The Language And Politics Of Exclusion

This new volume brings together articles that apply critical discourse analysis to texts and speech that contributes to the marginalization of minority groups. Studying both the fine details of language use and the political values implicated by word choice, the contributors examine how an "us versus them" division is played out in a wide array of cultural settings. Among the groups considered are immigrants in Western Europe, African Americans, African Canadians, Mexican Natives, Jews in Austria, and Muslims in Europe and North America. Examples of everyday speech through which prejudice is conveyed include advertising, parliamentary debate, travel literature, newspaper articles, the law, autobiography, and even classroom discourse. Collectively, the chapters make a strong and original case for the values of linguistic perspective in the study of prejudice and social inequity. The Language and Politics of Exclusion demonstrates, especially to such disciplines as sociology, journalism, and communication the ways in which discourses can marginalize others. Students and professionals will gain insight into this problem and ideally, learn the self-monitoring skills necessary to prevent this from happening. This book's in-depth look into the issue helps to lead the way.

First published in 1999, Political Languages of Race and the Politics of Exclusion examines the post-race signification logic of languages used to promote and achieve the exclusion and stigmatisation of migrant groups within post-war Britain. Re-examining the time of Smethwick and Powellism, as well as extensive Parliamentary debates, this book develops an original thesis to show how Backbench racism became legitimated as Frontbench commons’ sense. The book argues that the achievement of the success of post-war Parliamentary racism has been made possible by the development of a ubiquitously anecdotal narrative of the travails of the ‘Forgotten Englishman’ awoken to a multi-cultural nightmare in Britain’s decaying inner cities. While the concept of ‘race’ has remained under erasure, the logic of post-race signification discourse has allowed the re-making of racism in public Britain.

The special language of poor-bashing disguises the real causes of poverty, hurts and excludes people who are poor, cheapens the labour of people who have jobs, and takes the pressure off the rich. Swanson, a twenty-five year veteran of anti-poverty work, exposes the ideology of poor-bashing in a clear, forceful style. She examines how media "poornography" operates when reporters cover poverty stories. She also reveals how government and corporate clients use poor-bashing focus groups. To make the book even more useful Swanson includes key chapters on the history of poor-bashing.

In many European countries the extreme right have refined their electoral programmes under the rubric of nationalist-populist slogans and have adopted subtle forms of racism. The move away from overt neo-fascist discourse has, allowed these parties to expand their electoral support as populist nationalist parties. Paradoxically, this has led to an increase in racist and anti-Semitic discourse. In this on-site analysis, Michal Krzyzanowski and Ruth Wodak describe a confluence of racism and xenophobia, and show how that union creates a new kind of racism. The "new" racism differs from the older kinds in that it is usually not expressed in overtly racial terms. Instead, the justifications that are typically employed concern protecting jobs, eliminating abuse of welfare benefits, or cultural incompatibilities. The new racism exploits xenophobia rooted in ethnocentrism, male chauvinism, and ordinary prejudices that are often unconscious or routinized. For these reasons, the new racism can be defined as "syncretic," a mixture of many, sometimes contradictory, racist and xenophobic beliefs and stereotypes. Racism as ideology and practice is alive and well. This important book aims to provide understanding of the many socio-political and historical processes involved in such expressions of institutional and individual racism--processes which are not necessarily evident from more overt or traditional expressions of racism. This is an innovative look at the political study of language as well as new instances of race, ethnicity, and class in present-day Europe.

For four decades, historian Martin Duberman has fought for a more equitable society. In the process, he has become one of the country's most prominent public intellectuals. Presenting a summation of Duberman's views on such matters as race, foreign policy, gender and sexuality, Left Out offers one of the best analyses of the Left's split between class-based and identity-based politics. Book jacket.

Examines the role and influence of race and ethnicity in the contemporary American city through three case studies of urban politics and policy decisions in Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego.

Ideology and the Politics of (In)Exclusion provides an international analysis of the politics of research and practice in special education. The contributors to this volume establish purposeful connections to the micropolitics of disability identification and the macropolitics of social structure and describe various geographic locales, recount multiple historical contexts, rely upon differing sources of evidence, and as a consequence, relate a more complex and richly layered analysis of educational inclusion. Ideology and the Politics of (In)Exclusion breaks away from the prevailing discourse on educational inclusion as that which occurs in a vacuum, separate from social inclusion, by providing a close analysis of the narrow frameworks, historic influence, and research tensions that underwrite current special education practice.

The Ontario Safe Streets Act is the first modern provincial law to prohibit a wide range of begging and squeegee work in public space. This Act is representative of a much wider set of reforms that the Ontario government has carried out in the administration of criminal justice and social welfare. Central to the neo-conservative character of these reforms has been the construction of “disorderly people,” of those portrayed as “welfare cheats”, “squeegee kids”, “aggressive beggars”, “violent youth” and “coddled prisoners.” Drawing from their expertise in law, sociology, criminology and geography, contributors to this collection make visible the role of law in the practices and logic of a government that polices “public” safety through the exclusion and punishment of some of the most vulnerable people in society.