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Exploring the Ambivalence of Liquid Racism: In between antiracist and racist discourse
Edited by Argiris Archakis and Villy Tsakona
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 341] 2024
► pp. 41–70

Chapter 2
Racist discourses of discrimination and assimilation in an antiracist corpus

| University of Ioannina 1
| University of Patras 2
| University of Patras 2
| University of Patras 2

Racist views against migrants are not only disseminated via hate speech, which overtly demonizes the ‘foreigners’, but also via antiracist discourse, which, although designed to fight racism, may end up reproducing inequalities. This ambiguity is captured in the concept of liquid racism (Weaver 2016). To examine liquid racism in Greek public discourse, we have compiled an antiracist corpus (around 501.000 words). The aim of this chapter is to show how this corpus was created and to explore how racist views infiltrate antiracist discourse. Adopting a critical perspective, and drawing on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (1994) and on the discursive practices of Reisigl and Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach (2001), we detected in our corpus two main discourses connected to racism: discrimination and assimilation. Through a qualitative and quantitative analysis, we argue that antiracist discourse, which programmatically fights against racist views, usually ends up perpetuating racist intentions and views, covering and reproducing inequalities.

Keywords: racist discourse, discrimination, assimilation, antiracist discourse, liquid racism, antiracist corpus
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Approaching racist and antiracist discourse: From contradiction to coexistence
  • 3.The Greek antiracist corpus
  • 4.Methodological tools for critical analysis
  • 5.Racist categories in the antiracist corpus
    • 5.1Discrimination
      • 5.1.1References to Others as a problem
      • 5.1.2References to illegal/legal Others
      • 5.1.3References to anonymous Others
      • 5.1.4References to temporary Others
      • 5.1.5References to inactive Others
      • 5.1.6References to Others as victims
      • 5.1.7References to Others as recipients of help
    • 5.2Assimilation
      • 5.2.1(General) references to integration/inclusion practices
      • 5.2.2References to mitigated racism denouncements
      • 5.2.3References to learning Greek as an L2
      • 5.2.4References to migrants’ positive stance towards practices of integration
  • 6.The quantitative analysis of liquid racism in the antiracist corpus
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.341.02kar
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