[Lasnetmail] Conflict Studies Group - next Friday!

[Lucho]

Thought you might be interested in this, and might like to forward it
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Di Brettherton
LaTrobe University

Dear ICRC friends,

 this is a reminder that the next Conflict Studies Group is taking
place next Friday, 4 May at La Trobe City Campus - Di's new home. The
guest speaker is María Eugenia Merino from Chile and she will be
talking about racism towards Chile's Indigenous people. Details are
below.

Conflict Studies Group MeetingMay 4, 12.30 to 2.00
 Room 1.38.
 City Campus La Trobe.
 215 Franklin Street, Melbourne.

Speaker.

 María Eugenia Merino is teacher of English and Professor of
Linguistics and Discourse Analysis at the School of Teacher Training,
Faculty of Education, Catholic University at Temuco-Chile.
 Dr. Merino holds a Ph.D. in Human Sciences with specialisation in
critical discourse analysis. Her research area is interethnic and
intercultural relations, particularly the phenomena of prejudice,
racism and discrimination against ethnic minorities. At the moment she
is conducting an investigation on perceived discrimination and its
psychological effects amongst Mapuches, the largest indigenous group
in Chile. She has published extensively in Latin American and European
journals and is co-author with Teun Van Dijk of the book Discourse and
Racism in Latin America (in press, Gedisa Editorial).

Talk Summary

 This talk focuses on contemporary racism in Chileans´ discourse about
and behaviour toward Mapuche people, the largest aboriginal group in
Chile. As part of a national research project, 100 Mapuches were
interviewed about their perception of discrimination. The method for
Critical Discourse Analysis follows Merino's four-level analysis
(2006). The data, analysed from the perspective of the victim, and
using an adaptation of Mellor´s taxonomy of perceived discrimination
(2003) suggests that racism today is experienced in everyday
interethnic relations by means of four modes: verbal, behavioural,
institutional and macro social. Verbal mode includes name-calling and
stereotyping as 'indio' (indian) and 'primitive', and prejudiced
remarks explicitly or implicitly made, behavioural deals with
attitudes as looking, ignoring, avoiding, segregating and denial of
identity. In the institutional mode denial of opportunities and
discrimination in various contexts are among the more frequent where
perpetrators behave like "acting in the name of the institution where
they work". Finally the macro social mode includes cultural dominance
of the economic and the educational systems and an ethnocentric
perspective of history. Finally, a comparative look at perceived
discrimination in Mapuches and Australian Aborigines contrasts
Mellor's taxonomy with that of  Merino et.al.