Facket och invandrarna
en postkolonial diskursanalys
Racial discrimination can occur in many ways ? intentional and non intentional ? and in many places ? perhaps most observed in the labor market. The Swedish labor union, LO, is an important party in this market, and discusses the issue frequently in a number of different documents. These documents are being analyzed as discourse in this study, with attention paid to the rhetoric regarding ?immigrants?, i.e. how ?immigrants? are being portrayed. A postcolonial perspective is applied, which focuses on the structure surrounding binary oppositions between a ?we? and a subordinate ?Others?. Earlier studies within this perspective have noticed discriminating reproduction of ?immigrants? in different discourses, which is being created through concepts concerning cultural stereotyping and generalization. In a similar way this study will show how a discourse produces different semantic uses of the word ?immigrant? and how these uses are linked to the subordinate ?Others?. By drawing conclusions from these oppositional hierarchies, tendencies of the discriminating reproducing of ?immigrants? are found within the selected LO documents.