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UCLA
Anthropology Discourse Lab |
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Valentina Pagliai (UCLA and Remarque Institute of NYU) November 12, 2008, 4 PM. Haines Hall 332
Non-alignment in Conversation as a Strategy of Disengagement from Racializing Statements |
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Abstract: This presentation focuses on people's deployment of non-alignment to disassociate from, or avoid offering agreement to, racializing stances. In the scholarship on conversation, alignment and agreement have often been treated as synonyms, and the same has been true for non-alignment and disagreement. However, the analysis of conversational data collected during fieldwork on racial formation processes in Tuscany, Italy, shows that conversationalists use alignment/non-alignment versus agreement/disagreement differently and obtain different reactions from listeners. This presentation aims to show this different use, demonstrating that the two concepts should not be conflated. Moreover, as part of non-alignment, two cases should be distinguished: 1) "mis-alignment" - a non-alignment due to misunderstanding or lack of information; or 2) "dis-alignment" namely a willful non-alignment. In conversation, a non-alignment to a racializing stance will cause different reactions from the co-participants if it is interpreted as dis-alignment versus mis-alignment. Moreover, conversationalists often exploit the interpretative ambiguity to disassociate from racializing stances (or to further them at times) while avoiding direct disagreement. |