Becoming <i>BAME</i>: social identities and racialised terminology in the UK

Abstract

This article examines the politics of racialised terminology through the first sociolinguistic, cultural analysis of the acronym <i>BAME</i> (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) in the UK. Using a mixed methods approach, we present an analysis of how this collective term of ethnic difference is used across parliamentary discourse, news articles, and social media spaces, identifying a rise in the term since 2014, but also evidence of a decline since 2022, together with qualitative interpretations of the mechanisms underpinning discursive (re)constructions of the UK’s Black and Asian communities. More specifically, our analysis situates language as a site of identity struggle where racially minoritised communities can be fixed and administered but also strive for social change. We propose that <i>BAME</i> is a race-making discursive practice where a hierarchical and lateral arrangement between institutions and publics co-exists, since it is a term that is both imposed and aligned with. <i>BAME</i>, as a form of racial categorisation, is thus implicated in the ambivalence of racialised discourse.