Benno Herzog
Universidad de Valencia
Sociological Discourse studies on Migration: between disrespect and recognition
Haba, J. & Esteban, M. (eds) Boundaries, Intersectionality, and Hybridism Applied to Migrant Narratives.
Publication year: 2026
When analysing discourses on migration it is common to encounter racism, xenophobia or anti-Muslim hatred, as well as other forms of hate speech and discriminatory discourses such as sexism or classism. From sociological and critical discourse studies it is well known that all these different manifestations of disrespect and hate are part of a greater problem of pathological social relations and a discriminatory social structure in which practices of discrimination and discriminatory discourses are immersed and (re)produced. The aim of this chapter is to present sociological discourse studies as a methodology for analysing discourses on migration in relation to practices and contexts from which these discourse stem. In the first part we will give a short introduction into the specificity of sociological discourse analysis. We will then go on to present some of the main findings on discourses on migration, which we will relate, in the third part of this chapter, to the broader social order. The chapter shows that critique aiming at countering racist discourses, ultimately aims at changing the mode of social reproduction in which racist discourses make sense.