CULTURAL OTHERING, BANAL OCCIDENTALISM AND THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ‘GREEK CRISIS’ IN GLOBAL MEDIA: A CASE STUDY

Authors

• Nikos Bozatzis University of Ioannina

Keywords:

accountability, cultural othering, banal nationalism, banal Occidentalism, critical discursive social psychology, Greek financial crisis, neoliberalism

Abstract

In the wake of Billig’s thesis on banal nationalism, numerous social psychology studies have been produced documenting on the explicit manifestation or implicit indexicalisation of variants of national identity within text and talk. Within this strand of work, some attention has been paid to ways in which the banal manifestation of national referents may be further interrogated from a critical perspective focusing on Occidentalism. Drawing on this emerging line of research, an analysis is presented here of a travelogue on ‘the Greek crisis’, published in a globally circulating magazine (Vanity Fair). Using tools and concepts from the discursive turn in social psychology, the analysis highlights ways in which Occidentalist assumptions claim rhetorical and ideological legitimacy within a text that advances a ‘culturalist’ explanation of the financial crisis in which Greece has been entangled since 2009. The analysis focuses on ways in which the authorial voice others Greece culturally, while at the same time, manages its own accountability and (re-) affirms its Occidental credentials.