Truth, Lies, and Audio Files: A Conflict Across Reputational and Convivial Domains

Maisa C. Taha

doi:10.18357/anthropologica64220221078

Authors

Maisa C. Taha Montclair State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica64220221078

Keywords:

Conviviality, dignity, entitlement, immigrant youth, relationality, reputation, Spain, values

Abstract

Conviviality (convivencia), a rubric for peaceable coexistence across cultural and ethnoracial differences, has been promoted as a multifaceted educational priority in contemporary Spain, although the stakes of tolerance and civility mean quite different things for pupils of autochthonous and immigrant backgrounds. For some Moroccan youth attending school in the agricultural southeast, experiences with xenophobia and racialized exclusion have made them both fierce critics and defenders of convivial precepts. At one secondary school, questions about convivial protocols became especially pressing in the wake of accusations against several Moroccan girls for stealing sandwiches from a disabled peer. A confrontation between three of them was captured on a digital audio recorder and, in tandem with interview and observational data, suggested that convivial priorities had been pushed aside in favour of reputational attacks and disciplinary punishments. The juxtaposition of convivial ideals against reputational dynamics shows that competing logics of communicative entitlement undergirded the conflict. And in the girls’ various attempts to absolve themselves, imputations about moral character and social affiliations pointed to the need for fuller consideration of conviviality as a relational concept.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2000. “Who Knows? Knowing Strangers and Strangerness.” Australian Feminist Studies 15(31): 49–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/713611918.

——. 2015. The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

Amin, Ash. 2012. Land of Strangers. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Back, Les, and Shamser Sinha. 2016. “Multicultural Conviviality in the Midst of Racism’s Ruins.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 37(5): 517–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2016.1211625

Blommaert, Jan, and Piia Varis. 2015. “The Importance of Unimportant Language.” Multilingual Margins 2 (1): 4–9. https://doi.org/10.14426/mm.v2i1.30

Fukuyama, Francis. 2018. Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

García-Sánchez, Inmaculada Ma. 2014. Language and Muslim Immigrant Childhoods: The Politics of Belonging. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Goodwin, Marjorie H. 1990. He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

——. 2002. “Building Power Asymmetries in Girls’ Interaction.” Discourse & Society 13(6): 715–730. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42888533

Heil, Tilmann. 2015a. “Between Phatic Communion and Coping Tactic: Casamançais Multilingual Practices.” Multilingual Margins 2(1): 67–82. https://doi.org/10.14426/mm.v2i1.58

——. 2015b. “Conviviality: (Re)negotiating Minimal Consensus.” In Routledge International Handbook of Diversity Studies, edited by Steven Vertovec, 317–324. London: Routledge.

——. 2019. “Muslim–Queer Encounters in Rio de Janeiro: Making Sense of Relational Positionalities.” Ethnography: 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138119859601

Hillewaert, Sarah. 2015. “Writing with an Accent: Orthographic Practice, Emblems, and Traces on Facebook.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 25(2): 195–214. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12079

Instituto Nacional de Estadística. 2011. “Population and Housing Census 2011. Municipal Results.” INEbase. Accessed 13 March 2013. http://www.ine.es

Jackson, Michael. 2005. Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies and Effects. New York: Bergahn Books.

Jefatura del Estado. 2006. “Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación.” [Organic Education Law 2/2006, May 3]. Boletín Oficial del Estado 106. https://www.boe.es/eli/es/lo/2006/05/03/2

Jeganathan, Pradeep. 2005. “Pain, Politics, and the Epistemological Ethics of Anthropological Disciplinarity.” In Embedding Ethics, edited by Lynn Meskell and Peter Pels, 147–167. Oxford: Berg.

Mangardich, Haykaz, and Stanka A. Fitneva. 2019. “Gossip, Reputation, and Language.” In The Oxford Handbook of Gossip and Reputation, edited by Francesca Giardini and Rafael Wittek, 82–99. New York: Oxford University Press.

Meskell, Lynn, and Peter Pels. 2005. “Introduction: Embedding Ethics.” In Embedding Ethics, edited by Lynn Meskell and Peter Pels, 1–26. Oxford: Berg.

Nader, Laura. 2013. Culture and Dignity: Dialogues Between the Middle East and the West. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Nowicka, Magdalena, and Steven Vertovec. 2014. “Comparing Convivialities: Dreams and Realities of Living-with-Difference.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 17(4): 341–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549413510414

Origgi, Gloria. 2019. “Reputation in Moral Philosophy and Epistemology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Gossip and Reputation, edited by Francesca Giardini and Rafael Wittek, 69–81. New York: Oxford University Press.

Paz, Alejandro I. 2018. Latinos in Israel: Language and Unexpected Citizenship. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Rampton, Ben. 2015. “Conviviality and Phatic Communion?” Multilingual Margins 2(1): 83–91. https://doi.org/10.14426/mm.v2i1.59

Robbins, Joel. 2004. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Segura, Manuel, Ángela Muñoz and María del Mar Gil. 2011. El aula de convivencia: Materiales educativos para su buen funcionamiento. [The Conviviality Room: Educational Materials for its Proper Operation]. Madrid: Narcea.

Shuman, Amy. 1993. “‘Get Outa my Face’: Entitlement and Authoritative Discourse.” In Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, edited by Jane H. Hill and Judith T. Irvine, 135–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Taha, Maisa C. 2017. “Shadow Subjects: A Category of Analysis for Empathic Stancetaking.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 27(2): 190–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12157

——. 2020. “Self-Other Encounters and Ordeals of Aspiration Among Young Moroccan Immigrants in Spain.” Hespéris-Tamuda LV (3): 237–253.

Tetreault, Chantal. 2015. Transcultural Teens: Performing Youth Identities in French Cités. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

Wessendorf, Susanne. 2014. Commonplace Diversity: Social Relations in a Super-Diverse Context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wise, Amanda, and Selvaraj Velayutham. 2014. “Conviviality in Everyday Multiculturalism: Some Brief Comparisons Between Singapore and Sydney.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 17(4): 406–430. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549413510419