‘What about you, are you integrated?’ Resisting racial exclusions by reversing racist discourse

Abstract

Studies of responses to racial exclusion in communication studies focus predominantly on US-based racial minorities. In European contexts, however, visible migrants’ negotiations of inclusion and exclusion in response to racism are constrained by different dynamics that involve a reluctance to acknowledge ‘race,’ and thus racism. This study highlights the importance of understanding the mechanisms of resistance against racism deployed by migrants from Africa to Europe, as fundamental to decolonizing knowledge about migrant integration that has silenced race. Drawing on the frameworks of reverse discourse the study analyzes 65 in-depth interviews with Eritreans who arrived as forced migrants in Switzerland. It explores the communicative dynamics of resistance and the appropriation of derogatory discourses to reclaim power and redefine narratives. This analysis emphasizes the strategic use of language as a tool for empowerment and resistance in dispersed forms of resistance. The study identifies four reverse discourse strategies: mirror reflection, ironic repetition, ironic redirecting and ironic re-articulation.

Keywords: Reverse discourse, racism, resistance, forced Black migrants, Europe