56 research outputs found
Ideologies of moral exclusion: a critical discursive reframing of depersonalization, delegitimization and dehumanization
This paper focuses on some of the issues that arise when one treats notions such as depersonalization, delegitimization and dehumanization as social practices. It emphasizes the importance of: (a) understanding depersonalizing, delegitimizing and dehumanizing constructions as embedded in descriptions of located spatial activities and moral standings in the world and (b) invoking and building a socio-moral order linked to notions of lesser humanity or non-humanity, (spatial) transgression and abjection. These concerns are illustrated by taking talk on Romanies as a case in point from interviews with Romanian middle-class professionals. It is argued that a focus on description rather than explanation might be more effective in understanding the dynamics of ideologies of moral exclusion
What is a ‘revolution’?: National commemoration, collective memory and managing authenticity in the representation of a political event
This article examines the production and management of an ideological representation of a specific political `event': the Romanian `revolution' of 1989. A critical discursive psychological approach to analyzing political discourse is used to examine commemorative addresses in the Romanian parliament. The analysis explores: (a) issues of agency, entitlement and working with regard to actual or possible alternatives; (b) a pattern of recurring categorical incumbency shifts; (c) managing the authenticity and the true nature of the `event' through invoking category-bound knowledge and predicates commonsensically attachable to the notion of `revolution'; and (d) formulating and orienting to the `events of 1989' as `revolution' and `foundational' moment in national history. It is argued that the main ideological function of drawing on such resources is that of framing/ reframing, controlling the various interpretations, public (re)formulations of the Romanian `revolution', disconnecting it from its controversial particulars and delegitimizing criticism. For a political `event' to acquire an `identity', it needs to be cast into a category with associated characteristics or features. The occasioned ideological and political significance of a political `event' lies also in its consequentiality in and for the social and ideological context in which it is invoked
‘Mea culpa’: the social production of public disclosure and reconciliation
It can be sensibly argued that transformations of social, political and moral
frameworks for constructing personal and political subjectivities have been taking
place in a variety of forms and with different effects across a range of Eastern
European contexts. In order to understand and describe individual experiences of
social change researchers have usually been engaged in documenting the nature of
these particular transformations of social, political and moral frameworks for
constructing personal and political subjectivities. Although this is a very important
research goal in its own right, it may not tell the whole story. Some questions still
remain: How are these social, political and moral frameworks constructed by
members of society through the use of various cultural and discursive resources to
make sense of themselves and others? How are personal and political subjectivities
actually constructed and reproduced, assumed or contested?
The transition from communism to democracy has been a period when possibilities of
constructing and affirming (alternative) personal and political subjectivities/identities
have been innumerable. At the same time, this period has also been one of reevaluating
and re-affirming personal/political biographies from under the sway of the
Communist and post-communist recent past. This chapter is an attempt to capture
individual experiences of social change through an example of ‘re-acquisition of
biography’ (Miller, 1999) and reconciliation with the past ...
Promises and challenges in the discursive study of social representations of history
Promises and challenges in the discursive study of social representations of histor
Accounting for extreme prejudice and legitimating blame in talk about the Romanies
This article examines the particulars of extreme prejudiced discourse about ethnic minorities in a Romanian sociocultural context. It concentrates on a detailed analysis of a single case taken from a wider project aimed at comparing and contrasting the way Romanians talk about Hungarians with the way they talk about Romanies. The article examines in detail the discourse of a middle-class Romanian accounting for prejudice and discrimination towards Romanies as part of an interview on a series of controversial issues surrounding ethnic minorities. This article tries to highlight and interrogate claims that Romanies are to blame for prejudice against them. The analysis, inspired by a critical discursive approach, has a discursive and conversational analytic focus to examine switches in talk about 'us' to talk that blames 'them'. The analysis suggests that talk about Romanies is more extreme than the anti-alien, anti-immigrant prejudiced talk studied by numerous western critical researchers. It is more extreme because Romanies are not merely portrayed as being different, but also as being beyond the moral order, beyond nationhood, difference and comparison. Talk about Romanies employs a style that, at the same time, denies, but also protects extreme prejudice. This article illustrates and discusses some of the discursive, rhetorical and interpretative resources used to talk about and legitimate the blaming of Romanies. In examining the dynamics of extreme prejudice against Romanies, this article provides a critical investigation of the social and political consequences of extreme discursive patterning. Implications for the study of discursive construction and representation of difference in talk about Romanies are also discussed
(Re)writing biography: Memory, identity, and textually mediated reality in coming to terms with the past
This paper is concerned with how biography, memory, and identity are managed and
displayed in a public confession of having been an informer for the Securitate (the former
Romanian Communist Secret Police). Drawing on discursive psychology, the analysis
reveals how biographical details are produced by drawing upon categorizations of
people, context, and events, and organizationally relevant products such as the
‘‘archive,’’ the (Securitate) ‘‘file,’’ ‘‘information notes,’’ and personal notes. It is suggested
that constructions of memory and identity are legitimated through a relationship with
an organizational and personal accomplishment of accountability. The question guiding
the analysis asks not why, but how remembering assumes the form that it does and how,
ultimately, it can connect biography, memory, and identity to the wider ideological
context. It is shown that a process of (re)writing biography is located in the ‘‘textual
traces’’ contained in personal and ‘‘official’’ records. Recollections, dispositions, intentions,
and moral character are intertwined with a textually mediated reality in producing
the public record of disclosure, and the personal and political significance of what is
remembered
Communism and the meaning of social memory: towards a critical-interpretive approach
Using a case study of representations of communism in Romania, the paper offers a sketch of a critical-interpretive approach for exploring and engaging with the social memory of communism. When one considers the various contemporary appraisals, responses to and positions towards the communist period one identifies and one is obliged to deal with a series of personal and collective moral/political quandaries. In their attempt to bring about historical justice, political elites create a world that conforms more to their needs and desires than to the diversity of meanings of communism, experiences and dilemmas of lay people. This paper argues that one needs to study formal aspects of social memory as well as "lived", often conflicting, attitudinal and mnemonic stances and interpretive frameworks. One needs to strive to find the meaning of the social memory of communism in the sometimes contradictory, paradoxical attitudes and meanings that members of society communicate, endorse and debate. Many of the ethical quandaries and dilemmas of collective memory and recent history can be better understood by describing the discursive and sociocultural processes of meaning-making and meaning-interpretation carried out by members of a polity
Public apologia, moral transgression and degradation ceremonies
This paper discusses some socio-psychological aspects of reconciliation with
the recent communist past in eastern Europe using the example of a public
apologia of a Romanian public intellectual on his alleged collaboration with the
Securitate, the former communist secret police. In order to address these
issues, data are drawn from a wider project investigating the social
construction of the communist/post-communist past in talk and text (Tileagă
2009a, b; 2011, 2012a, b; in press). The paper argues that public apologia for
wrongdoing displays a double dynamic of degradation: personal and
institutional. It is argued that public apologia serves a two-fold function: on
one hand, it is an attempt to manage a personal ‘spoiled’ identity and provides
the grounds for atonement. On the other hand, it is an attempt to (re)write
biography by elucidating the influence of the wider social context relevant to
identity transformation. By drawing on sociological work on degradation
ceremonies and discourse analysis in social psychology the paper shows how
public apologia can be understood as a social product and discursive
accomplishment
Prejudice as collective definition: Ideology, discourse and moral exclusion
Prejudice as collective definition: Ideology, discourse and moral exclusio
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