McHoul2007

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McHoul2007
BibType ARTICLE
Key McHoul2007
Author(s) Alec McHoul
Title ‘Killers’ and ‘Friendlies’: Names Can Hurt Me
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Membership Categorization Analysis, Identity, Morality, Racism
Publisher
Year 2007
Language
City
Month
Journal Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture
Volume 13
Number 4
Pages 459–469
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/13504630701459131
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This paper concerns an incident in 2003 when two American fighter pilots mistakenly fired on a ‘friendly’ British convoy and on the reportage of that incident in the British press some four years later. It starts with a focus on the designation of the airmen as ‘killer pilots’ (by The Sun newspaper which broke the story), using some concepts from membership categorisation analysis as developed by Harvey Sacks. It is contended that such an approach can afford insights into the nature of quite specific social identities. Hence the paper goes on (via the transcript of the air-to-ground tape) to contrast how the press ascribes identities to the pilots with how they avow identities for themselves. This contrast, I argue, gives us some insights into the moral culpability or otherwise of the ‘killer pilots’.

Notes