Racial Slurs on Ecuadorian X/Twitter Interactions: Old and New Realizations, Same Underlying Negative Beliefs

Adopting a discourse analytic approach (van Dijk, Rethinking race and ethnicity in research methods. Left Coast Press, 2011; The Routledge handbook of discourse analysis. Routledge, 2023), this chapter examines racial slurs (Croom, Language Sciences 33:343–358 , 2011) against Ecuadorian indigenous peoples on X/Twitter. It seeks to unveil discriminatory practices in the context examined. The study is based on a corpus of slurs derived from the responses that two Ecuadorian indigenous leaders received on their X/Twitter accounts on a selected date. Seven categories of slurs were identified, based on the underlying negative beliefs that appear to be recreated; they center on features of indigenous people’s appearance, their cognitive skills, their character, and/or their conduct. The study builds on works on (racial) insults (e.g., Guimarães, Discourse & Society 14:133–151, 2003) and (racial) slurs (e.g., Croom, Language Sciences, 33:343–358, 2011), as well as works on racism and discrimination from different perspectives (e.g., van Dijk, A companion to racial and ethnic studies. Blackwell, 2002; Wodak & Reisigl, The handbook of discourse analysis. John Wiley & Sons, 2015), with a focus on Ecuador (e.g., de la Torre Espinosa, El racismo en el Ecuador: experiencias de los indios de clase media. Abya-Yala, 2002; Granda, Ecuador Debate 100:197–211, 2017). It shows that some of the negative beliefs held about indigenous peoples that have been highlighted in previous studies (e.g., Burgos Guevara, Relaciones interétnicas en Riobamba: dominio y dependencia en una región indígena ecuatoriana. Corporación Editora Nacional, 1997[1970]) still surface in the twenty-first century, possibly facilitated by social media where verbal aggression and discriminatory behavior can still occur with impunity. However, new realizations appear to have emerged, tied in part to political events of the day.