Argiris Archakis (Professor of the University of Patras, Principal Investigator)
Research groups members:
Villy Tsakona (University of Athens)
Rania Karachaliou (University of Patras)
Vasia Tsami (University of Patras)
Anthippi Douka (University of Patras)
Kyriakoula Tzorzatou (University of Patras)
Alexis Lazanas (University of Patras)
Anastasia Stamou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Antonis Sapountzis (Democritus University of Thrace)
Teresa Spilioti (Cardiff University)
Stavros Assimakopoulos (University of Malta)
Korina Giaxoglou (Open University, UK)
Anna Piata (University of Neuchâtel)
Dimitris Serafis (Università della Svizzera Italiana)
Ilias Siachos (University of Patras)
Rationale and research project
This project focuses on institutionalized/ official anti-racist discourse of the European public sphere, which refers to the migration and refugee issue. The mass migration and refugee movements in Europe during the years 2015-2017 and the ensuing intense discussions at a global level led to the rise of different stances and practices on behalf of European states, ranging from solidarity to xenophobia. In this context, this research program intends to reveal that racist views are not cultivated only through hate speech, which stigmatizes and overtly demonizes migrant and refugee populations, but also through seemingly anti-racist discourse, which aims at denouncing racist practices, but ends up disguising, reproducing and sedimenting inequalities.
To this end, the first aim is the creation of a corpus of anti-racist (multimodal) texts including, on the one hand, media texts such as advertising campaigns, news articles, TV shows, cartoons, and, on the other, institutional texts such as educational material, parliamentary proceedings, and other political and legal texts, which circulate in European countries. This corpus will be annotated and analyzed in order to detect texts indirectly perpetuating social and/or sociolinguistic inequalities: what we tentatively call ‘racist’ anti-racist texts. More specifically, drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis, the analysis concerns the various linguistic and other semiotic strategies through which racist views infiltrate discourse intended as anti-racist. Through the creation of a critical toolkit (TRACE) based on the findings of the analysis, the main intention is to enhance individuals’ critical awareness so as to be able to detect racism in anti-racist discourse. The ultimate goal of the program is to inform and sensitize the public, particularly educational and institutional bodies, on this kind of latent racism via the use of printed and audio-visual material.