32.3811, Review: Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics: van Dijk (2021)

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Subject: 32.3811, Review: Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics: van Dijk (2021)

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Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2021 20:18:35
From: Troy Spier [tspier at usfq.edu.ec]
Subject: Antiracist Discourse

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36729797


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-1663.html

AUTHOR: Teun A.  van Dijk
TITLE: Antiracist Discourse
SUBTITLE: Theory and History of a Macromovement
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Troy E Spier, Universidad San Francisco de Quito

SUMMARY

In an era of police brutality, mass incarceration, and violent manifestations
of far-right narratives of a defensive war, the term “antiracism” has been
increasingly employed to refer to a movement by those not only standing in
opposition to but also dismantling institutionalized, normalized patterns of
racist behavior and thought. However, due to widespread mischaracterization of
the term, ideologues like Renaud Camus have found a global audience from
Anders Breivik in Norway to Brenton Tarrant in New Zealand to dozens of white
nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia. Nonetheless, the larger thought
patterns of racism and antiracism are perhaps as old as humanity itself, and
Teun A. van Dijk accompanies and guides the reader on a centuries-long journey
of the development and discourses of antiracist movements primarily in the
United States and Europe. To this end, “Antiracist Discourse” contains nine
chapters, six of which are better understood as focused case studies of the
theoretical framework outlined in the second chapter.
 
Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the primary objectives of this book,
beginning by straightforwardly contextualizing the academic positioning of
this field within Critical Discourse Studies, by defining complex terminology
for the reader (“antiracism” and “antiracist discourse”), and by describing
the relationship among discourse, cognition, and society. The author notes
that “antiracism must be defined as a historical and global social
(macro)movement, consisting of more specific and local social movements in
many countries and at different moments of history” (7), a point that
characterizes the overarching goal of each of the subsequent chapters. The
chapter closes with an in-depth overview of the author’s prior research,
beginning with his doctoral dissertation and “appl[ying] fifty years of
research on discourse and forty years on racism and racist discourse” (8),
before describing the basic organization of the book and the limitations of
the present study.
 
Chapter 2, at sixty-five pages, is the longest chapter of the book and
presents in dozens of subsections the methodological framework underpinning
van Dijk’s historical treatment, presentation, and analysis of antiracist
discourse. This begins with a few pages that clarify the term-specific
nomenclature, including ten characteristics of a “macromovement” and which
define racism as “a complex system of ethnic or racial power abuse or
domination, consisting of a subsystem of racist cognition (prejudice,
ideology) and a subsystem of racist practices (discrimination)” (15). Most
importantly, the author notes that both racist and antiracist attitudes are
collectively learned, shared, and discursively reproduced, thus promulgating
the position that analysis at the macro level (the “movement”) is more
advantageous to this specific discussion than at the micro level (the
“individual”). Next, the chapter examines a range of particularities
concerning antiracist cognition, antiracist discourse, and the relationship
between antiracism and society more broadly. The significant point is
reiterated that antiracism itself is not monolithic and is dependent upon a
variety of factors; in the case of the present study, this means any
examination of antiracism (in the past or present) is heavily dependent upon
the historical conditions having given rise to it, i.e., a twenty-first
century lens is not a priori better suited to comprehending twentieth-century
antiracism. Finally, the chapter closes by examining how widespread antiracism
actually is, given that, as the author indicated in the introduction, it is
not the prevailing ideology but, instead, a reaction or response to racism.
 
Chapter 3 focuses on early opposition to slavery. Strikingly, while the author
acknowledges that racist actions and beliefs have existed for perhaps as many
as 2000 years, antiracism itself remained uncodified for a significant period
of this history, as “such a conceptualization only became explicit in the
twentieth century” (80). An example is presented concerning the enslavement by
the Greeks and Romans of those whose land they conquered; although this
enslavement was perhaps racially motivated at some level, one can only argue
for an antiracist response if people at the time formally recognized the
unjust nature of this enslavement. Instead, the author argues that this
behavior was normalized. Similarly, although early opposition to slavery as an
institution often originated within religious exegetical thought, this
infrequently resulted in a genuine attempt to abolish slavery. Additional
examples are provided concerning serfdom in France and the colonization of the
Americas by the Spaniards.
 
Chapter 4 emphasizes the gradual development of Quaker thought concerning
slavery and includes a powerful reproduction of the first formal edict against
slavery from four Dutch-German Quakers in 1688 in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Their argument rests not only on the belief that slavery goes against the
teachings of Christianity, but also foregrounds the fact that forced
enslavement results in an act of theft, the destruction of the family unit,
and a poor reputation in Europe: “This makes an ill report in all those
countries of Europe, where they hear of, that ye Quakers doe here handel men
as they handel there ye cattle” (99). This is followed by a more in-depth
consideration of later documents that spoke more explicitly—and sometimes more
religiously—against the enslavement of people, including those written by
female abolitionists (e.g. Lucy Townsend and Mary Hornchurch), by those of
African descent (e.g. Phyllis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano), and by those who
were politically- and/or philosophically-minded (e.g. William Wilberforce and
Thomas Clarkson). The chapter closes by considering French abolitionist
discourse from the time.
 
Chapter 5 focuses primarily on literary and political figures who spoke out,
either publicly or in writing, against the holding of enslaved people,
including Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner
Truth, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and Ida B. Wells. Particular
emphasis is also placed upon the contradictory situation of many people who
advocated on behalf of abolitionism but who simultaneously enslaved others.
The chapter concludes by introducing the precedents for the later Civil Rights
Movement, which is discussed in the following chapter.
 
Chapter 6 advances the conversation from the previous three chapters by
highlighting significant periods in and aspects of the Civil Rights Movement.
Prefatory comments demarcate the historical tendencies of the Democratic and
Republican Parties, including for instance the former’s involvement in
approving legislation that enabled lynching,  before the conversation shifts
to positive transformations, such as the role of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in desegregating primary and
secondary education. After describing the judicial success of Thurgood
Marshall, a more traditional discourse analysis is offered with exemplars from
Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, albeit with the
caveat that the Civil Rights Movement resulted not only in antiracist
discourse but also antiracist action in the streets.
 
Chapter 7 offers a perspective on Jewish responses to antisemitism. Although
this chapter initially feels “out of place,” the resistance described herein
is analogized to the postwar reactions to fascism in Europe and segregation in
the USA. A longitudinal history of antisemitism is presented, beginning with
the Middle Ages. Early authors who warned against the possibility of
widespread antisemitism in Europe are introduced, and mid to late
twentieth-century scholars’ psychological, sociological, philosophical, and
political analyses of Nazi Germany are considered. The most powerful aspect of
this chapter arrives in the forms of direct quotes, e.g. Heinrich Heine’s “Das
war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende
Menschen.” Additionally, resistance to antisemitism is described from both the
German and French perspectives, though the author notes that antisemitism was
certainly confined neither exclusively to these two countries nor to Europe
generally.
 
Chapter 8 integrates a fin de siècle anthropological perspective on the wider
understanding of race as a construct, starting from the early work of Franz
Boas, whose ultimate conclusion about what James Weldon Johnson (1912 [1927])
called the “race question” was that education is insufficient in mitigating
the spread of racism, which is antithetical to one of the central tenets from
the second chapter. Next, the conversation shifts to manifested responses to
racism from UNESCO, particularly through their “Statement on Race,” before
introducing regional and country-specific antiracist discourse and action from
the end of World War II until the present, including the Black Lives Matter
movement. Although this book was already in press at the time, another
important situation—public debates on and in front of local school boards in
the USA on the heavily contested “teaching” of Critical Race Theory (see e.g.
Delgado and Stefancic 1993 and Crenshaw et. al 1995)—is alluded to when the
author states that “[...] teaching about racial discrimination [...] was
violently opposed in the USA, not only by school boards, teachers or parents”
(205).
 
Chapter 9 serves as the formal conclusion and reiterates much of the
nomenclature and many of the accompanying definitions from earlier in the
book. It then re-examines specific discourse structures that correspond to
each of major topics of the preceding chapters, viz., those that characterize
antiracist resistance to slavery and segregation in the USA and antisemitism
in Europe.

EVALUATION

As a whole, this volume offers an incredibly well organized and detailed
account of antiracist discourses in the United States and Europe. In fact, the
second chapter (“Theoretical Framework”) is by far the most significant
contribution of this book and should serve as required reading, with or
without the remaining chapters, by everyone in any field that considers
sociologically- or linguistically-grounded scholarship and/or
pedagogically-focused initiatives. In fact, the most impactful line from this
chapter indicates that antiracism cannot simply be understood in terms of
polarity, but rather that “antiracist discourse needs to be accounted for
differently in different historical periods, with different social, political
and cultural conditions, functions and consequences, as well as different
communicative situations — and hence different context models of its
participants” (54). On the other hand, there are a few areas where this
otherwise tremendous contribution could be improved or expanded.

First, it might seem unfair or even pedantic to take issue with some of the
terminology employed; however, this book frequently refers to (formerly)
enslaved people as ‘slaves.’ There has been a growing tendency in literary,
linguistic, and historical studies to acknowledge both the agency of these
individuals and also to foreground their forced bondage, so as not to reduce
their overall identity strictly to their circumstances (see e.g. Ferris 2017,
Shuster et al. 2018, and Shuster et al. 2019). Among others, similar arguments
have also been made in favor of the term ‘slaveholder’ instead of ‘slave
master’ or ‘slave owner.’ Thus, either utilizing the more widely accepted
nomenclature or clarifying the decision to use more historical terms would
have been welcome.

Second, although detailed attention was given to sharing and contextualizing
the names of specific individuals and efforts, the extensive use of bold text
and up to four section levels felt somewhat inaccessible or even unnerving at
times. As a result, including ancillary materials—perhaps as prefatory
information or in appendices—like condensed timelines, biographical sketches,
or other graphics to illustrate the larger concepts would be a great asset to
readers, particularly those who are unfamiliar with extant academic
scholarship on the topic of antiracism, including many of the more specific
ideas that originate in the author’s own work, e.g. the ideological square
(cf. van Dijk 1998).

Third, while the expansive discussions of abolitionist discourses in the USA
and responses to antisemitism in Europe were incredibly timely, it feels like
an opportunity was missed to address perhaps less widely discussed responses
to (anti)racism, including those related to less straightforwardly bifurcated
colorism (e.g., in Latin America where categories like ‘mestizo’ or ‘trigueño’
are used or in Bantu-speaking Africa, where ethnicity and clan affiliation do
not always overlap), religious discourse (e.g., responses to
racially-motivated Islamophobia or to groups like the Westboro Baptist
Church), etc. This might impressionistically seem like too much content for
the present book; however, having the same number of chapters that cover a
wider variety of issues could simultaneously strengthen the claims made about
antiracist discourse more generally and reinforce the notion that antiracism
is a macromovement, not simply a response found in isolated communities.

REFERENCES

Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas (eds). 1995.
“Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement”. New York,
NY: The New Press.

Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. 1993. “Critical Race Theory: An Annotated
Bibliography.” Virginia Law Review, 79(2): 461–516.

Ferriss, Lucy. 2017. “The Language of Enslavement.” “The Chronicle of Higher
Education”.

Johnson, James Weldon. 1912 [1927]. “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”.
Sherman, French & Company.

Shuster et al. 2018. “Teaching Hard History: American Slavery”. Montgomery,
AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.

Shuster, Kate et al. 2019. T”eaching Hard History: A K-5 Framework for
Teaching American Slavery”. 
Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.

van Dijk, Teun A. 1998. “Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach”. London, Sage
Publications.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Troy E. Spier is a full-time professor of English and Linguistics at
Universidad San Francisco de Quito. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in
Linguistics at Tulane University, and he previously earned a B.S.Ed. in
English/Secondary Education at Kutztown University. His research interests
include language documentation and description, discourse analysis, corpus
linguistics, and linguistic landscapes.





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