Dear Helen,

I would say that "stereotype" is a more psychological concept, whereas "cultural discourse" is more sociological and anthropological. As a sociologist, I dislike using the word stereotype for its negatiive connotations. For every bad "stereotype" you can have a "cultural discourse" or "perspective" that is ambivalent, and open to interpretation both by the researcher and the subjects. An example of that from my work: in my PhD thesis I worked on biographical trajectories of Argentinean and Ecuadorian migrants. And I ask my informants about the "other" community. What they answered could be called an stereotype, I prefer to call a perspective or viewpoint. I did not ask about that to prove it "right" or "wrong", rather to show how viewpoints are socially constructed in relation to the trajectory.

I hope this helps.

Luis

Thank you for taking the time to reply, Luis! I very much appreciate your answer and I find it very enlightening! I agree with your remark about "stereotype" as a difficult concept. I also dislike it and find it difficult to use as it's very limited analytical value and doesn't seem to be a very useful tool because of that. I find your study about research about "the other" very interesting - and interesting that you are avoiding stereotype. Have you considered using concepts such as "cultural discourse"? Or how/with which sociological tools do you analyse these viewpoints/perspectives further? I'm very curious. Thanks again! /Helen

Helen,

I have not used "cultural discourse" but I have used another cocept, specifically related to migration. It is ellaborated by an Australian anthrpologist, Ghassan Hage. The concept is "national capital". Hage works in a framework similar to French sociologist Pierrev Bourdieu. In Hage's framework "national capital" is defined as capital deployed in a national framework. The more "national capital" of the host society that a migrant has, then the more that he becomes a "national" and ceases to be considered a migrant. The tools I used to analyse this "national capital" have been in-depth biographical interviews, similar to those used by Bourdieu's team in his book "The weight of the world".

If you are interested reading about "national capìtal", Ghassan Hage develops the concept and its application in the book "White nation", publihed by Pluto Press, Sidney.

Thanks for your interest!  

we cannot talk about stereotype without talking about prejudice and discrimination.Stereotypes are mostly subconscious though the most cognitive of the other two. Prejudice is the affective part while discrimination is the concretization of stereotypical ideology.

Cultural discourse, to my mind, is an out of date term that has almost lost luster after the internet revolution or the macdonalization of the world. Nowadays researchers speak about the hybridization of Bourdieu's social capital. Apart from the internet ,Facebook and Twitter syndrome one may think of the numerous cases of first generation kids. As they strive to belong they bring some of their cultural heritage with them to the dominant standard culture. as they lose some of their cultural traits they also add new traits to the main stream culture.

Nowadays, cultures , nationalities are no longer static-they are in constant move and resist any form of demarcation. The cultural discourse presupposes a static culture which does not exist in real life. The hybrid cultural discourse is , to my mind, a more accurate term.