Mobilising collective action and constructing positive political identities through ambivalent discourses within the immigration debate

This project explores if people employ ambivalent discourses within contentious political debate. And, if so, what opposing ideological themes are drawn upon – or left unsaid – and what is potentially being accomplished through the deployment of these ambivalent discourses? This project specifically explores the contentious immigration debate through three empirical studies. Study one is a discourse analysis of advocates on behalf of refugees on a national phone-in radio program in Ireland. Study two is a discourse analysis of speeches by leading populist radical right politicians at an international conference in Koblenz, Germany. Study three is an experiment exploring if people’s exposure to competing and conflicting interpretive frameworks, of identity threat discourses, patterns the shared construction of an immigrant group – specifically the potential ambivalent stereotyping of refugees. These advocates on behalf of refugees, in the context of study one, take up a rhetorical strategy of ‘ambivalent paternalism’. This labours on a shared embodied emotional distress in response to the plight of refugees but avoids claims of unconditional and unambiguous inclusive solidarity. Conversely, the populist radical right speeches, in the context of study two, drew on a rhetorical strategy of ‘ambivalent diversity’. This celebrates cultural diversity between monocultural nation-states, whilst declaring hostility to minority cultural diversity within nation-states. The experimental study indicates that these divergent ambivalent strategies is potentially due to these speakers, in both discursive studies, orienting to a hegemonic interpretive framework where refugees and immigrants generally are depicted as an economic burden and cultural threat to the nation. But these advocates, in the context of study one, are constrained by the claim that the nation is meeting its moral and legal obligation towards refugees. Whilst the populist radical right speakers, in the context of study two, are countering the claim that the nation is not meeting its moral and legal obligation.