Reporting Racism

Description

Abstract

Background: Most discursive approaches to racism focus on how members of the majority deny, discuss or reproduce racism. Little attends to members of the minority, and much of it is based on researcher-led interviews. The ambiguity of racism is repeatedly acknowledged, but yet to be addressed. This project therefore sets out to examine how people describe racist encounters in naturalistic settings.

Methods: Naturalistic data was collected because it prioritises the agenda of the interviewees over the researchers’. Four broadcasted interviews (involving people recently affected by racist incidents) were sourced directly from YouTube, and transcribed using Jeffersonian notation. Informed by discursive psychology, the analysis examined how racist incidents were described; how interlocutors oriented to each other; and how these together constructed the encounters as racist in situ.

Findings: Several discursive patterns emerged. Over the course of describing a race-related encounter: 1) a mundane setting is often constructed before recounting the focal incidents; 2) the seriousness of the assault/attack is downplayed; 3) reporting is justified on the basis of fact or justice, and emotional terms are absent; 4) perpetrator(s) and their motives are unidentified, and they are not explicitly accused.

Discussion: These findings show that describing racial encounters is difficult. The discursive strategies suggest that people avoid identifying themselves as victims who ‘actively disadvantage themselves’; they leave the verdict to the recipient because making allegations of racism might leave them open for negative assessments; what counts as racism is open for argument, and the delicate reporting shows how people manage it.

Period	29 Aug 2019
Event title	BPS Social Psychology Section Conference
Event type	Conference