Articulations of Self and Politics in Activist Discourse: A Discourse Analysis of Critical Subjectivities in Minority Debates

462 Pages·2017·4.42 MB·English

by  Jan Zienkowski (auth.)

Articulations of Self and
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Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse
Series Editors
Johannes Angermuller
University of Warwick
Coventry , United Kingdom
Judith Baxter
Halsecombe House
Minehead , United Kingdom
P ostdisciplinary Studies in Discourse engages in the exchange between
discourse theory and analysis while putting emphasis on the intellectual
challenges in discourse research. Moving beyond disciplinary divisions in
today's social sciences, the contributions deal with critical issues at the
intersections between language and society.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14534
Jan   Z ienkowski
Articulations of Self
and Politics in
Activist Discourse
A Discourse Analysis of Critical Subjectivities in
Minority Debates
Jan Zienkowski
Institute for Culture and Society
University of Navarra
Pamplona, Navarra , Spain
Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse
ISBN 978-3-319-40702-9 ISBN 978-3-319-40703-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40703-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955557
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Introd uction
D iscourse is a slippery t hing. Th e range of theories and disciplines that try
to explain how it functions, what its basic elements are and how we may
objectify it is wide and full of contradictory positions. At the same time,
it is agreed that discourse is ultimately about meaning. Th e discourse we
use informs the way we conceptualise and create the contexts in which
we move, as well as the outlook with which we approach these realities.
It not only tells us what objects we can speak about, it also provides us
with the semiotic options and strategies that allow us to articulate who
and what we are ourselves. Discourse, I will argue, is fi rst and foremost a
multilayered practice of articulation.
Th e concept of articulation has a long history in the English language.
Th roughout this history some meanings have been forgotten and others
have been recently recovered and reconceptualised in social and politi-
cal theory. At times, the concept is used in order to designate a practice
of linking discursive elements to each other. In this sense, articulation
consists of practices such as linking vowels, words, sentences, narratives ,
texts, identities and ideologies to each other. But the concept of articula-
tion can also be regarded as a notion of performativity. It is a particular
way of quilting such elements together in a poetic and public perfor-
mance. We all perform both types of articulation simultaneously when
we talk about our world and about ourselves .
v
vi Introduction
When studying political discourse, it is therefore important not to lose
track of these two aspects of articulation. Meaning is not produced in a
mechanical way . It is not a matter of encoding and decoding messages
as if the message itself can be abstracted from the context in which it
was produced, mediated and interpreted. Language is not a puzzle that
guarantees only one possible outcome as long as some uniform rules of
interpretation and construction are followed. On the contrary: the vari-
ous ways in which we perform the practice of linking elements to each
other impact on the way we construct meaning. In this book, the focus
will be on the relationship between politics and subjectivity as articulated
in activist discourse.
H uman beings defi ne a great deal of who and what we are through
discourse. We constantly renegotiate and appropriate the way we can
and should interpret each other’s words and practices by rearticulating
voices, statements and stories that are not our own. In the context of
political communication this principle becomes especially relevant. We
rely on the discourse of others in order to position and defi ne ourselves.
Entire debates can be described in terms of discursive processes of reart-
iculation. Debates about issues such as migration or fi nancial debt are
about the way we connect societal elements, functions and meanings
to each other. Social actors struggle over the p ower that allows them to
reshape societies in the image of a preferred sense of self and other. Th ey
articulate categories such as ‘politics’, ‘culture’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘ community ’,
‘integration’ or ‘ neoliberalism ’ accordingly in political debates and
p erformances.
Th e use of such a bstract categories is not a prerogative of academics
and politicians. Such notions also fi gure in everyday language use. Th is
can be exemplifi ed with reference to the F lemish debates on integration
and minorities discussed in this book. Even critics of h egemonic interpre-
tations of concepts such as identity or integration are not always able to
avoid using such notions altogether. Critique does not so much rely on
a strict refusal to use problematic terms altogether as on the capacity to
undermine the logics informing hegemonic understandings of terms that
support the current status quo .
Public debates are inherently multilayered. Th ey take place in a variety
of institutional settings and involve a multiplicity of actors. However, this
Introduction vii
variety is not completely eclectic. It is always possible to discern recurring
arguments. Some arguments will be valued over others and some voices
will be granted more authority than others. Th ere are regularities in the
dispersion of statements within every public debate. Th ese regularities
can be described in terms of logics. Th is does not mean that large-scale
debates are completely predictable or static. Th ey are not. But it is not
easy to infl uence them as an isolated citizen. Th e political success of a
counter discourse can be assessed with reference to the extent to which it
manages to be articulated with and within competing discourses in the
public realm.
Anyone who follows up on a mediatised topic for some amount of
time will notice that similar actors make similar arguments time and
time again. Some aspects of a discourse may change—for example, its
expressions, slogans or m etaphors— but quite often there is an adaptive
i nterpretive logic that structures a debate and that resists true change in
the sense of a restructuration of social and political relationships. Most
contemporary theories of discourse agree that there is no one-to-one rela-
tionship between a linguistic form and its meaning. A new metaphor may
signal a change in the large-scale i nterpretive logic structuring a particular
discourse, but it may also perform an equivalent political f unction .
W hether the discourse of a person, an organisation or a movement can
be labelled as critical or counter ideological depends not so much on the
specifi c characteristics of a particular signifi er within the discourse, but
on the question whether the interpretive logic performed and articulated
in a concrete discourse challenges hegemonic understandings of a society
or a sociopolitical relationship. Th roughout this book, I will provide a
heuristic for analysing the logics of large-scale public debates, as well as
for analysing the large-scale interpretive logics of language users who seek
to challenge the dominant logics of the debates they are involved in. I
chose to focus on the way Flemish , Belgian and/or Moroccan intellectuals
and activists—they articulated such labels in diff erent ways—established
critical modes of subjectivity while engaging with hegemonic voices and
statements in interviews on Flemish minority debates in Belgium .
I n preparing this book, I was frequently asked to provide some reasons
for people to be interested in the minority discourse of a small country
such as Belgium . I was also asked to explain why my readers should be
viii Introduction
interested in the discourse of a minority of activists, within a Moroccan
minority, within the Flemish region, within Belgium. After the terrorist
attacks in Paris and Brussels, I think it is less likely that I will receive such
questions in the near future. Many international commentators turned
their attention to this tiny country in the heart of Europe , wondering
why Belgium has the largest percentage of foreign fi ghters in Syria per
capita, why there were so many terrorists with proven links to the Brussels
district Molenbeek and—to a lesser extent—why Belgium ranks so badly
in international and national reports on the integration of minorities into
the labour market, the education system and other important areas of
life .
My book does not answer these questions. But it may provide some
context. I conducted all of my interviews in what may seem to be more
innocent times. Th e interviews presented here were conducted before the
rise of ISIS, before Europe ’s ‘ refugee crisis’, before Trump made his bid for
the presidency, at the beginning of Obama’s post-Bush era in American
politics. It was only after I conducted my last interview that a radical
Islamist group called S haria4Belgium started to profi le itself publicly and
gained mainstream media attention. However, a closer look at my inter-
views shows that these were not innocent times at all. Homogenising
and neo- racist statements have been alienating Flemish / Belgian guest
workers, migrants, M uslims and other ‘a llochthons’ for decades, while
international research reports continue to address e xclusion mechanisms
and outright discrimination in schooling, in real estate and in the labour
market.
Th is book focuses on M oroccan/ F lemish intellectuals and activists
engaging in democratic forms of social and political activism. It is not
about Islamism, terrorism or non-democratic forms of radicalism but
constitutes an attempt to approach a dense network of issues related
to integration, racism , discrimination and migration from the point of
view of a politicised minority within a minority. By focusing on the way
Flemish /Moroccan activists talk about their preferred and disavowed
modes of political engagement , it becomes possible to come to grips with
the intricate relationship between self and politics as marked in discourse.
As such, I would like to argue that any understanding of the logics that
structure our societies should involve an understanding of the pragmatic
Introduction ix
and interpretive processes that allow us to articulate a more or less coher-
ent sense of self .
I n reaction to the recent Brussels attacks, F lemish h omogenising and
nationalist discourses on integration are back in full swing—even though
they never really went out of fashion. Th e far right is on the rise all across
Northern and Eastern E urope and attacks on M uslims and refugees are
becoming ever more frequent. At the same time, many Europeans see their
neo-r acist discourses and attitudes justifi ed by horrible acts committed by
terrorists who claim to act in the name of I slam. It does not take a lot of
imagination to realise that such developments are likely to fuel feelings of
alienation and misrecognition upon which terrorist recruiters capitalise.
It is therefore important to steer clear of sensation-driven stereotypes and
to listen to the way critical minority members think about themselves,
about politics and about the societies they live in. Maybe I did conduct
my interviews in more tranquil times, but the statements made by my
interviewees have gained rather than lost political signifi cance.
Chapter 1 of this book problematises the relationship between self and
politics as articulated in activist discourse with reference to concrete inter-
view data. As such, it sets the stage for the two theoretical chapters that
follow. By focusing on the way my interviewees dealt with abstract cat-
egories such as politics and i dentity, I will show that the barrier between
a cademic and political discourse is extremely fuzzy. Abstract categories
such as politics and identity are not merely analytical categories for social
scientists. Th ey also function as social v alues that allow my interview-
ees to distinguish between preferred and disavowed modes of politics.
With respect to the self, Chap. 1 shows that language users attempt to
articulate some degree of c oherence with respect to the multiplicities they
are. It off ers an initial delineation of the object of investigation and a
list of desiderata for a perspective that allows for an empirical discourse
analysis of large-scale interpretive processes and political debates such as
the minority debate in Flanders .
I will present the theoretical elements for my perspective on self and
politics in activist discourse in Chaps. 2 and 3. Chapter 2 deals with
the practice of articulation from the point of view of poststructuralist
discourse theory . Here, I will focus especially on the ways in which the
meanings of self, society and politics can be partially and temporarily