‘Shame on you’:  The language,practice and consequences of shame and shaming in asylum seeker advocacy

Introduction

The strongest tactic against wrongdoers is to shame them.

Shame is a deeply felt experience of being judged, or fearing being judged, as defective (Schweder, 2003). Not judged on what we have done but for who we are (Manderson, 1997). Rejection by our social peers is a profound threat to our social belonging (Scheff and Retzinger, 2000). Given shame’s implications for social wellbeing, it is an effective tool for oppression. By constructing an outgroup’s very person as shameful (homosexual sex, Indigenous religious practices, women’s bodies), it can isolate, ostracise and disempower (Brown, 2008).

But shame has also been used in the service of progressive goals. Shame has been a catalyst for social movements that subvert and reclaim shamed identities as proud identities. Naming and shaming corruption, privilege and wrongs is used in social justice movements to force individual, organisational and governmental change.

Although it is oft-used, shame and its role in social movements have rarely been examined. Yet such an exploration is critical because research on shame and its effects suggests that its use may be problematic and counter-productive to social justice goals for change. Campaigns that utilise shaming tactics may in fact be creating behaviour counter to their goals.

Following this, in this article I use critical discourse analysis of an Australian debate to explore how shame is used by asylum seeker advocates against the anti-asylum opposition. The article analyses: what is being constructed as shameful; how this is being done through discourse; what social and advocacy functions shame is used for; and why it is done in this way (i.e. what the historical antecedents/social context are for the particular discourses). The article then examines how the targets of shaming respond.

Shame – definitions and behaviour change

Although guilt and shame are often used interchangeably, shame theorists and researchers have identified differences between these emotional experiences. Both shame and guilt are considered self-conscious emotions, that is, they are experienced when ‘in the face of transgression or error, the self turns toward the self – evaluating and rendering judgement’ (Tangney and Dearing, 2002: 2).

Shame and guilt are thus both inextricably linked to our social relationships with others. However, whereas guilt is an evaluation of behaviour, of ‘what we did’ (or failed to do), shame is a judgement of self, of ‘who we are’. The first results from a gap between our values and behaviours, whereas the second is a global assessment of our acceptability as people (Brown, 2008).

Given shame’s self-critical focus, much research has been devoted to shame’s role in behaviour change. The most well-known exponent of the positive value of shame for behaviour change is John Braithwaite, an Australian criminologist. He developed re-integrative shaming as an approach to criminal rehabilitation. In re-integrative shaming, offenders are confronted by the victims of their crime, members of their family and community. This confrontation aims to elicit shame to encourage the offender to reflect on the consequences of their behaviour for significant others. Braithwaite argues that this creates a deep shift in an offender’s attitudes and behaviour (Braithwaite, 1989).

Braithwaite emphasises, however, that the outcomes of re-integrative shaming depend on how it is done. In particular, he argues that it must avoid degrading ways of shaming a person. To be successful, re-integrative shaming must treat the offender as a good person who has done a bad deed (which, given the definition above, suggests it is closer to eliciting guilt than shame). He argues that shaming that stigmatises the person will not result in behaviour change, but rather create further problems:

When people shame us in a degrading way, this poses a threat to our identity. One way we can deal with threat is to reject our rejecters. Once I have labelled them as dirt, does it matter that they regard me as dirt? . . . Disrespect begets disrespect. (Braithwaite, 2000: 287–288)

Whilst Braithwaite promotes the positive potential of shame in non-degrading situations, there is far more evidence for the negative effects of shame. Tangney and Dearing (2002) found that shame is negatively correlated with empathy, and positively correlated with anger, particularly anger expressed in non-constructive ways. Feeling shame is also strongly linked to experiences of depression (Tangney and Dearing, 2002). Brown (2008), through hundreds of interviews with women, and later men, about shame, observed its links with fear, blame and disconnection. She found that shame about our appearance, age, family, health and personal struggles such as addiction, is at the core of isolating and destructive personal behaviour and social relationships. She found that shame reduces our capacity for meaningful connection, both with ourselves and with others.

In relation to behaviour change, Brown (2008) states that shame can, in fact, change behaviour, but only temporarily. That is, changes wrought through being threatened with rejection, or being publicly or privately humiliated or belittled, will be short-lived. Furthermore, they come at a high personal and emotional price, both for the shamed and the shamer. Yet despite this research detailing its deleterious effects, shame continues to be used as a way to change behaviour, either our own or that of others (Brown, 2008).

Shame – politics and social movements

Brown’s (2008) research indicates that the personal experience of shame and its effects on ourselves and our relationships is intimately linked with the political and social sphere. The cultural ideals around which shame is engendered – such as youth, thinness, heterosexuality, the nuclear family and financial success – reflect social and cultural norms predominant in contemporary Western society. Similarly, Probyn also notes that ‘shame is a powerful instance of embodiment, but it is also called into being by, and then inflects, historical and political circumstance … Shame gets named and positioned within concrete political and social spheres’ (2005: 79).

What counts as shameful is political. Homosexual sex, Indigenous religious practices, women’s bodies – their marking as shameful is not natural or biological, but socially constructed for political ends – oppression, silencing, minimising. Our hair, clothing, homes, jobs, families – all are inflected by the cultural milieu that marks what is acceptable and what is not. Shame is a politically and socially constructed ‘emotion code’, that is, ‘a set of socially circulating ideas about which emotions are appropriate to feel when, where and toward whom or what, as well as how emotions should be outwardly expressed’ (Loseke, 2009: 497).

Yet despite the power of existing emotion codes around shame which privilege particular ways of looking, living and relating over others, emotion codes are not set in stone, that is, what counts as shameful is also potentially contestable. One of the ways in which shamefulness is debated, constructed and contested is through social movements. There is little existing literature on how this occurs, and certainly none from a discursive perspective. Drawing on the small amount of literature available, it seems that shame is expressed both as a personal experience, that is, through ‘being ashamed’, and also employed against others. In the latter, through ‘shaming’, people who ‘should be ashamed’ are accountable for not displaying the appropriate emotion, namely shame (Probyn, 2005).

Previous research on shame’s effects within social movements suggests that its effects are both mobilising and disempowering. This may depend on whether the shame is a personal experience that acts as a catalyst for social action, or whether it is employed against others by invoking cultural tropes around when shame is appropriate (Probyn, 2005).

In relation to its mobilising capacity, the most notable effect of ‘being ashamed’, and the one that has received the most attention, has been its use in social protests by those who have previously been shamed. In this context, shame has been a tool of oppression, but is subverted by re-creating pride. It becomes a rallying point for collectivity and shared experience that mobilises political action. However, ‘being ashamed’, and its catalytic effects on mobilisation, do not only come from being the object of shaming; they may also be experienced through the actions of others who have some link to one’s self – generally other citizens of one’s own nation – and feeling their actions reflect poorly on this national identity. This kind of shame experience has been identified as a motivating factor in protesting against the Iraq War (Iyer et al., 2007) and racial inequality (Leach et al., 2006; McGarty et al., 2005).

But even when these experiences of ‘being ashamed’ are expressed as an internal motivation to create change, it seems that identifying one’s self as ‘ashamed’ or an event as ‘shameful’ is at the same time a way of framing that event as requiring a certain type of response not only of one’s self, but from others as well. Marking something as worthy of shame is an invitation (or injunction) to self/national reflection, reparation and change beyond the person feeling the shame. It is used as a way to mark something as requiring social censure and opprobrium. As Povinelli writes: ‘A particular body of belief is, at least temporarily, elevated to the status of a universal principle primarily through pageantries of corporeal shame and revulsion’ (1998: 578).

A recent example of shame being used to mark a public event as requiring critical self/national reflection, reparation and change are the responses to colonial and postcolonial oppressions of Indigenous people. This has resulted in a number of national apologies (Augoustinos et al., 2011). In Australia, a discourse of shame was particularly prevalent after the 1997 release of Bringing them Home, the report that documented the systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families from settlement until the 1970s. A number of public people identified themselves as feeling ashamed, and Australia’s actions were described as shameful. Indeed, it has been argued that shame is an essential response to these transgressions (Manderson, 1997; Probyn, 2005).

So in relation to ‘being ashamed’, it seems that shame is something that people willingly take on in response to revelations about past national actions and their effects – their identity as an Australian has been damaged by the actions of others and they wish to demonstrate their cognisance and sorrow about this – but that it is also used as a way to indicate to others who do not feel similarly that this is an event that does require shame. This is a move from ‘being ashamed’ to ‘being a shamer’. Similar to Braithwaite’s re-integrative shaming, shame can be drawn upon as part of a campaign to confront people with their behaviour and its consequences in order for them to feel shame and thus change their future behaviour accordingly.

A number of anti-racism campaigns situate their work within a ‘naming and shaming’ framework. For example, the Canadian group Stop Racism and Hate Collective has a campaign called ‘Shame the Advertisers’. It encourages people to write emails and letters to advertisers who use internet service providers that also host race-hate sites. The ‘Shame the Advertisers’ site operates on the principle of publicly exposing the actions and statements of companies and individuals in order that this wider public condemnation will create the desired change. This kind of shaming campaign is linked directly to economic imperatives – the idea that businesses rely on consumers to keep buying their products, and that any reduction, either potential or actual, in their profits will be a good motivator for change.

As well as focusing on institutions, anti-racism naming and shaming campaigns can also be used in relation to individuals’ behaviour and actions. For example, the web blog ‘Antibogan.com’ and Facebook page ‘Australian Shame’ are both sites which were set up to re-publish, in a critical context, racially discriminatory online material. In these campaigns, the aim is not public exposure reducing brand desirability and thus motivating profit-based change, but more about identifying instances of racism and making them more widely available in the public consciousness, and thus potentially more widely censured.

Shame has also been drawn upon in anti-racism education and training. Pedagogically, shame is used to disrupt the invisibility and habituation of white privilege. In education contexts, shame is seen to provoke a journey from ignorance to action on white privilege (Zembylas and Chubbuck, 2007).

However, using shame within anti-racism may have several pitfalls. As noted, shaming another may not bring about the desired change, but rather increase opposition and conflict, decrease empathy and awareness, and lead to anti-social behaviour. Recognising this, some trainers and activists argue that how shaming is done is likely to be crucial. In their work, they observed people becoming stuck in shame and feeling disempowered, overwhelmed and paralysed. Based on this experience, they argue that education or training on anti-racism and white privilege must include the means for participants to move beyond shame and connect with a renewed sense of their ability, or necessity, to act, coupled with a commitment to social justice. They argue that shame is useful and inevitable, but requires a facilitative context for people to move beyond this to a greater connection to anti-racism (Holzman, 1995).

However, others argue that there is no positive place for shame in social movements. Similar to the research on individual shame reviewed above, some activists have found that shaming causes the target to close down. Tarakali (2009) suggests that shame creates the varying responses of ‘fight, flight, freeze, appease, or dissociate’. Thorne (n.d.) writes that in her experience, seeking to create shame in others was not an effective foundation for her anti-racism training, and resulted in little change. She writes that ‘a shame-based angle, such as regarding all of us white people as deficient and “calling us out” was not effective’ (n.p.). She suggests that shame can be a disempowering emotion leading to paralysis and inaction. Tarrow (1998) and Rutten (2007) concur. Tarrow (1998) argues that the aim to shift passivity into action requires significant emotional energy which can be supplied through ‘vitalising’ emotions such as anger. In contrast, shame is ‘devitalising’, sapping people of the energy required to change. Brown (2012), who developed Restorative Activism, which uses non-violence as its guiding principle, suggests in relation to shame that:

Shaming is a good example of a behaviour that is not non-violent. The words we use (and the energy we put into their expression) are important and have a bigger impact than we realize. When faced with shame and blame, people naturally close up and go into reactionary mode. They will be more likely to continue to use violence and less likely to engage in dialogue. (Brown, 2012: n.p.)

Shaming also strengthens the bonds between those who are shamed, creating a powerful social outgroup. This outgroup does not take on the identity of the ‘ashamed’, but rather re-constitutes the frame from ‘shameful’ to ‘oppressed’. The mobilising emotion becomes anger at the oppressors, rather than shame (Britt and Heise, 2000). Stein (2001) observed this transformation in the American Christian Right (ACR). For members of the ACR, one of their primary goals, though not always consciously articulated in this way, was to re-constitute themselves as strong and independent, rather than the weak and shameful ‘other’. In Australia, we have seen the results of this progression from ‘shamed’ to ‘oppressed and angry’ in the rise of the far-right politician Pauline Hanson. Hanson explicitly framed the ‘elites’ as people who had attempted to ignore and repress the legitimate needs of the white majority, and she rallied people around her in re-framing the charges of ‘racism’ and ‘white privilege’ to those of ‘legitimate concerns of an oppressed group’ (Rapley, 2001). This history, together with research on the responses of shamed groups, suggests that shaming people who oppose asylum seeking or affirmative action or multiculturalism may actually create anger and strengthen their opposition.

Interestingly, the effects of shame as disengagement and alienation are not only engendered in the shamed, but also encouraged in the shamer:

. . . in wielding emotional power, we forget to be interested in those we see as our enemy. We need to remember that any politics not interested in those who are placed beyond its ken will continue to be a politics of shaming: a bastion of moral reproach. (Probyn, 2005: 106)

Probyn (2005) suggests that using shame against others is a position of ‘knowing better’, of judgement or infallibility, with potentially worthwhile ideals wielded like a rod and used against others. The others deemed ‘beyond our ken’ are the racists, the anti-asylum seeker media, the capitalists. Our research, theories and methods on intergroup conflict are inflected with contempt for ‘the racist’, which actually forestalls new knowledge and understanding, and makes establishing rapport during fieldwork with ‘racists’ extremely difficult.

Although movements such as refugee advocacy present anti-immigration responses as self-evidently, naturally shameful responses, recent research on class identities and emotions suggest that this moral order is a socially constructed one that mirrors the emotional values and affective styles of the middle class. Research suggests there are two affective styles characteristic of this class (Reay et al., 2011; Sayer, 2005; Skeggs, 2009). The first is what Skeggs (2009) terms ‘possessive individualism’, which prioritises self-improvement, deferred gratification and property accrual. The second, the middle-class egalitarian, is a ‘mix of guilt, defensiveness, empathy and conciliation’ (Reay et al., 2011). The middle-class egalitarian continues to privilege acquisition, but in a different form. For this group, identity is accumulated through cosmopolitanism and familiarity with the ‘exotic other’.

The moral order valued by this group emphasises not only exposure to other cultures, but empathic understanding, friendship and engagement with other cultures. This is a ‘multiculturated’ subject – one who is empathic, who demonstrates not only knowledge but solidarity with ‘the other’, a person who

is not someone who can merely list the cultural attributes of others. Rather, he or she is supposed to be able to engage and be ‘comfortable’ with others. Hence, the emphasis within multicultural education on enabling students to ‘see things from others’ point of view’. (Bonnett, 2000: 94–95)

This ideology posits a particular subject, one who is open to cultures other than one’s own (and, implicitly, this subject is a white subject open to other cultures within Australia and globally), and demonstrates this openness not only through a willingness to learn on an intellectual level, but to be friends with, and understand, non-white others.

This ‘middle-class egalitarian’ moral order is used as a framework for categorising and responding to those who express anti-immigration views. Following this is a strong sense of entitlement to feelings of contempt for ‘possessive individualism middle-class’ attitudes. The empathic/guilty attitude is taken to be normal and moral, and used as the standard for judging other social groups. Although particular to a political, social and economic moment, these feelings and values are generalised as a universal ethical prescription. From this point of view, the other – the opposition – is viewed from a ‘lack and deficit’ model. The universalising of these affective styles as ‘normal’ and ‘appropriate’ reflects a longstanding de-valuing of other emotions, behaviour and values, particularly those associated with economic security and nationalism.

This finding is supported by the research of Rose (2011) and his Values-mode motivational mapping. Rose and his colleagues propose a 12-dimensional model of motivation, grouped under three major dimensions of pioneer, prospector and settler. He found that pioneers value ideas, prospectors economic progress, and settlers security. Most social movements, including refugee advocacy, are primarily peopled and led by those holding pioneer values. Their campaign style reflects this, with a strong focus on ideas and information and a contempt for economic imperatives and values.

Reay and Skegg’s work on middle-class emotional styles and Rose’s work on values suggest that what is being constructed as ‘shameful’ reflects the emotions and values of the middle-class egalitarian and ‘pioneer’. Using these values as a framework for social change is problematic. Shame constructed using these values universalises and reifies a particular class system, seeking to re-shape social identities along middle-class lines. Furthermore, it also fails to engage an opposition with very different values – in fact, it is likely to alienate the opposition further.

This previous research on shame from the perspective of psychologists, criminologists, sociologists and social justice activists suggests that as a strategy for mobilisation it can be a useful rallying point; however, when used as a way to get others to change their views, it is likely to be counter-productive. As noted, this is particularly likely where the shaming is highly personalised and derogatory, where there are no clear tools provided to move from disempowerment to action, and where the shamer takes up a stance of ‘self-righteous knowing’. The particular construction of shame circulating with advocacy reflects the affective style of the ‘middle-class egalitarian’, reproducing longstanding class values and privileges.

Although there is a history of shame in racism and anti-racism, both in ‘being ashamed’ and ‘being a shamer’, there has been little previous research, particularly on the latter. In relation to the research agenda on shame and political movements, Probyn (2005: 79) asks:

The question also has to be posed at a level of totality, at the level of what the affect does, rather than simply what it is. What are the politics of shame? What are the political effects of shame? How could a full or total account of its affective, physical and social cognitive force change ideas about how to intervene in the public sphere?

It was these questions that inspired this article. Here, I look at shame and its effects in a South Australian debate on a new immigration detention facility. I look at two ways shaming is ‘done’ by advocates: through using a language of disgust, contempt and inappropriateness; and through confronting the opposition with privilege and disadvantage. I explore the particular moral order this creates, and how the opposition are constructed as violating this moral order. The analysis then identifies the effects of this shaming through the various responses from those who are being shamed: denial, avoidance and ‘fighting back’. The discussion considers the broader implications of shaming for asylum advocacy and anti-racism – arguably increased opposition (through establishing a position of ‘knowledge’ and creating an ‘us versus them’ (racist versus non-racist) set-up) and avoidance of engagement with the ‘racist other’.

Asylum seeking in Australia:  The Woodside debate

In 2010, 6300 asylum seekers arrived in Australia (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 2011). This was a significant increase on previous years and an overcrowding of immigration detention facilities followed. In response, the Australian Government announced new detention facilities, including low security housing for children and families. Whilst previously asylum seekers have been detained in remote or offshore facilities with little community engagement, these new facilities are located close to existing residences and use some local services. These centres, whilst still restricting asylum seekers’ movement and contact, allow children to attend local schools, provide local excursions and enable visits between residents and asylum seekers.

The first to be opened was an Alternative Place of Detention (APOD) at the former defence housing outside the semi-rural town of Woodside, South Australia, approximately 30 minutes from the main city of Adelaide. Its announcement was immediately followed by public outrage voiced at two community meetings, in the local, state and national media, in the formation of an alliance to oppose the policy, and on fliers, billboards and placards. This opposition was formulated around a number of themes common to anti-asylum seeker discourses found in Australia, the UK, Europe and the USA, that asylum seekers are: taking facilities, money and services that should go to taxpayers and the Australian poor and disadvantaged; illegal, criminals, terrorists, spies, economic migrants and bogus; undermining the established culture and destroying accepted values and ways of living (Every and Augoustinos, 2008; Klocker, 2004; Lynn and Lea, 2003; Mehan, 1997; O’Doherty and LeCouteur, 2007).

However, there was also significant support for asylum seekers and particularly for the creation of more humane facilities to house them whilst their claims were being processed. Although supporters found it difficult to voice their dissenting opinions at public forums after the announcement of the facility, gradually their voice and influence became more noticeable. Supporters came from established advocacy groups, but also came together specifically in response to the announcement through school, church and artistic communities. These groups and other interested individuals organised public events and information forums and became vocal in the local media. A Good Neighbour Council was established as a secular, non-political group to organise visiting and volunteering in the APOD, and events to bring local residents and asylum seekers together. As well as more organised groups and more active individuals involved in visiting and volunteering, there were also a number of people in the town speaking out on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers against exclusionary and negative arguments. They were not necessarily part of a formal group (though they could be), but tended to speak out in letters to the editor, with friends and family, or engage in activities like signing petitions.

Data collection and analysis

The data was collected in the first two months after the announcement in 2010. It includes: transcripts of two public meetings about the Woodside facility on 21 October and 24 November 2010, media articles, letters to the editor and cartoons from the local newspaper The Courier, the state newspaper of South Australia The Advertiser, and other state and national newspapers: The Hobart Mercury, The Sunday Mail, The Courier Mail, The Australia, The Northern Territory News; and online news sources (e.g. ABC online); as well as pamphlets, fliers and other ephemera collected at town and group meetings.

The analysis is informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1995; Van Dijk, 1996), and the development of this approach in psychology in the early work of Potter and Wetherell (1987), as well as Billig (1988, 1991), Edwards (1997), Edwards and Potter (1992), Potter (1996) and Wetherell (1998). Broadly, this approach analyses how talk and texts are organised to achieve local actions, such as identity management, as well as how they are ideologically organised to support particular local and global actions, such as more humane policies for asylum seekers. The analysis thus examines both the resources and linguistic tools through which accounts are imbued with the status of fact and truth, as well as patterns and themes within talk (interpretative repertoires or discourses). It also examines how accounts are organised argumentatively, that is, how they are designed to compete with alternative versions of social reality (Billig et al., 1988).

In particular, the analysis is shaped by work on emotion discourse. Emotion discourse is ‘talk that has some affective content’ (Lutz and Abu-Lughod, 1990: 10). Emotion discourses draw upon, construct and deconstruct culturally available ‘emotion codes’, social norms for what emotions are expected when, where and toward whom or what, and how those emotions should be experienced or expressed (Loseke, 2009). Emotion discourse plays a critical role in constructing a moral order through talk that constructs behaviour as appropriate/inappropriate, rational/irrational – using emotion terms to construct accountable actions, persons, settings, mental states, character and motives (Tileaga, 2010). Emotion discourse is often invoked in talk about ethnic relations. For example, in Australia, the debate around whether to apologise to Indigenous Australians became a contested terrain over what emotions Australians should legitimately feel towards the Stolen Generations (Indigenous children taken from their families): guilt, sadness, shame (Augoustinos et al., 2011). Immigration, particularly humanitarian immigration, is also a contested space for what emotions to express and when. For example, those opposing humanitarian immigration argue that emotional responses to refugees are misplaced, excessive and impractical, whereas reason and rationality are essential and natural bases for action (Every, 2008). Edwards (1997) identifies cognition versus emotion as one of 10 foundational emotion discourses. However, for advocates, emotions such as guilt, shame and empathy are not only necessary – their absence is something to be accounted for. For supporters, these breaches of an emotion code are used to ascribe further relevant categories that undermine the opposition, such as racist, hard-hearted and un-Australian (Every, 2008; Every and Augoustinos, 2013).

In this article, emotion discourses of shame are analysed on two levels. The first examines the ways participants have interpreted and created meaning around the concept of shame – how do they construct shame, and to what social uses (e.g. blaming) is it put? The second seeks to analyse the history of the affective practices of shame invoked by refugee advocates – that is, what power relations does it create or disrupt, particularly through an examination of how different affects are given different social values?

The first stage of analysis involved identifying all texts that were supportive of asylum seekers. The data body was further narrowed to include only those texts that referred to the opposition, which included attributions about the causes or sources of their anti-asylum position. In particular, the focus was on instances of insults, language with high emotion (e.g. ‘appalled’) and direct use of the word shame/ashamed. The second stage of analysis involved identifying regularities in the accounts and indexing the material according to common patterns of how the opposition was being constructed in terms of shame (Wetherell, 1998). Having identified the key understandings of the opposition being produced in the data, analysis then focused on similarities to and differences from previous work on shame.

Analysis and discussion

Conclusion

Emotions are an integral factor in mobilising people to act against social injustice (Aminzade and McAdam, 2001). Research has been focused on what emotions are used, and what effects these emotions have (e.g. Tarrow, 1998). As this article has argued, one emotion drawn upon in social justice campaigns, including those regarding race relations, is shame (e.g. Manderson, 1997; Probyn, 2005). Given its self-reflective focus, shame has been utilised as a tool for behaviour change in a variety of settings, including social movements. As psychologists, criminologists, anthropologists and social workers have noted, it is used in our families, our friendships and our community relationships to demarcate and control behaviour constructed as socially transgressive. As cultural theorists and philosophers have noted, it is also used in our politics and social movements to mark a particular behaviour as requiring reflection and change: from racism to acceptance and openness; from self-interest to humanitarianism. However, there is a significant amount of research challenging the assumption that shame leads to positive change. Being shamed has been linked with poor mental health and poor relationships at the individual level, and, as the analysis presented here demonstrates, conflict, resistance and denial at the political level.

The present article is the first discursive study of how people opposed to asylum seekers were constructed as ‘shameful’ and how the targets of this shaming responded. In the instances of shaming analysed here, the opposition, as racist and self-interested, were placed outside of moral society. This construction was bolstered through vilification and personal insults to belittle the opposition and their views. Those who were targeted in this way responded with denial, avoidance and anger.

These findings, together with those of previous research, suggest shame in asylum seeker advocacy limits the influence of such advocacy and, in fact, may inadvertently strengthen the opposition in two ways. First, shaming discourages advocates from asking new and different questions about the opposition, thereby limiting a full understanding of their intentions, motivations and experiences. Because of this lack of understanding, the strategies based upon it – namely shaming – are ineffective.

Second, because shaming creates a ‘shamer’ and a ‘shamed’, it fosters the construction of two black-and-white groups – ‘racists’ and ‘anti-racists’. This stance encourages an anti-racism predicated on a rigid hierarchy of right and wrong thoughts, emotions and actions. As noted, this prescription of right and wrong is not a universal one, but one that reflects an affective style particularly valued by ‘middle-class egalitarians’ (Reay et al., 2011). Alternatively, the opposition valued a very different affective and discursive style, one which emphasises national/white solidarity, an anti-government stance and ‘standing up for one’s self’. This style uses rhetorical strategies and discourses, such as ‘we are the real victims here’, to create and strengthen their opposition, legitimacy and ability to be heard. There is also an emphasis on emotions like empathy, but these are directed not outwards, towards asylum seekers, but inwards towards ‘fellow citizens’.

The analysis presented here suggests that different political and social groups will value different responses to asylum seekers. As noted, refugee advocacy has been primarily focused around campaigns that position anti-immigration opinions as shameful. The applicability of shame to anti-immigration attitudes is, however, hotly contested. Indeed, its use has been taken up as a tool for strengthening the opposition and re-positioning them in more positive ways.

The research presented here suggests that exploring affective styles and values in advocacy discourse is an important focus for discourse analysis of immigration debates. The analysis of emotion discourse reveals more of the affective emotional repertoires that advocates and the opposition draw upon, and the conflict between these. For advocates, understanding that affective values such as shame are class-based rather than universal hopefully opens up new analyses and discussions about the opposition, leading to campaign strategies that are more targeted at the opposition’s value systems, and are thus more effective.