Myths and Sanctioned Ignorance in British Immigration Discourse

Abstract

Abstract Myths and Sanctioned Ignorance in British Immigration Discourse is about the myths that societies tell themselves, the partial stories with which they convince themselves and others that the UK is (and always has been) a ‘good’ country, in order to discursively legitimize racialized immigration policy. From a basis in critical discourse studies (CDS) and integrating postcolonial and decolonial theories, the book offers an analysis of different socio-historical contexts, spaces, and genres. The book moves backwards and forwards between past and the present to show how the myths the UK tells itself are stable across time and genre, deployed in different contexts, and historically rooted. Crucially, it reveals these myths as just that: myths—selective narratives of history that integrate existing (objectivated) phenomena into a cohesive story about the UK. An introductory chapter sets out the theoretical and analytical framework of the book. An initial empirical chapter analyses recent election manifestos to highlight the four myths used in political discourses of immigration. Subsequent chapters investigate each of these myths in different contexts, including history textbooks, newspapers, parliamentary debates, and NGOs. Throughout, the books argues that in the construction of these legitimating myths through talk and talk the migrant Other—and by extension British ethnic minorities—has been racialized, silenced, deleted, hidden, and instrumentalized, and that this in turn impacts societal issues of integration and social cohesion. A final chapter offers a synthesis of the findings, a consideration of how to integrate decolonial thought with CDS, and a reflection on the role of the researcher.

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