‘Oh you don’t want asylum seekers, oh you’re just racist’: A discursive analysis of discussions about whether it’s racist to oppose asylum seeking

Abstract

In this article, we explore how speakers discuss whether or not it is racist to oppose asylum seekers. A discourse analysis is conducted on the parts of a corpus of data collected from focus groups with undergraduate students talking about asylum seeking in which they were asked if it is racist to oppose asylum. It is shown that speakers use the word ‘just’ as part of a contrast structure which is used to present a topic as self-evidently unreasonable. While some participants orient to the taboo against prejudice, it is shown that there is also an orientation to the idea that accusations of racism are unreasonable and that opposition to asylum is usually based on practical and economic reasons rather than racism. These findings are discussed in light of the growing literature surrounding the changing nature of race talk and new taboos on accusations of racism.

‘Bring back Hitler’s gas chambers’: Asylum seeking, Nazis and Facebook – a discursive analysis

“…This research builds on previous research by Goodman and Burke (2010;2011), who found that speakers constructed accusations of racism towards opponents of asylum as being unreasonable, and attributed their opposition to practical issues such as the economy, which demonstrates Discursive Deracialisation. The aim of this research is therefore to address how accusations of racism are made and rejected in an online setting where the language is less guarded and more extreme.…”

“…People who oppose asylum seeking often justify their opposition in terms of economic or cultural factors (Lynn and Lea, 2003;Every and Augoustinos, 2007;Capdevila and Callaghan, 2008;Goodman and Burke, 2010;2011) which is a way of disclaiming (Billig et al, 1988) prejudice. Speakers ensure that opposition to asylum is attributed to reasons other than race, which makes the speaker appear to be reasonable.…”

“…Opposition to asylum seekers in the UK is part of a wide concern about issues such as an increase in racial diversity and cultural change in the UK (Lewis, 2005). These concerns have lead to a contentious and ongoing debate about whether or not opposition to asylum is racist (Lewis 2005;Goodman and Burke 2010). As the asylum debate is so prominent (e.g.…”

Discursive Approaches to Race and Racism

“…Research based on focus group data has thus been able to add a more strongly interactional focus to the examination of themes similar to those discussed above, including new racisms and the denial of racism (see, e.g., Augoustinos, Tuffin, & Every, 2005;Goodman & Burke, 2010). Particularly noteworthy in this regard are Condor's (2006) analysis of how participants interactionally collaborate in the production of subtly racist talk, and the extension of previous analyses of denials of racism to consider not just how denials can be produced by a speaker on his/her own behalf, but also how other speakers may deny racism on behalf of others, and may collaboratively suppress potentially racist utterances (Condor, Figgou, Abell, Gibson, & Stevenson, 2006).…”

Reversing racism and the elite conspiracy: Strategies used by the British National Party leader in response to hostile media appearances

“…First, it highlights the notion of race, which is a potentially problematic area for the BNP to be publically discussing. Second, it also brings about the possibility of Griffin having to deal with all the problems associated with someone who makes accusations of racism (Goodman, 2010;Goodman and Burke, 2010) in addition to those associated with being accused of being a racist (e.g. Edwards 2003).…”