"Crooked" Language: Moroccan Heritage, Identity, and Belonging on Youtube

Radia Lahlou, Oberlin CollegeFollow

Location

King Building 101

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-27-2018 12:00 PM

End Date

4-27-2018 1:20 PM

Abstract

With the advent of user-generated social media, users are able to assert their ideas, opinions and positionality through online multi-way communication and participation. One such website is Youtube, a video platform where language production and identity negotiation are common. This thesis looks at a series of videos published on Youtube, entitled the “Moroccan Tag,” to examine the ways 5 second-generation French-Moroccan Youtubers assert their national identities online. Using methods of guerrilla ethnography, I glean discourse from video content and comments to outline three key scaler processes by which identity performance manifests: through language ideologies, semiotic ideologies surrounding “authenticity,” and the construction of imagined community. Together, my observations add to continuing conversations on diasporic identity, translanguaging and digital discourse.

Keywords:

digital discourse, social media, identity, language ideologies, transnationalism

Notes

Session II, Panel 7 - Politicized | Knowledge
Moderator: Sarah El-Kazaz, Assistant Professor of Politics

Major

Anthropology; Linguistics (IM)

Advisor(s)

Baron Pineda, Anthropology
Gillian Johns, Linguistics (IM)
Jason Haugan, Linguistics (IM)

Project Mentor(s)

Erika Hoffman-Dilloway, Anthropology
Baron Pineda, Anthropology

April 2018

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Apr 27th, 12:00 PM Apr 27th, 1:20 PM

"Crooked" Language: Moroccan Heritage, Identity, and Belonging on Youtube

King Building 101

With the advent of user-generated social media, users are able to assert their ideas, opinions and positionality through online multi-way communication and participation. One such website is Youtube, a video platform where language production and identity negotiation are common. This thesis looks at a series of videos published on Youtube, entitled the “Moroccan Tag,” to examine the ways 5 second-generation French-Moroccan Youtubers assert their national identities online. Using methods of guerrilla ethnography, I glean discourse from video content and comments to outline three key scaler processes by which identity performance manifests: through language ideologies, semiotic ideologies surrounding “authenticity,” and the construction of imagined community. Together, my observations add to continuing conversations on diasporic identity, translanguaging and digital discourse.