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Part of
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. 253–276

Chapter 10
Racist and antiracist discourse in Greek migrant/refugee jokes

A multiliteracies teaching proposal about liquid racism

| University of Patras
| University of Patras
| University of Patras

Following the multiliteracies model (Kalantzis and Cope 2012a), we design a critical teaching proposal focusing on migrant/refugee jokes. Although these jokes have an antiracist intention, they end up reproducing racist views, bringing to the surface a modern and subtle kind of racism, i.e. liquid racism (Weaver 2016). The aim of the analysis of such texts in class is to enable students to identify how and why ‘antiracist’ jokes can (re)produce racist values and views, such as the assimilation and deprecation of migrants/refugees, in an amusing and seemingly innocent manner. The critical teaching of humor and discussions about racism, antiracism, and liquid racism in class could contribute to the deconstruction of established conceptualizations of migrant/refugee populations, thus reinforcing different and antagonistic views to the hegemonic racist discourse.

Keywords: multiliteracies, critical literacy, liquid racism, jokes, humor, migrants, refugees
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
    • 2.1Racist and antiracist discourse: From opposition to overlap
    • 2.2Humor and liquid racism
  • 3.A multiliteracies teaching proposal
    • 3.1Jokes, liquid racism, and critical literacy
    • 3.2The multiliteracies model
  • 4.Multiliteracies and jokes with liquid racism
    • 4.1Experiencing
      • 4.1.1Experiencing the known
      • 4.1.2Experiencing the new
    • 4.2Conceptualizing
      • 4.2.1Conceptualizing by naming
      • 4.2.2Conceptualizing with theory
    • 4.3Analyzing
      • 4.3.1Analyzing functionally
      • 4.3.2Analyzing critically
    • 4.4Applying
      • 4.4.1Applying appropriately
      • 4.4.2Applying creatively
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.341.10tsa
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