'They attacked you just like that': Negotiating racial epistemics in making claims about racism.

Social psychological research on race and racism has shown that claims about racism are not always accepted or received as valid reports. In this paper, I offer racial epistemics as one mechanism by which race-talk takes place. I examine how ascribing category-bound entitlements to experiential or other knowledge about racism is variously realised and complicated in the production of claims about racism.

'All of a sudden for no reason they've been displaced': Constructing the 'contingent refugee' in early media reports on the Ukrainian refugees.

This paper analyzes descriptions of Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Findings of previous research on news media descriptions of refugees point to problematic descriptions of refugees that downgrade their deservingness of refuge and treat refugee status as an inherent feature of fleeing individuals instead of as contingent on external circumstances. However, there is a widespread perception that Ukrainian refugees are being reported on in a more positive light.

'My countrymen have never disappointed me': Politics of service in Modi's speeches during Covid-19.

In this paper I study discursive practices of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic, political leadership across the globe had to take tough decisions such as restrictions on the social and personal lives of individuals. This meant addressing concerns over ensuring compliance with these restrictions.

'A police officer shot a Black man': Racial categorization, racism, and mundane culpability in news reports of police shootings of black people in the United States of America.

The current socio-political circumstances in the United States (US), constituted by the increasing visibility of police shootings of Black people, present a compelling moment for analysing how news media report about law enforcement, culpability, and racism. This paper conducts a membership categorization analysis of recent news media reports of police shootings of Black people (May 2020-October 2020) and investigates how news media negotiate culpability of agents involved these shootings. Findings illustrate how news reports (1) use the repeated category formulation 'police shooting of a Black man' to imply police are culpable for engaging in racist shootings, (2) upgrade culpability of police officers through adding to racial categorization of victims in ways that foreground victims' moral character (e.

'Her choice of course': Negotiating legitimacy of 'choice' in abortion rights deliberations during the 'Repeal the Eighth' movement in Ireland.

Discourses of 'choice' are routinely involved in sexual and reproductive rights' advocacy. In this article, we offer a discursive psychological examination of how 'choice' is oriented to, in online deliberations on the ongoing movement for abortion rights in Ireland. Comment posters treated 'choice' as involving outcomes of and motives for choosing, in negotiating legitimacy of women's rights to choose.

'This is ordinary behaviour': categorization and culpability in Hamas leaders' accounts of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

The present paper examines the talk of three senior figures from the Palestinian Hamas political movement. Data are drawn from a series of journalistic interviews that were conducted in the months leading up to the invasion of Gaza by Israel in December 2007. Using membership categorization analysis, we explore the membership categories and category-bound attributes that interviewers use in questions about responsibility for potentially culpable actions and the ways that these are taken up, challenged, or reworked by interviewees in presenting their own versions.