We were delighted to present a paper at the European Migrants in the UK in the Brexit Era: Discursive Approaches Symposium, that we convened online and free of charge on 13th-14th June 2024 [hyperlink].
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/english/news/stories/title,1430884,en.php
Our talk developed the topic of nationality-based microaggressions and it is intitled “Where are you from? Local Identities and Microaggressions toward EU academics in the UK in the Brexit Era”. You can find an abstract here [hyperlink]
Where are you from? Local Identities and Microaggressions toward EU academics in the UK in the Brexit Era
An (apparently?) descriptive question, that might be classed as an innocent “ice-breaker”, has come under fire in the last decade or so as a potential vehicle of hidden racism. Asking “where are you from?” has come to be seen – especially in the American context – as a covert way to interrogate a fellow citizen on their ethnicity, when this is different to the one of the dominant group. By not engaging with interactional/conversational data and replying on heavily edited anecdotes or “vignettes”, the literature in psychology/counselling (Sue & Spanierman 2020) and philosophy (Rini 2020) produces the sweeping generalisation that this question invariably encodes racism. This talk focuses on a case-study in which the “where are you from?” question appears in the context of a nationality based microaggression spontaneously oriented to by an academic migrant in the UK. The sequential interaction shows how the conversational context promotes a more nuanced reading. The participant takes issue with “Where are you from?” question inasmuch as it expresses essentialist attitude towards migrants, which flattens their identity to place of origin (alongside length of stay). Against this view, the participant invokes a more rounded view of national and personal identity, which is elaborated on at length in the surrounding context. This suggests that looking at locally occasioned identities beyond transportable identities (including nationality) and focusing on the “where are you from?” question in context is a more promising way to reach a greater understanding of such a controversial question.
