“Those foreigners ruin everything here”: Interactional functions of ethnic labelling among pupils in the Netherlands

Weerd, Pomme van de

doi:10.1111/josl.12344

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…I avoided asking participants to label themselves, in order to see how and when they would bring up labels on their own accord. Often, categories came up fleetingly during all kinds of daily activities, such as gossiping or making fun (see Van de Weerd, 2019). The interactions that I analyze in this paper were selected because they are representative examples of common interactions in this context.…”

Section: Ethnographic Fieldwork In Class 3bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic labeling among pupils with migration backgrounds

Weerd

2020

DuJAL

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This paper analyzes ethnic self-labeling among pupils of a secondary school in Venlo, the Netherlands. Pupils with migration backgrounds, born in the Netherlands, referred to themselves as ‘Moroccan’, ‘Turk’ or ‘foreigner’, and to others as ‘Dutch’. Ascription to these ethnic categories is often understood as an expression of national (un)belonging. Based on nine months of linguistic ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that ethnic labels functioned to manage everyday interpersonal social relations and did not necessarily express feelings of (un)belonging to the nation. Rather, pupils used ethnic labels to associate social personae with particular styles and behaviors and to construct local social hierarchies. The paper contributes to the investigation of ethnic labels as signs with locally contingent meanings, which nevertheless retain indexical links with wider discourses about social categories and belonging. It furthermore emphasizes the necessity of investigating the local meanings of ethnic categories.

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Section: Ethnographic Fieldwork In Class 3bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic labeling among pupils with migration backgrounds

Weerd

2020

DuJAL

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“…Much anthropological and sociolinguistic work builds on the premise that ethnic (and other kinds of) identities are a 'discursive construct that emerges in interaction' (Bucholtz and Hall 2005, 587): they are constructed, intersubjectively negotiated, locally contingent, and fluid. Terms to denotate categories are part of such multifaceted practices of identification and are therefore highly complex in their own right (Martín Rojo 2008;Cornips and de Rooij 2009;Nørreby and Møller 2015;van de Weerd 2019).…”

Section: Ethnic Categorization and Culturalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their school, however, where many peers had similar migration backgrounds, that migration background constituted social capital. Many references to ethnic categories in student interaction alluded to those local hierarchies, and categorization thus had an important social function in the management of local social relations (see also van de Weerd 2019).…”

Section: Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

Categorization in the classroom: a comparison of teachers’ and students’ use of ethnic categories

Weerd

2020

Journal of Multicultural Discourses

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This paper builds on an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork data and classroom interaction to examine the use and interpretation of ethnic categories among teachers and students of a secondary school class in the city of Venlo, the Netherlands. Students with a migration background, who were born in the Netherlands, often labeled themselves Turk ('Turk'), Marokkaan ('Moroccan'), and buitenlander ('foreigner'), and referred to others as Nederlander ('Dutch'). Students used these categories in locally specific ways, for example, to engage in the management of everyday social relations and to construct social hierarchies. Teachers, none of whom had a migration background, appeared to interpret students' labeling practices as related to issues with integration and belonging. They problematized and sometimes rejected students' categorization, while at the same time, they also displayed orientation to a categorization system that differentiated between students with and without a migration background. Using tools from membership categorization analysis, the paper examines how these divergent category interpretations surfaced and evokes the effects this may have on students and their relationships with teachers.

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“…Many researchers have analysed the use of humour around race and ethnicity in interaction, noting among other functions its ability to mitigate the effect of stigmatizing, exclusionary, and hurtful mainstream discourses (van de Weerd, , p. 252). There is a vast amount of interactionist work on the (re)production of boundaries and the use of terms associated with ethnicity and race in the dynamic construction of identity and social relations among friends (e.g.…”

Section: National Ideologies: Integration and Assimilationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking the longer view: Explaining Multicultural London English and Multicultural Paris French

Cheshire

2019

Journal of Sociolinguistics

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The article explores the perplexing outcomes of comparative research projects in London and Paris on language change in multilingual areas of the cities populated by large numbers of recent immigrants with very diverse language backgrounds. In London, as in many other northern European cities, language contact on such a large scale has resulted in the emergence of a “multiethnolect”: a repertoire of innovative linguistic forms used by young people of all ethnicities, including monolingual non‐immigrant speakers. In Paris, however, there was no such repertoire. I propose four factors that are necessary for a multiethnolect to emerge and that explain why similar processes of population movement, immigration, and globalization have produced such different linguistic outcomes in London and Paris. These factors remind us that language evolution, like language use, is constrained not only by the social characteristics of individuals but also by the socio‐cultural historical contexts in which individuals live.

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“Those foreigners ruin everything here”: Interactional functions of ethnic labelling among pupils in the Netherlands

Cited by 14 publications

References 45 publications

Ethnic labeling among pupils with migration backgrounds

Ethnic labeling among pupils with migration backgrounds

Categorization in the classroom: a comparison of teachers’ and students’ use of ethnic categories

Taking the longer view: Explaining Multicultural London English and Multicultural Paris French

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