Working with "Wogs": Aliens, Denizens and the Machinations of Denialism

Abstract

This article uses a discussion of the currency of the word "wog"in Britain to identify a pivotal, racialized position used to contain alien incomers so as to exclude them from belonging to the national community. The argument invites readers to focus on the affective energy specifically endowed in contemporary European "populist"politics by race-talk and the anti-Muslim rhetoric which share common roots in absolutist conceptions of culture and "ethnicity."It is suggested that those developments have conditioned the digital and virtual politics of contemporary racism. They connect with the deployment of machine learning and the growing application of Artificial Intelligence to build trans-national networks among White supremacists and ultranationalists in order to promote their allyship and coordinate their activities.