State narratives of ‘foreignness’ and ‘criminality’ in South Africa

This article brings the notion of transfiguration to bear on the study of the ‘unspeakable’ identity of African migrants living in South Africa, in the context of state language games on violence perpetrated against these migrants. The significance of these discourses is explored, in particular how official and not-so-unofficial discourses on violence in South African media combine to make migrants simultaneously visible and invisible. Speaking about violence involving black non-South Africans, state functionaries tend to downplay the ‘xenophobic’ element while overplaying the link with motiveless crime. Nevertheless, the sense that the migrant, labelled ‘foreigner’, is to blame for all the problems is never far from the surface of these language games. The migrant is therefore enlisted into a discourse where s/he is transformed and subsequently forced to recognise him/herself as subject. As a victim of violence, the migrants find themselves inhabiting zones of discursive indistinction, where they are both victim and victimiser, criminal and crime victim.     

Racism and Xenophobia in English Law

Racism and xenophobia are currently growing concerns inall the Member States of the European Union. This article deals withthe various legal mechanisms relating to the control of racistand/or xenophobic expression in English law. Although xenophobia isnot per se recognised in English law, racism is covered on a varietyof levels, by the prevention of racial discrimination and thepotential for suing in defamation (civil); and by the prosecutionof public order offences, sedition and the new concept of raciallyaggravated offences (criminal). It is suggested that these variousmechanisms are too diffuse and that their effectiveness would begreatly enhanced by a consolidating statute which would attach anappropriately high level of stigma to the behaviour in question.     

Exploring the representation of xenophobia in a South African television drama series: A Zimbabwean audience's perspective

Abstract

A great deal of research has been conducted on minorities and their representation in the media in various parts of the world (Evra 2004: 67; Miller 1996; Vicsek & Markus 2008: 124). Fundamentally, the reason for this is political, as ‘the cohesion or rupture of a social world depends on relations among groups who perceive themselves as disadvantaged either as groups or as individuals’ (Staiger 2005: 13). Television programmes, as elements of the media, are a source of information that contributes to these perceptions. Many scholars are of the view that television creates, reflects and reinforces social relations and functions as a mediation of the social world (Evra 2004: 13). In South Africa relatively little research has been conducted on the representation of minorities in local media. Particularly the representation of black immigrants and their representation on South African television has been largely ignored (Kiguwa 2008: 67; Nyamnjoh 2006). The focus of this article is not on the analysis of the representation of foreigners on television, but rather on how a specific group of viewers perceives the representation of Zimbabwean immigrants in the drama series Usindiso (Redemption), broadcast on the South African Broadcasting Corporation's SABC1. The central research question posed by this article is: How does a selected group of Zimbabwean immigrants living in Hillbrow in South Africa perceive the representation of Zimbabwean immigrants in Usindiso?     

The State-Legal Administration and the Politics of Redundancy

The main aim of this study was to investigate whether the competition and cultural theoretical models that have received solid empirical support in the context of Western European societies can explain anti-foreigner sentiment in post-socialist Russia as a society searching for new national identity borders. Data obtained from the third round of the European Social Survey (2006) indicate a high level of anti-foreigner sentiment in contemporary Russia – more than 60% of Russians claimed that immigrants undermine the cultural life of the country, and almost 60% claimed that immigration is bad for the economy of the country. Our multivariate analysis showed that the two sets of individual-level predictors of anti-foreigner sentiment – the socioeconomic position of individuals (as suggested by the competition model) and conservative views and ideologies (as suggested by the cultural model) – are not meaningful in predicting anti-foreigner sentiment in post-socialist Russia. The results are discussed from a comparative sociology perspective and in the context of the Russian society.     

Dangerous othering in Meg Vandermerwe’s Zebra crossing: Ubuntu – ideals and realities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

This article explores the process of ‘othering’ in Meg Vandermerwe’s 2013 novel Zebra crossing. Othering is defined as a discursive practice in which one social group defines another in an inferior way. The novel is narrated by Zimbabwean-born albino, Chipo, who crosses the border into South Africa shortly before the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Far from finding the better life she had hoped for there, Chipo is instead met with prejudice and disdain from locals. Through her portrayal of Chipo’s life as an illegal immigrant in Cape Town, Vandermerwe shows that while apartheid is over, social division and inter-group conflict are not. All the while juxtaposing this reality against the backdrop of the World Cup and the ubuntu ideals it championed but failed to deliver, Vandermerwe exposes how wide the gap is between theory and practice, ideology and lived reality. Highlighting the power of discursive practices like othering to produce real and violent consequences, Vandermerwe warns that if we do not truly embrace the values of forgiveness, compassion and acceptance, we face a dark future in which a cycle of conflict and injustice is repeated instead of being broken.     

The Discourse of the Extreme Right and Its Ideological Implications: The Case of the Alleanza nazionale on Immigration

Against the background of research on Italian parliamentary debates on immigration, ter Wal looks at the ideological positions of the extreme-right Alleanza nazionale (AN) concerning both immigration and integration policy. In order to unravel the ideological implications she focuses on examples of various rhetorical strategies enacted in speeches by several of the party's MPs: including stategies of self- and other-presentation, and of justification and causal explanation. This analysis shows how the AN manages to propagate an ideology of ethnic nationalism that eschews the egalitarian norms and cultural pluralism necessary for full participation by migrants. The AN's transformation and re-interpretation of the meaning of the key values of equality andsolidarietàfunction as a justification for the restriction of migrants' rights. Speakers shift the perspective from immigrants' problems to the socio-economic problems of Italians in order to recommend a policy of 'the own people first'. While the AN's discourse thus continues to build on traditional extreme-right beliefs and claims, on the other hand it also espouses New Right ideologies of cultural relativism. Moreover, unlike that of radical-right parties, the AN's discourse does not express blatant forms of ethnic prejudice in the form of stereotypical beliefs and negative representations of immigrants' personal characteristics, nor does it blame immigrants, who are rather represented, and sympathized with, as victims. The moderation of and internal contradictions in its discourse makes the AN difficult     

The ‘Post-Holocaust Jew’ and the Instrumentalization of Philosemitism

Abstract

Altfelix attempts to examine and explain why xenophiles are politically prone to an ambivalent re-utilization of xenophobic images of the Other. In Germany both ‘the Jew’ and ‘the Ausländer’ have been instrumentalized xenophilically in their capacity as abstract notions by certain system actors and publics in a manner which appears to shed more light on the in-group than the Other. Xenophilia as a self-oriented, positive in-group evaluation may be identified as particularly evident in the post-war German political discourse on the Holocaust. In similar fashion to antisemitism, philosemitism represents an ‘allosemitic’ (Bauman) abstraction of ‘the Jew’, whose evocation is comparable to the idea of a ‘good foreigner’ as expressed in Ausländerfreundlichkeit (foreigner-friendliness). Xenophilia/philosemitism—like xenophobia/antisemitism—is dependent upon a relative opposition between ‘concretized Self’ and ‘abstracted Other’. Altfelix argues that this relationship emerges for two reasons. First, manifestations of xenophilia are generally preceded by bouts of xenophobia. Consequently, some publics may identify a need for creating a positive in-group focus. In this, the Other must not become too concrete for fear of distracting attention away from the xenophile's agenda. Second, the difference between Self and Other must be effectively maintained, since the xenophile's raison d'être depends upon it. Post-war German philosemitism appears to be a good exemplar for this definition of ‘xenophilia’. It demonstrates the dangers of moving within an allosemitic cycle in which difference becomes a method of keeping otherness at bay through abstraction. The fear of a misremembrance of the Holocaust resulting from an abstract memorialization seems to provide a very solid political basis for perpetuating a philosemitic identity construction of ‘the Jew’ as abstracted Other.     

Pockets of resistance to globalization: the case of the Lega Nord

ABSTRACT

From its inception, the Lega Nord has been a populist social and political movement obsessed with the Other. In the world-view of the Lega Nord, the Other is anything that threatens the cultural and regional identity of Italians in the northern part of the country, particularly the Northeast. In the early 1990s the Other was constituted by corrupt politicians in Rome, Italian economic monopolies and southern Italians. By the late 1990s the Other had increasingly become the forces of globalization that, according to the Lega leadership's shrill arguments, threatened the economic and social fabric of what the party now refers to as ‘Padania’. Woods explores the manner in which anti-globalization became the dominant ideological Other in the rhetoric of the Lega Nord.     

Reviews

Book reviews: Tim Cole, Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler, How History Is Bought, Packaged and Sold (reviewed by Samuel Huston Goodfellow); Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (reviewed by Samuel Huston Goodfellow); Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (reviewed by Samuel Huston Goodfellow)     

Racism and Xenophobia: A Brief Note on the Scottish Experience

This short article plots expressions of racism andxenophobia in Scotland from the 15th to the 20th Centuries andnotes that in modern Scotland social divisions on the ground ofrace or religion have been dealt with without bloodshed. Theauthor hopes, that with the introduction of the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights into the domestic laws of the UnitedKingdom, this will continue to be the case in the 21st Century.