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In: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. 225–252

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Chapter 9
A migrant’s public apology as an instance of internalized racism

A Greek case study

 | University of Patras
 | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Published online: 15 February 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.341.09arc
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to investigate how racio-national discourse influences the way migrants perceive themselves and frame their trajectories in the host community. Within a CDA framework, we analyze an article written by a young migrant and published in a Greek newspaper of leftwing and antiracist orientation. The article appears to belong to the genre of public apologies, since the author projects migrants as offenders who harmed the victimized majority. We argue that such representation of reality indicates migrants’ internalized racism and simultaneously renders the article an instance of liquid racism, as it is published in a newspaper of antiracist orientation. Through migrants’ reproduction of majority’s racist accusations against them, the hegemony of Greek racio-national discourse is reinforced.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Macro-level
    • 2.1The racio-national discourse
    • 2.2How racio-national discourse becomes covert and internalized
    • 2.3Migrants’ internalization of racism within the Greek context
  • 3.The data of the case study
  • 4.Micro-level
    • 4.1The genre of public apologies
    • 4.2Data analysis
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
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