Understanding Colourism in Malaysia through Discursive Constructions of Skin Colour on Social Media
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Abstract
Colourism refers to any act of discrimination that is portrayed on the basis of skin colour or the act of attributing negativity upon dark skin. This article explores the extent to which colourism prevails in Malaysia by studying the discourse of skin colour on social media. The data is gathered from Twitter (now known as X), a social media platform that allows users to interact with short messages called “tweets”. The tweets are sourced from the Malaysian Twitter diaspora via the keyword “kulit gelap”—a phrase in Malay language which translates to dark skin. The analysis is conducted in alignment with the viewpoint of discourse-historical approach, where a qualitative analysis is employed to examine the linguistic devices and discursive strategies utilised to construct the notion of dark skin. The results indicate that dark skin is often portrayed in a negative light, suggesting that colourism is pervasive in language use. Through the analysis, several discursive strategies are identified, such as nomination of dark skin as a problem and stereotypical predication of dark skin.
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