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The Social Life of Fighting Words: The Case of Political Correctness
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), School of Arts and Communication (K3).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0806-0951
2017 (English)In: Conflict and society: Advances in research, ISSN 2164-4543, E-ISSN 2164-4551, Vol. 3, no 3, p. 108-124Article in journal (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Political correctness has become a fighting word used to dismiss and discredit political opponents. The article traces the conceptual history of this fighting word. In anthropological terms, it describes the social life of the concept of political correctness and its negation, political incorrectness. It does so by adopting a concept-in-motion methodology, which involves tracking the concept through various cultural and political regimes. It represents an attempt to synthesize well-established historiographic and anthropological approaches. A Swedish case is introduced that reveals the kind of large-scale historical movements and deep-seated political conflicts that provide the contemporary context for political correctness and its negation. Thereupon follows an account of the conceptual history of political correctness from the eighteenth century up to the present. Instead of a conventional conclusion, the article ends with a political analysis of the current rise of fascism around the world and how the denunciation of political correctness is both indicative of and instrumental in this process.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Berghahn Books, 2017. Vol. 3, no 3, p. 108-124
Keywords [en]
Peace and Conflict Studies, Anthropology, black Maoism, conceptual history, diffusionism, irony, political correctness, sex wars
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-1644DOI: 10.3167/arcs.2017.030109Local ID: 26730OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-1644DiVA, id: diva2:1398375
Available from: 2020-02-27 Created: 2020-02-27 Last updated: 2025-04-17Bibliographically approved

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Stade, Ronald

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