Diasporic media and counterpublics
What is it about?
How do EU migrants respond to anti-immigration positions that have developed in the UK in the context of Brexit? The study examines the emergence of critical resistance in diasporic media towards discriminatory, nativist arguments and attitudes in (semi-)public discourse. It carries out a discursive, argumentative and rhetorical analysis on three diasporic publications by and for Romanians in the UK. The findings reveal opposition in the name of democratic values (respect for multiculturalism, rights) and EU citizenship as well as reproduction of ethnic stereotypes and identity hierarchies within the diaspora.
Why is it important?
At a theoretical level, it is among the few existing studies to deal with the concept of diasporic counterpublic. At a methodological level, it proposes a discursive operationalization of the concept of counterpublic. At an empirical level, the findings concerning the dynamics of Romanian migrants in the UK are relevant in the post-Brexit context.