What Constitutes ‘Discrimination’ in Everyday Talk? Argumentative Lines and the Social Representations of Discrimination

Abstract

Most people agree that discrimination is wrong, but the boundary between 'discrimination' and 'not discrimination' is often highly contested in everyday practice.We explore the social representations of 'discrimination' as an object of study in qualitative interviews and focus groups with both minority (self-identified as BAME and/ or gay men) and majority (self-identified as white and/ or heterosexual) participants (n= 54). Our analysis suggests three repeated and pervasive argumentative lines in social representations of discrimination; (1) that there are two distinct kinds of discrimination (hard versus soft), (2) that you need to understand the intention of the actor(s), and (3) that a claim of discrimination requires strong evidence. We outline the macro Functions of these resources to argue that each was non-performative: they appeared to be tools to make claims of discrimination, but in practice they were much more effective at making claims of what was not discrimination.

Lay discourses about Brexit and prejudice: “Ideological creativity” and its limits in Brexit debates

“…First, presenting Brexit as economically beneficial (Extract 3) was one such strategy that enabled speakers to dissociate Brexit from immigration while at the same time constructing it as economically sound for the UK, thus countering the idea that Brexit support is based on irrational prejudice. A second strategy for disassociating Leave support from hostility towards migrants was making a “two kinds” argument (Greenland et al., ). This was achieved by distinguishing between concerns over “soft‐touch” immigration management, which were constructed as reasonable, and prejudice towards migrants as people, which was seen as not acceptable (Extract 4).…”

“…Discursive strategies of prejudice denial are intimately entangled with social constructions of what constitutes "real" prejudice (Greenland et al, 2018;Swim, Scott, Sechrist, Campbell, & Stangor, 2003). "Real" prejudice is commonly constructed as rare and intentional.…”

“…This was the case, for example, in President Bush's call‐to‐arms discourse following 9/11, which was used to justify the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another example comes from Greenland, Andreouli, Augoustinos, and Taulke‐Johnson (), who argue that discursively narrowing the boundaries of discrimination in everyday talk (for example, by constructing “discrimination‐proper” as intentional and aggressive behaviour towards minority group members) ultimately serves to render discrimination a rare and exceptional experience, thus limiting political incentives for reducing it. We discuss the ideological dimensions of the prejudice concept in more detail in the next section.…”

La Representaciones Sociales: Teoría, Evolución y Aplicabilidad: Una Mirada desde la Praxeología

“…Como se ha dicho, las RS son útiles para dar explicación a la realidad y entender situaciones de tipo político y social, estas también facilitan conocer cómo está representado un concepto en la mente de un colectivo. Es así que (Greenland, Andreouli, Augoustinos, & Taulke-Johnson, 2018) abordan mediante un estudio las representaciones la discriminación, para el que describen un contexto en el que para la mayoría de las personas el concepto de discriminación es negativo sin reconocer las fronteras entre discriminación y no discriminación, por este motivo se hace un estudio con entrevistas de tipo cualitativo y grupos focales con minorías con una muestra total de 54 personas divididas entre mayorías (heterosexuales y blancos) y minorías (negros, asiáticos y gais).…”

Discourse and representation: A comment on Batel and Castro ‘Re‐opening the dialogue between the theory of social representations and discursive psychology’

“…They map out sources and are bold in tracing variations, even if challenging the self‐interpretation of some exponents (Potter, ). For Batel and Castro, as for many researchers working with these shared assumptions, understanding meaning and social change requires a combined analysis of both communication and discourse, with methods focusing simultaneously on content, format, and processes (Andreouli, Greenland, & Howarth, ; Gibson, ; Greenland, Andreouli, Augoustinos, & Taulke‐Johnson, ).…”