Excluding the migrant Other via resistance and inclusion

Abstract In the present study, I investigate the construction of otherness in the Greek anti-racist short film Jafar . Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies, I argue that although the film appears to combat racism, it simultaneously reproduces practices of discrimination. This contradiction is achieved via liquid racism , namely a multi-layered and, thus, difficult to detect form of racism ( Weaver 2011 , 2016 ). More specifically, by combining Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) grammar of visual design with Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) model for identities-in-interaction, I show that the film allows two different representations of otherness: (i) the caring Other, which resists the stereotype of the criminal migrant (anti-racist positioning) and (ii) the useful Other, which regulates migrant inclusion via eligibility criteria of usefulness (racist positioning).