Notions of ‘race’ and disease are deeply imbricated across the globe. This article explores the historical, complex entanglements between ‘race’, disease, and dirtiness in the multicultural Chilean context of Covid-19. We conducted a quantitative content analysis and a discourse analysis of online readers’ comments (n = 1233) in a digital news platform surrounding a controversial news event to examine Chileans’ cultural representations of Haitian migrants and explore online racism and anti-immigrant discourse. Drawing on a decolonial approach, we argue that Covid-19 as a crisis has been fabricated at the expense of a constructed ‘other’. We show how colonial racist logics not only endure in digital spaces, but are made viral in new ways by representing Haitian migrants as ‘filthy’ and ‘disease carriers’. We identified two contemporary forms of racism – online cultural racism and online aggressive racism – through which people construct imaginaries of racial superiority in digital spaces.
AhmadWIUBradbyH (2007) Locating ethnicity and health: exploring concepts and contexts. Sociology of Health & Illness29(6): 795–810.
2.
AlexanderCKnowlesC (2005) Introduction. In: AlexanderCKnowlesC (eds) Making Race Matter: Bodies, Space and Identity. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–16.
3.
AvariaA (2020) Migrantes internacionales y pandemia: precariedades, desigualdades y oportunidades en salud. In: Brito S, Basualto L, Azócar R, et al. (eds) Intervención social y educativa en tiempos de pandemia. Santiago: Aún Creemos En Los Sueños, pp. 179–202.
4.
BackL (2010) Whiteness in the dramaturgy of racism. In: SolomosJHill-CollinsP (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies. London: Sage, pp. 444–469.
5.
BalibarE (1991) Is there a ‘Neo-racism’? In: Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. London: Verso, pp. 17–28.
BertholdD (2010) Tidy Whiteness: A Genealogy of Race, Purity, and Hygiene. Ethics and the Environment15(1): 1–26.
8.
BonhommeM (2020) Making ‘Race’ at the Urban Margins: Latin American and Caribbean Migration in Multicultural Chile. PhD thesis. Goldsmiths, University of London.
9.
BonhommeM (2021) Racismo en barrios multiculturales en Chile: Precariedad habitacional y convivencia en contexto migratorio. Bitácora Urbano Territorial31(1): 167–181.
10.
BonhommeMAlfaroA (2022) How television news media reinforce racialized representations of Haitian and Colombian migration in multicultural urban Chile. In: NgwainmbiEK (ed.) Dismantling Cultural Borders through Social Media. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 147–184.
11.
Bonhomme,M (forthcoming) ‘We’re a bit browner but we still belong to the white race’: Making whiteness in the context of South-South migration in Chile. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies.
12.
BouvierG (2015) What is a discourse approach to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media: connecting with other academic fields?Journal of Multicultural Discourses10(2): 149–162.
13.
BriggsCL (2005) Communicability, racial discourse, and disease. Annual Review of Anthropology34(1): 269–291.
14.
BrownA (2017) What is hate speech? Part 1: The Myth of Hate.Law and Philosophy36(4): 419–468.
15.
Calvo-BuezasT (2014) Racismo y neonazis en internet: también en América Latina. Derecho y Realidad12(24): 90–112.
16.
CammaertsB (2009) Radical pluralism and free speech in online public spaces: The case of North Belgian extreme right discourses. International Journal of Cultural Studies12(6): 555–575.
17.
CecchiS (2019) ‘It’s all their Fault’. Immigrants as Scapegoats and a Mirror Revealing Social Contradictions. Italian Sociological Review9(1): 21–41.
18.
ChanCMonttM (2020) Many-faced orientalism: racism and xenophobia in a time of the novel coronavirus in Chile. Asian Ethnicity22(2): 374–394.
19.
ChaudhryI (2015) #Hashtagging hate: Using Twitter to track racism online. First Monday20(2): 1–13.
20.
ChenGM (2017) Online incivility and public debate: Nasty talk. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
21.
ChouSWGaysynskyA (2021) Racism and xenophobia in a Pandemic: Interactions of Online and Offline Worlds. American Journal of Public Health111(5): 773–775.
22.
CNN Chile (2020) President Piñera declarations about COVID-19 and migration. CNN News, 10 April.
23.
CogoD (2019) Communication, migrant activism and counter-hegemonic narratives of Haitian diaspora in Brazil. Journal of Alternative and Community Media4(3): 71–85.
24.
CraddockS (1995) Sewers and scapegoats: Spatial metaphors of smallpox in nineteenth century San Francisco. Social Science & Medicine41(7): 957–968.
25.
Crang M (1998) Cultural Geography. London: Routledge.
26.
DanielsJ (2013) Race and racism in internet studies: A review and critique. New Media & Society15(5): 695–719.
27.
De RamónE (2009) Demandas por igualdad en Chile colonial. In: GauneRLaraM (eds) Historias de Racismo. Santiago: UQBAR editores, pp. 193–223.
28.
de RosaASMannariniT (2020) The ‘invisible other’: Social representations of COVID-19 pandemic in media and institutional discourse. Papers on Social Representations29(2): 5.1–5.35.
29.
DionneKYTurkmenFF (2020) The politics of pandemic othering: Putting COVID-19 in global and historical context. International Organization74(S1): E213–E230.
30.
DouglasKMMcgartyCBliucAMet al. (2005) Understanding cyberhate: Social competition and social creativity in online white supremacist groups. Social Science Computer Review23(1): 68–76.
31.
DouglasM (1966) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge.
32.
Eckenwiler L (2018) Displacement and solidarity: An ethic of place-making. Bioethics 32(9): 562–568.
33.
EicherVBangerterA(2015) Social representations of infectious diseases. In: SammutGAndreouliEGaskellG (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Social Representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 385–396.
34.
EkmanM (2019) Anti-immigration and racist discourse in social media. European Journal of Communication34(6): 606–618.
ErjavecKKovačičMP (2012) ‘You don’t understand, this is a new war!’ Analysis of hate speech in news web sites’ comments.Mass Communication and Society15(6): 899–920.
37.
FarkasJSchouJNeumayerC (2018) Platformed antagonism: Racist discourses on fake Muslim Facebook pages. Critical Discourse Studies15(5): 463–480.
38.
FaulknerNBliucA-M (2016) ‘It’s okay to be racist’: Moral disengagement in online discussions of racist incidents in Australia. Ethnic and Racial Studies39(14): 2545–2563.
39.
FeldmannAE (2013) El “Estado fantasma” de Haití. Migraciones forzadas (43): 32–34.
40.
Ferré-PaviaCSimelio-SoláN (2016) Comentarios sobre inmigracioń en tres periódicos en líńea españoles: Aproximación a un discurso racista enmascarado. Revista Q10(20): 137–156.
41.
FloriniS (2017) This week in blackness, the George Zimmerman acquittal, and the production of a networked collective identity. New Media & Society19(3): 439–454.
42.
FredricksonGM (2003) Racism: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
GeorgiouMZaborowskiR (2017) Media Coverage of the “Refugee Crisis”: A Cross-European Perspective. Council of Europe.
44.
GlennNMChampionCCSpenceJC (2012) Qualitative content analysis of online news media coverage of weight loss surgery and related reader comments. Clinical Obesity2(5–6): 125–131.
45.
GrosfoguelR (2012) El concepto de ‘racismo’ en Michel Foucault y Frantz Fanon: ¿teorizar desde la zona del ser o desde la zona del no-ser? Tabula Rasa16: 79–102.
46.
HallS (1980) Race, articulation and societies structured in dominance. In: Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 305–345.
47.
HallS (2013) The work of representation. In: HallSEvansJNixonS (eds) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Los Angeles: Sage, pp. 1–15.
48.
HartmannPHusbandC (1971) The Mass Media and Racial Conflict. Race12(3). SAGE: 267–282.
49.
HudsonEDussaillantF (2018) The conflict between the state of Chile and the Mapuche people in the national and regional Chilean press (2014–2016). Communication & Society 31(4): 243–255.
50.
INDH (2017) Manifestaciones de discriminación racial en Chile. Santiago: Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos.
51.
INE and DEM (2021) Estimación de personas extranjeras residentes habituales en Chile al 31 de diciembre de 2020. Informe metodológico. Santiago: INE, DEM.
52.
KrautAM (2010) Immigration, ethnicity, and the pandemic. Public Health Reports125(3_suppl.): 123–133.
LehnstaedtS (2016) Jewish Spaces? Defining Nazi Ghettos Then and Now. The Polish Review(New York. 1956)61(4). University of Illinois Press: 41–56
57.
LokeJ (2012) Public expressions of private sentiments: Unveiling the pulse of racial tolerance through online news readers’ comments. Howard Journal of Communications23(3): 235–252.
58.
Maldonado-TorresN (2010) On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. In: MignoloWDEscobarA (eds) Globalization and the Decolonial Option. London: Routledge, pp. 94–124.
59.
MasonKA (2015) H1N1 Is Not a Chinese virus: The racialization of people and viruses in Post-SARS China. Studies in Comparative International Development50(4): 500–518.
60.
Matamoros-FernándezA (2017) Platformed racism: The mediation and circulation of an Australian race-based controversy on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Information, Communication and Society20(6): 930–946.
61.
Matamoros-FernándezAFarkasJ (2021) Racism, hate speech, and social media: A systematic review and critique. Television & New Media22(2): 205–224.
62.
MüllerKSchwarzC (2021) Fanning the flames of hate: Social media and hate crime. Journal of the European Economic Association19(4): 2131–2167.
63.
NeuendorfKA (2002). The content analysis guidebook. California: Thousand Oaks.
64.
Olmos-AlcarazA (2018) Alteridad, migraciones y racismo en redes sociales virtuales: un estudio de caso en Facebook. REMHU26: 41–60.
65.
PapacharissiZ (2004) Democracy online: civility, politeness, and the democratic potential of online political discussion groups. New Media & Society6(2): 259–283.
66.
PooX (2009) Imaginarios sobre inmigración peruana en la prensa escrita chilena. Revista F@ro5 (9): 1–9.
67.
Prensa Presidencia (2018) Presidente Piñera anuncia Reforma Migratoria. 9 April. Available at: https://prensa.presidencia.cl/discurso.aspx?id=73020 (accessed 28 March 2022).
68.
QuijanoA (2010) Coloniality and modernity/rationality. In: MignoloWDEscobarA (eds) Globalization and the Decolonial Option. London: Routledge, pp. 22–32.
69.
RebolledoA (1994) La ‘Turcofobia’. Discriminación antiárabe en Chile, 1900-1950.. Historia (Wiesbaden, Germany)28: 249–272.
RiffeDLacySWatsonBR, Fico F. (2014) Analyzing Media Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research. New York: Routledge.
72.
RobertsSK (2009) Infectious Fear: Politics, Disease, and the Health Effects of Segregation. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
73.
RossiniPMaiaR (2021) Characterizing disagreement in online political talk. Journal of Deliberative Democracy17(1): 90–104.
74.
Rojas-PedemonteNAmodeNRencoretJV (2015) Racismo y matrices de “inclusión” de la migración haitiana en Chile: Elementos conceptuales y contextuales para la discusión. Polis. Revista Latinoamericana (42): 1–14.
75.
RuizNGHorowitzJMTamirC (2020) Many Black, Asian Americans say they have experienced discrimination amid coronavirus. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, I July.
76.
SaldañaMRosenbergA (2020) ‘I don’t want you to be my president!’ Incivility and media bias during the presidential election in Chile. Social Media+Society6(4): 1–11.
77.
SassenS (2002) Towards a sociology of information technology. Current Sociology50(3): 365–388.
78.
SennettR (1997) Carne y piedra: el cuerpo y la ciudad en la civilización occidental. Madrid: Alianza.
79.
SolomosJBackL (1994) Conceptualising racisms: Social theory, politics and research. Sociology28(1): 143–161.
80.
SteinfeldtJAFoltzBDKaladowJKet al. (2010) Racism in the electronic age: Role of online forums in expressing racial attitudes about American Indians. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology16(3): 362–371.
81.
StrömbäckJ (2008) Four phases of mediatization: An analysis of the mediatization of politics. International Journal of Press/Politics13(3): 228–246.
Torre-CantalapiedraE (2019) Migración, racismo y xenofobia en internet: análisis del discurso de usuarios contra los migrantes haitianos en prensa digital mexicana. Revista Pueblos y Fronteras Digital14: 1–28.
Valenzuela-VergaraEM (2019) Media representations of immigration in the Chilean press: To a different narrative of immigration?Journal of Communication Inquiry43(2): 129–151.
86.
ValenzuelaSArriagadaASchermanA (2012) The social media basis of youth protest behavior: The case of Chile. Journal of Communication62(2): 299–314.
87.
van DijkTA (2000) New(s) Racism: A discourse analytical approach. Buckingham: Open University Press.
88.
van DijkTA (2001) Critical discourse analysis. In: HamiltonHETannenDSchiffrinD (eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 352–371.
89.
van DijkTA (2007) Racismo y discurso en América Latina. Barcelona: Gedisa.
90.
von UngerHScottPOdukoyaD (2019) Constructing im/migrants and ethnic minority groups as ‘carriers of disease’: Power effects of categorization practices in tuberculosis health reporting in the UK and Germany. Ethnicities19(3): 518–534.
91.
WadeP (2010) Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. London: Pluto-Press.
