John Benjamins Publishing Company
Conditional support for territorial migrations in Serbian national discourse
Abstract
After more than a decade of Serbia’s investment in the EU integration, its citizens are still imagining their national identities from the externally assigned position of ‘flawed’ Europeans. To respond to this subject position in the context of ongoing migration trends in Europe, these individuals engage in identity politics that both celebrate elements of otherness, and also locate them in the country’s own internal and Eastern Others. This study uses critical discourse analysis to examine the ideological effects of these negotiations in response to the 2010/2011 asylum-seeking crisis, when a number of Serbian citizens applied for asylum in several EU countries, which defined this as an abuse of Schengen system. The analysis of more than 1,000 online comments shows that newsreaders offer conditional support for asylum seekers to (re)inscribe preferred social hierarchies. Represented simultaneously as suffering citizens and immoral internal other, asylum seekers serve as the strategic means by which ethnic discrimination becomes an invisible element of everyday nationalism.
Abstract
After more than a decade of Serbia’s investment in the EU integration, its citizens are still imagining their national identities from the externally assigned position of ‘flawed’ Europeans. To respond to this subject position in the context of ongoing migration trends in Europe, these individuals engage in identity politics that both celebrate elements of otherness, and also locate them in the country’s own internal and Eastern Others. This study uses critical discourse analysis to examine the ideological effects of these negotiations in response to the 2010/2011 asylum-seeking crisis, when a number of Serbian citizens applied for asylum in several EU countries, which defined this as an abuse of Schengen system. The analysis of more than 1,000 online comments shows that newsreaders offer conditional support for asylum seekers to (re)inscribe preferred social hierarchies. Represented simultaneously as suffering citizens and immoral internal other, asylum seekers serve as the strategic means by which ethnic discrimination becomes an invisible element of everyday nationalism.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
-
Introduction
- Language aggression in public debates on immigration 1
- Thinking globally, acting locally 5
- Conditional support for territorial migrations in Serbian national discourse 33
- In transit 55
- "We mustn't fool ourselves" 79
- "A great and beautiful wall" 101
- Xenophobic Trumpeters 123
- Donald Trump supporters and the denial of racism 151
- Contributors to this issue 175
- Subject index 177
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
-
Introduction
- Language aggression in public debates on immigration 1
- Thinking globally, acting locally 5
- Conditional support for territorial migrations in Serbian national discourse 33
- In transit 55
- "We mustn't fool ourselves" 79
- "A great and beautiful wall" 101
- Xenophobic Trumpeters 123
- Donald Trump supporters and the denial of racism 151
- Contributors to this issue 175
- Subject index 177
