From the trivial to the insignificant: How social actors deny and justify intergroup discrimination
Dr. Susan Condor
Everyday experience of group membership may be characterised by a dilemmatic quality, exemplified in the dual meanings associated with the term, 'discrimination'. On the one hand, a secure sense of social identity requires that we are able to regard the groups to which we belong as differing from, and preferably as superior to, others. On the other hand, this sense of us versus them easily translates into types of behaviour commonly understood as reprehensible 'prejudice'.
In this talk, I consider some of the ways in which this dual 'pull' -- between a need to assert a sense of distinctiveness from an outgroup, and a requirement to conform to norms precluding discrimination against that outgroup -- may be played out in the specific case of attitudes towards 'the English' in Scotland. In particular, I consider the various strategies which people in Scotland may use to distance the Scots from charges of anti-English prejudice, whilst nevertheless maintaining 'the English' as Scotland's self-defining other.
Susan Condor (BA Wales, PhD Bristol) is senior lecturer in Social Psychology at Lancaster University.
She has two main research interests.The first pertains to everyday understandings of racism and prejudice, and focuses in particular on the ways in which discriminatory action may be defended in the course of everyday life. The second relates to the various ways in which English national identity may be represented and performed.
She currently holds three funded research projects, including a comparative international study of ethnic, local, national and European identities, and a comparative analysis of the mass media in England and in Scotland.