from the unproductive debates about whether any particular individuals, propositions, claims, and doctrines are simply 'racist' or 'non-racist'."Considering racialization as a product of racist ideology has the additional advantage of reminding us that not everybody is affected by racialization in the same way. Racial formation processes work at sustaining the privilege of some and the oppression of others. In Italy today, these processes work at reinforcing the privilege of citizens over immigrants.It is important to emphasize that any difference can be racialized, not just skin color differences. In fact, skin color categories (like others based on biological difference) are invented as a result of racial formation processes, rather than existing before them. Nor can we immediately uphold a division between "biological" and "cultural" characteristics, lest we forget that what is ascribed to culture in one historical context has been attributed to nature in others (for example, gender roles). This is particularly so when one considers the so-called New Racism, a name that has been used to indicate a shift in racist ideologies from basing racial differences in biology to basing them in a reifi ed and naturalized concept of cultural differences seen as innate and unchangeable (see Taguieff 1987, Balibar & Wallerstein 1991, Gilroy 2004, Baumann 1996. The emergence of these conceptions of race, particularly strong in Europe today, reveals the shifting quality of racism and racial categories.Connected to this naturalization of cultural difference is a substitution of the term "ethnicity" to replace the scorned term "race." As Stolcke ( 1993 :24) notices, the use of the concept "ethnicity," notwithstanding its original purpose to avoid a reifi cation of "race," had the effect "to downplay or side-step racism," becoming a euphemism to avoid discussing "race." This is particularly clear in Europe, where the word "race" and its equivalents have been avoided for decades both by politicians and by the common people, and even by social scientists. Unfortunately, while the intent was to negate the existence of biological races, in effect this has stifl ed an analysis of their social creation -a social creation that, at the same time, was not at all deterred by the silence over the term "race" and "racism"; on the contrary, it was aided by it. Racism (both as an ideology and as a structural arrangement of inequalities) is strengthened by its erasure and its disguise as ineffable but inexorable "cultural" differences. As Stolcke notes, discussing Taguieff's analysis of New Racism:

Drawing from research on racial formation processes in discourse concerning immigrants to Italy, this article argues that when racializing discourses are introduced as unmarked in a conversation, the coparticipant is put in a position of having to readily agree or openly disagree—with the second option endangering face. Racializing discourses introduced as unmarked thus tend to obtain acquiescence from the coparticipant. At the same time, they work at constructing shared identities around racist and racializing stances, where the unmarking becomes indexical of such shared identities. Instead of seeing racism as a stable belief in the mind of the individual, my analysis suggests that we should consider it as something the person does in interaction. The requirements of conversational rules of engagement, the needs of face, the relationship among the interactants, as well as their moral view, influence the participants' response to racializing discourses in interaction, and whether they might coconstruct or oppose them. [racialization, markedness theory, facework, racism, immigration, Italy]

Imagine a culture where an argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:5)j ola_1048 63..71 T he work behind this collection of articles started with the detection of a contradiction: we are surrounded by disputes all of our lives, and yet arguments have often been rendered invisible in scholarship as aberrations or problems suited for psychological counseling, rather than as active resources for communicating and constructing agency. Disagreement has been seen as a problem that language users must overcome, as marked, as something requiring explanation, as the abnormal in respect to the "normal" flux of cooperation and construction of agreement. Argumentative forms such as verbal duels have often been explained away as displays of (male) aggressiveness or seen as a "security valve" that serves the status quo.Bringing together scholars working on various genres of argumentative discourse, the articles in this collection seek to abandon the received wisdom that arguments are exceptional occurrences and see them instead as central to communication. The diversity of ethnographic cases described, spanning verbal poetry, everyday conversations, scholarly debates, institutional and legal talk, and children's playtime, clearly demonstrates that argumentative language cannot be confined to liminal contexts. We consider disputes to be constitutive of social interaction and social organization and not disruptive of them. Furthermore, we maintain that argumentative language has both conflictual and cooperative dimensions, though scholars have often glossed over the latter.Argument is war in Western thought, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson once wrote (1980:4). The conceptual metaphoric system associated with it, they argued, connects it to violence, aggression, offense, winning, and losing. Yet this dominant linguistic ideological framework is limiting. As evidenced in the dynamic interplay of cooperation and conflict, arguments are much more than "war with words." Their analysis, we believe, has much to contribute to larger debates across social sciences. The articles in this collection, in particular, explore several connected broad themes. Below, I will look at three of them, situating this issue in relation to the literature in linguistic anthropology and related fields: the importance of arguments in defining, redefining or deconstructing regimes of truth (Haviland, Larson, LeMaster, Wolfgram); the political relevance of arguments (Dubuisson, Larson, Pagliai), and the use of argumentative language in the construction and performance of identity (Alim, Lee and Mason, Dubuisson, Goodwin and Alim, Tetreault). Judith Irvine will pick up other themes and theoretical frameworks linking the essays in the Afterword, and she will situate them in relation to work on conflict discourse in other social sciences. In particular, Irvine will return to discuss extensively the constitutive role of disputes in resp...

Tuscan Contrasto verbal duels reveal a subtly complex relationship between conflict and cooperation, and between face and insults. In these duels, the performers use their arguing skills to debate the politics and morality of contemporary Italy, calling attention to contradictions. The artists cooperate in building disagreement and heightening wider social conflicts, while insults may contribute to a successful performance, thus enhancing face. The study of these duels requires a rethinking of concepts such as facework, politeness, cooperation, and conflict. Here, I argue that what counts as face depends upon both the context and the audience, and that conceptualizations of face, (im)politeness, cooperation, and conflict are at least partially ideological. [verbal duels, Contrasto, politeness and impoliteness, facework, Italy]j ola_1050 87.

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