism, Discourse: Debates on Immigration and Ethnic Issues.” In Comparative Perspectives on Racism, edited by Jessica ter Wal and Maykel Verkuyten, 91–116. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Verkuyten, Maykel
2001 “ ‘Abnormalization’ of Ethnic Minorities in Conversation.” The British Journal of Social Psychology 401:257–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “Immigration Discourses and their Impact on Multiculturalism: A Discursive and Experimental Study.” British Journal of Social Psychology 441:223–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vukojičić Obradović, Smiljana
(January 6 2015) “Socio-ekonomska Prava u Srbiji.” Euroactiv. Retrieved from [URL]
Wetherell, Margaret
1998 “Positioning and Interpretative Repertoires: Conversation Analysis and Post-structuralism in Dialogue.” Discourse & Society 91: 387–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wetherell, Margaret, and James Potter
1992 Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Witschge, Tamara
2008 “Examining Online Public Discourse in Context: A Mixed Method Approach.” The Public 15(2):75–92.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, de Cillia, Rudolf, Martin Reisigl, and Karin Liebhart
1999 The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2008 “ ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Inclusion and Exclusion – Discrimination via Discourse.” In Identity, Belonging and Migration, edited by Gerard Delanty, Ruth Wodak and Paul Jones, 54–77. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Živković, Marko
2011 Serbian Dreambook: National Imaginary in the Time of Milošević. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Tsakona, Villy, Rania Karachaliou & Argiris Archakis
2020. Liquid racism in the Greek anti-racist campaign #StopMindBorders . Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8:2 ► pp. 232 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.