Resumen de Legitimating or delegitimating new forms of racism—the role of researchers
When ‘races’ were defined on the basis of purportedly biological criteria and when various psychological characteristics were linked with the resulting ‘races’ (which were thus hierarchised), researchers participated in this definition process. ‘Races’ were socially constructed, and the constructions were used to legitimate an unequal division of power and resources between these different ‘races’. Now biologically based racism has in most European and Europeanised countries been replaced by more sophisticated forms of racism, ethnicism and linguicism, which use the ethnicity, culture and languages of different groups as the basis for hierarchisation.
Ethnicism/linguicism are defined as ‘ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and non‐material) between groups defined on the basis of ethnicity/culture/language’ (Skutnabb‐Kangas, 1986: 45). In this new phase of racism the role of researchers in socially constructing ethnic groups and producing arguments for the hierarchisation of languages becomes vital.
According to a human rights oriented argumentation, it should be the right of every individual and group to have their own definition of their ethnicity/mother tongue accepted and respected by others. In this sense both ethnicity and the mother tongue can be seen as reified, as characteristics of an individual or a group, who (should) themselves have the right to decide about them. Integration into a ‘mainstream’ (as a prerequisite for forming a national ethnic minority) has often also been seen in this way as a characteristic of a minority group, where the group itself is studied and its ‘degree of integration’ evaluated. Even if integration is studied as a dynamic process, the outcome of this process is still treated as a characteristic of the individual/group to be integrated. If, by contrast, ethnicity and integration are treated as socially constructed relations, rather than inherent or acquired characteristics, the power relationships between the parties in the definition process become a primary object of study—as opposed to just one of the parties, mostly the dominated one, being studied. The human right to self‐definition makes sense only when the parties are equal. If minorities are defined on the basis of power, not numbers, minorities are per definition not equal parties in the negotiation processes about their mother tongues, ethnicities and integration.
This paper will discuss some of the ways in which researchers participate in constructing and legitimating the new forms of racism, through the ways we construct and treat concepts like mother tongue, ethnicity and integration.
