Beschreibung
In this contribution I address the question whether racism can be seen as structuring Austrian society in a specific and lasting way. Or asked differently, whether varying social, economic, and political sites bear resemblances and are interconnected via comparable practices of homogenising, essentialising and hierarchising members of societies into antagonistic groups. For this, I refer to the outcomes of different research projects I participated in in the last years. This encompasses projects on discrimination at the labour market, on opinions toward the welfare state and toward solidarity in general, and on media reports on refugees - here now combining the outcome of qualitative as well as quantitative studies on racism in Austria. Racism plays a significant role in all of these social sites but has just been analysed separately in the projects so far. The individual findings considered separately do not, however, suffice to argue for racism as constitutive and structuring element of the Austrian society in general.To exemplify racism as potentially entangling the different social fields or sites I draw upon the understanding of racism as (flexible) symbolic resource, as separately discussed by Anja Weiß and Karin Scherschel, among others. As symbolic resource racism may influence the value or evaluation of varying resources (e.g. language skills), and seen as flexible, it can be used and reproduced in the different social positions and dispositions (e.g. by entrepreneur as well as journalists) and for different goals and purposes. If in this way seen as structuring the Austrian society, this may also further the already often raised argument to (more strongly) consider racism in analysis of social structures without disregarding or downplaying classism and sexism.
Zeitraum | 3 Sept. 2021 |
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Ereignistitel | 15th ESA Conference 2021 |
Veranstaltungstyp | Konferenz |
Ort | SpanienAuf Karte anzeigen |
Bekanntheitsgrad | International |