scholarly journals ‘Post-race’ racisms in the narratives of ‘Brexit’ voters

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 968-984 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina G. Patel ◽  
Laura Connelly

Although a growing body of scholarship seeks to understand the motivations behind the ‘Brexit’ vote – including that which centralises explorations of racism, nationalism and post-colonialism – little consideration has been given to the ways in which ‘post-race’ racisms underpin the narratives of Leave voters. This article draws on data generated through 13 semi-structured interviews to examine the subtle and subterranean ways in which xeno-racism is articulated in the accounts of some Leave voters in the Greater Manchester city of Salford: a city that saw a higher percentage of the electorate (56.8%) vote to leave the EU than the national average (51.9%). Whilst restricting immigration was a key motivator of Leave voters in our research, interviewees vehemently rejected accusations of racism. Instead, couching their views in seemingly non-racial ways, they framed their concerns about immigration as a ‘legitimate’ response to a victimised whiteness. Thus, in discussing our data, we argue that far from living in a ‘post-racial’ epoch, racisms continue to thrive through new modes of articulation. These new racisms emerge from the shadows at key times, such as the EU Referendum, and refashion themselves in ways that are considered more palatable than the older (explicit) racisms of past.

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Osmond

This paper examines the electoral and ideological contest that has taken place between Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru in the five National Assembly elections that have been held between 1999 and 2016. Both parties have found success when they have managed to combine effective leadership with a coherent programme and a strong sense of Welsh identity. However, the Welsh vote to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum has dealt both parties a poor hand in speaking up for Welsh interests. Can they find a common cause in working together and also with Scotland to take Wales forward in a progressive constitutional direction?


2020 ◽  
pp. 203228442097693
Author(s):  
Gavin Robinson

When the idea of this special edition occurred to the team behind the New Journal of European Criminal Law, my first thought was to go back through all of Scott Crosby’s contributions in print as editor-in-chief and see whether a mini-retrospective on the themes and views therein would be worthy of inclusion here – by Scott’s own standards. These notes focus on what gradually became the single biggest concern expressed in Scott’s editorials: the perilous position of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a post-Brexit UK – in concreto, the prospect of what he labelled ‘Brexit plus’: a British exit from the ECHR system. I begin with Scott’s views on the European Union (EU) Referendum and the Brexit process. Next comes the great uncertainty currently surrounding the future of Convention rights in the United Kingdom, set against the emphasis placed by the editorials on the instrumental role of the ECHR in fostering peace across the whole of Europe, within and beyond the territory of the EU. In the event that Brexit plus should materialise, writing in the wake of polls showing all-time record support in Scotland for secession from the United Kingdom I close by asking whether Scotland might be able to ‘leave a light on for Strasbourg’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Liam McLoughlin ◽  
Stephen Ward ◽  
Rachel Gibson ◽  
Rosalynd Southern
Keyword(s):  

Stanovnistvo ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Marija Brujic

Although according to some scholars, Serbia does not have great immigration potential, there is more and more research within social science?s framework about immigrants in Serbia. However, the majority of these papers focus on current ?migration crisis? and, in relation to this, asylum seekers and irregular migrants. Therefore, this paper has had manifold aims. Firstly, the paper has drawn attention to the anthropological study of foreigners who live and work in Serbia. Secondly, it has revealed some of the problems they had been confronted with in reality. Within this framework, the focus was on highly qualified female foreigners from the EU countries who came for love or/and work which is a topic that does not occupy a prominent place in anthropological research in Serbia. However, with regard to the EU-integration of Serbia and Europeanization of migratory policies, the research of personal experiences of foreigners living in Serbia could signify the gaps in migrants? integration policy and in the adaptation of migration strategies. Thus, in this research were used in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in 2016 in Belgrade as a method of collecting data and the ?bottom-up? approach. As a result, in this paper were analyzed narratives of a German and a British woman about their everyday experiences connected with their residing and working status. Their narratives showed their struggle with Serbian bureaucracy and related to this, how they legalized their ?migratory status?. Furthermore, in the analysis of the micro context the term ?ethnography of particular? was used, an approach developed by Lila Abu-Lughod in order to, one the one hand, avoid generalization and, on the other, to focus on individual life histories, which is an approach usually used in socio-anthropological studies. In particular, the paper stresses the relevance of individual strategies used for regulation of residence of foreigners in Serbia. Both British and German woman are married to Serbs, have no children, speak The Serbian language, socialize mainly with the Serbs and live and work in Belgrade. While German woman came during Milosevic?s regime in 1999, the British woman came in 2002. Although they did not suffer from ?professional deskilling?, which is typical for female migration in general, they both had to prequalify in order to find a job in Serbia. However, they both found it was easier to regulate their residence status through family, not working, visa, especially before new legal documents concerning foreigners? status were introduced. For instance, the most important legal document adopted as part of EU-integration process are Law on Foreigners (2008), Law on Migration Management (2012) and Law on Employment and Work of Foreign Citizens (2014). Foreigners living in Serbia represent the important group as many of them either work or use their pensions in Serbia. Therefore, having in mind the importance of Europeanization of migratory strategies in Serbia within Europeanization of Serbia and EU-integration process in general and possible migration of EU nationals to Serbia, this paper discussed the importance of individual (working) migration to Serbia on a micro level.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ebtisam Saleh Aluthman

This paper presents a critical account of the representation of immigration in the Brexit corpus—a collective corpus of 108,452,923 words compiled mostly from blogs, tweets, and daily news related to Brexit debate. The study follows the methodological synergy approach proposed by Baker et al. (2008), a heuristic methodological approach that combines methods of discourse analysis and corpus-assisted statistical tools including keyword, collocation, and concordance analysis. Drawing on this methodological synergy approach, the investigation yields significant findings contextualized within the socio-economic-political context of the European Union (EU) leave referendum to trace how the issue of immigration is represented in the discourses of the Remain and Leave campaigns. The frequency results show that immigration is one of the most salient topics in the Brexit corpus. Concordance analysis of the word immigrants and collocation investigation of the word immigration reveal opposing attitudes toward immigration in the EU referendum debate. The analysis uncovers negative attitudes toward the uncontrolled flow of immigrants from other EU countries and public concerns about immigrants' negative impacts on wages, education, and health services. Other findings reveal positive attitudes toward immigrants emphasizing their positive contributions to the UK economy. The study concludes with an argument of the significant association between the political and socio-economic ideologies of a particular society and the language communicated in its media.


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