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PP 418
Racist Continuities and Convivial Futures: Violence as Element of Collective Memories
T. Thomas
1
, F. Virchow
2
1
University of Tuebungen, Institute of Media Studies, Tuebingen, Germany
2
University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, Faculty of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, Düsseldorf, Germany
Migration has always been debated in a very affecting way because it concerns the meaning of ‚we‘, the institutional logics and the symbolic, and the de
facto privileged status of certain individuals in a society (Mecheril 2011: 50). These days, increased mobility and forced migration have boosted debates on
the political as well as the social responses to the challenges of conviviality in heterogeneous societies all over the world. The European Union is called into
question by some of its members, and the EU institutions were barely able to agree on tightening legal and security measures. Right-wing governments, for
example in Hungary, deploy military and police forces at their borders and erect walls and fences against migrants and refugees. While Germany celebrated
itself as the world champion of a ‘welcoming culture’, the federal government reinstated national border controls over night and further restricted the right
of asylum (cf. Ataç 2015). At the same time, organised radical right-wing groups in Germany set fire to refugee shelters, as well as abuse and attack asylum
seekers. For some observers, this is a terrible recall of several attacks on refugees during the 1990es and, therefore, they are trying to re-open a public de‑
bate on violence against migrants. Said phenomenon is often marginalized from collective memory although in November 2011, the German government
officials informed the general public that neo-Nazi terrorists were responsible for a crime wave reaching back more than a decade. This included the killing
of nine migrant shopkeepers and a police officer (for an analysis of the news coverage of the killings see Virchow/Thomas/Grittmann 2015). In this paper
we claim that a perspective towards transcultural conviviality has to consider the voices of the ones who have migrated to a certain country, especially
with regards to the experience of racism and violence. Until today, there is a small but growing number of (digital) homes bearing a collection of resources
relating to refugees, migration, and the experiences of violence. In the past, local initiatives mainly composed of Germans have already published statistics
on racist and right wing violence, have organized anniversaries in memory of the victims, have tried to enforce the renaming of streets or places, and have
established exhibitions on racism against migrants and refugees.Today, digital media enable people from a wide variety of backgrounds to connect, to share
experiences and memories, which may foster public discussions on past and present suffering. Thereby, as Arjun Appadurai (2016) recently argued, these
experiences are not only represented but digital media provide voice, agency, and debates for people who have experienced racist violence as part of their
biography. These experiences may become a crucial and embedded element of collective memory in a society, which offers access for cultural participation
and belonging. This paper will investigate political campaigns in Germany (“Keupstraße ist überall”, “Tatort Hamburg”), which are struggling for a public
remembrance. We will examine their communication (on- and offline) by analysing their potential to shape civic culture (Dahlgren 2009) for convivial
futures in post-migrant societies.
PP 419
The Securitization of British Muslims in British Media Discourse
R. Tsagarousianou
1
1
University of Westminster, CAMRI, London, United Kingdom
Over the past decade, Islam has gradually assumed an unenviable position in British public debate as it has been represented and understood as equivalent,
or conducive to, cultural and religious fundamentalism, political extremism and terrorism. This paper traces the evolution of policies and strategies of rep‑
resentation of Muslim immigration into the United Kingdom over the past decade setting these within the broader context of representations of Islam and
Muslims in British society from the late 1980s onwards. It is argued that a system that encouraged good race relations and largely, though not exclusively,
premised on media self-regulation has been gradually subverted by processes of securitization of Britain’s ‘Muslim problem’ as the government adopted
a model of covert intervention in public debates by cultivating and setting up networks of ‘concerned’ advocates of government domestic policy towards
British Muslims and foreign policy towards the Middle East and that these developments have set the parameters for the current representations of and
debates on Muslim immigration. The research is premised on a series of interviews with media professionals, policy makers as well as on a survey of selecte
media content over the past decade.
PP 420
Diasporas and Digital Racism: Mexicans’ Racial Discourses and Social Distinctions on Social Networking Sites
L. Nessi
1
, O. Bailey
1
1
NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY, Media and Globalisation, Nottingham, United Kingdom
This paper explores how the relatively privileged Mexican European Diaspora is using social media to make distinctions through posting multimedia con‑
tent to their networked profiles. It investigates how racial discourses are used as markers of difference amongst diasporic Mexican social media users. We
argue that the literature on migration, diaspora, and internet usage tends to centre on the underprivileged ‘other’. Few publications demonstrate the so‑
cial specificities of interaction between relatively privileged migrants and diasporas such as expatriates and professionals, although some have explored
the importance of the internet and social media for these groups. This paper aims to contribute to filling out this gap in existing research. The theoretical
framework informing this chapter is articulated through the concept of ‘racial debris’ (Amin, 2015) which explores the mechanisms keeping racial coding
and judgement close to the surface, ready to spring into action. Amin suggests that the ‘intensity of race in a given present in terms of the play between
vernacular legacies of race coded reception of visible difference and the conjunctural mobilizations of race by biopolitical regimes to maintain collective or‑
der’(Amin, 2015:1) and introducing concepts related to the negotiation of class and race and their use as social distinctions by diasporic subjects. The paper
makes use of Bourdieu’s work to address the ways in which social networking sites are used to foster and gain social capital, while considering their use in
relation to frequently observed practices involving exclusion and displays of prejudice based on classed and racial distinctions made amongst the Mexican
European diaspora online. We suggest that these practices developed in social media are part of the ‘racial debris’, mechanisms used to further the ‘racial‑
ization of everything’.