"Cross-group friendships, the irony of harmony, and the social construction of "discrimination

Bibliographic Data

ID2148147
AuthorsKaty Greenland (0000-0003-0096-2851, Cardiff University, corresponding author), Martha Augoustinos (0000-0002-7212-1499, The University of Adelaide), E Andreouli (0000-0003-2182-5549, Psychology Department, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK), Richard Taulke-Johnson (Cardiff University), Richard Taulke‐johnson (Cardiff University)
Year2020
Volume43
Issue7
Pages1169-1188
Publication date2020-05-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2019.1648845
OpenAlexW2964931955
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited63

Cross-group friendships are often assumed to be a panacea to intergroup conflict. However, the irony of harmony hypothesis suggests that friendships can have negative consequences for collective action and social change. We complement this research with accounts of cross-group friendship, using interviews and focus groups with minority (African-Caribbean and/ or gay) and majority (White and/ or heterosexual) participants (n = 54). Participants repeatedly deployed "friendship" as an idealized category such that what happened within friendship could not be constructed as discrimination. Majority participants said that anything that happened within friendship could only be a mistake/ misunderstanding that would be easy to rectify. Minority participants struggled to reconcile the category entitlements of friendship with the problematic experiences that they described, but constructing such experiences as "discrimination" presented practical, moral, and rhetorical difficulties. Harmonious cross-group friendship may therefore require that minorities become tolerant to discrimination, while simultaneously enabling majorities to warrant (ill-informed) claims

Ethnic group · Friendship · Harmony (color · Irony · Minority group · Sociology · Warrant · Cultural Differences and Values · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology